How to publish a research paper in Science or Nature – part 3

 “Simple, informative, still beautiful.”

In a nutshell, this is what I want to talk about in this post. I believe that “simple, informative, still beautiful” is the definition of the high quality in figures. In the scientific paper, your figure needs to speak out, so it must be informative. Your figure needs to be understood, so it should not be too complex. Your figure will represent the quality of your research, thus it needs to be beautiful. This is our standard to stick to. If there is a room to be complex, or to be informative, or to esthetically refine, we will go for it.

 

Be simple

Your data needs to speak by itself. Do not put data that makes the readers think “so what?”. Your data diligently support your claim.  If you don’t treat your data carefully, the figure gets too complicated. Make high-quality photos or accurate measurements always convey a lot of information.

 

Be informative

If your figure has a lot of white space, fill something meaningful. This is the rule for our research group.

 

Be beautiful

Being beautiful is an opinionative idea, but you chase for it. If you don’t know how to make a beautiful figure, start it with imitation of figures that you like. My favorite software are

• Adobe Illustrator (sometimes CorelDRAW)
• Photoshop
• Igor Pro
• 3ds Max

 

Consistency is also essential. You need to make sure all the formatting, but these are the basic things that you need to always check

• Font type and size (Use sans font like arial or Helvetica, not Serif font like Times New Roman)
• Line width in the spectra, plot size,  (Usually the thinner the clearer)
• Alignment of the panel

 

Overall production flow

A good practice is to copy figures that you think are well made. Recreating them will help you understand the structure and improve your own skills. Be an apprentice of the author of your favorite paper.

Check 10 times. Export figures to JPEG and check them on a phone to find areas that need adjustment.

How to publish a research paper in Science or Nature – part 2

Data quality and how it presents represents your research. What is the high quality in data? What is the good presentation figure? I sounds philosophical, but blaming the vagueness of the quality standard does not solve anything. When I was young and wild and free, I was thinking that the standard is mere someone's taste or opinion, not generalized things. Now I, old and experienced and disciplined, know that to have a standard is helpful, which I want to share a bit with you.

Data Quality

This is one of the areas I am most confident about. Please look at my TEM and SAXS data—these are examples I take pride in. Clean, precise data carries a kind of craftsmanship. So just like a sushi chef is in a zen state of mind and cut fish at a precise angle to make his sushi exquisite, you will adjust the sample condition of your samples.

I believe that exceptionally clean data has value on its own. Even when the novelty of the work is not very high, world-class data quality can still be persuasive, especially for high-impact journals. My favorite example is a quasicrystal single crystal that Professor Tsai at Tohoku Univ Japan fabricated. People knew the existence of quasicrystals, but Professor Tsai refined and refined the quasicrystal creation and finally he made a single crystal quasicrystal. Scientifically new? Maybe not much. However, the impact and appeal to the field are huge. Even Prof. Steinhardt highly acclaim the work in his book. 

When your data quality is maximized and your analysis is done carefully, you often notice things that have not been reported before. For me, this pattern has led to new and exciting findings many times.The opposite is also true: poor-quality data is one of the most common reasons for rejection. And personally, I simply don’t want to do research with messy data. That’s why I often say: in academia it’s “publish or perish,” so the work we do is to “polish.”

What Is “Clean Data”?

In order to take clean data, you need to understand what is noise and what is signal, and eliminate the noise thoroughly.

For TEM, for example:

• Remove stigmation completely
  (check the Live FFT every time).

• Make sure the focus is perfect, and take multiple images at different magnifications.

• Spend time searching for the best sample area.

• If necessary, take ED or EDS data to strengthen the overall dataset.

• For ED, choosing the correct area of interest is extremely important.

The goal is to collect data that is as clean and pure as possible. This requires attention, effort, and a sense of craftsmanship.

Know your enemy 

Also, it happens that some unexpected instrument trouble or software glitch cause problems. Thus, keep in mind your targeted data so that you can modify your measurement when you are doing the measurement. Sometime (or often time), it is just a stupid mistake that you can solve right away. If you are not prepared for it, you will have a consequence. e.g., You bring the data back to your laptop, which was not checked 2 hours before the group meeting and you find something is wrong in your data and you just said "something is wrong" in the meeting, which make your audience bored as hell.

