Jeffrey Robens, PhD

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download liwenbianji.cn/BNU_2014
Author Academy Effectively Communicating your
Research
Beijing Normal University 30 October 2014

• Jeffrey Robens, PhD
• Senior Research Consultant
• Education Group Leader

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Be an effective communicator
Your goal should