Just know your enemy that you shoot. Check published papers and know what the result from your sample should look like. If something is wrong or unexpected, take a note and be mindful. If you can solve the problem right away, do it so. If you find something unexpected and interesting, chase it now. Finding something unexpected and interesting is the best fuel to drive your research well and it is the best part of science. So for you, please get prepared well.

Do extra saves your time

You satisfy the quality. Now just take one more measurements. Having two or three more, for example, TEM images does not hurt. Indeed, in many cases, it saves your time. When preparing your manuscript, more data always helpful.

Be mindful that the data will be used in the end, and what you are doing at the measurement table should be useful in the process. It is more like a personal management task, rather than science task, since measuring same data does not advance science. However, in order to make your work efficiently in the end, doing extra save your time always.

How to publish a research paper in Science or Nature – part 1

Scientists’ top impact-factor journals are Science and Nature. I myself never thought I’d have a paper published in such journals. Until I did. Bruh! Hey yo! Mic dropped.

If you’re in academia, I believe aiming for high-quality venues is a good thing. In other words, I don't think it is right if someone keeps saying “impact factor isn’t everything” and yet can only publish weak papers? I’ve seen plenty of those people, and such people who are good at making excuses nicely are also good at making fancy "brand" for their research and convince people that their research is worth investing. For me struggling to get a good position in academia, it is a bit of bullshitish. Of course I know that the impact factor isn’t everything. Saying aloud "I aim for the high impact journals" sounds like a worldly and inhumane activity possibly. Knowing such vibes in academia, it is hard to speak up to invite people to try hard to do so. But what moves forward the modern science and technology is a high quality work and it is one of the most tangible way to aim for publishing your papers in Science or Nature in my opinion.

I know I am being cocky. "complaining about never having published in Science or Nature when you never tried? That’s pathetic. " Super cocky. I am sorry. But what I wanted to say, and what I want to convince, even if my post pisses someone off, is that you can also do it 100%. The idea that “only the big names can publish in Nature or Science, you need political power, you need connections” — that’s a viewpoint with 100% harms. It’s plainly false. If you have such people around you, you might think “scientist, yet starting a baseless conspiracy theory”. Publishing in Science / Nature draws attention, and it lets you level-up in many ways. Of course, there’s some luck required, and yes, knowing an editor helps a little. But even if you exchange business cards with an editor, you may still get a “desk reject”. I’ve experienced it myself. (After publishing my papers in Nature and Science, an editor approached me (not from me, from her/him!) and she/he told me that I can reach them out or choose her/him to be the editor. I did exactly what they told me to do, and my paper got immediately rejected!) Meanwhile, when I submitted my first Nature / Science, I didn’t know any editor, our lab wasn’t large at all — yet I passed. This part is severe but fair.  

There are several topics that I want to cover, but in this post, I would mainly discuss on presentation quality. There are a certain level of quality expected from Nature or Science. The beauty of the Figures, the Intro, the Abstract text — your manuscript has to be great, good is not enough, compared to all the existing papers in the world, because they need the best papers. The simple but the most effective method is to compare your best paper (or the best paper in your research group) and see if your current manuscript is better or not. 

The cover letter, abstract, and the title are the three biggest items that determine your papers in the first round.  I believe editors only glance at a manuscript for a moment when deciding desk-reject vs. not.  More than 90% probably get immediate desk rejection in Nature or Science. So take great care with the Title. Carefully select necessary words and tickle what’s going to resonate. Another important criteria is your concept riding the current trend. Can you convincingly say you’re moving modern science forward, even a little bit? Yes — that feeling of being ahead is important. Personally, I’m the type who wants to make the title witty but my collaborators always don't appreciate it, basically saying don't be a smug by being witty. the most important thing is conciseness and readability. More than clever phrasing, you want to make it straightforwardly clear: “High-quality, important”. Apologies for the macho tone, but again, it has to be great, not just good.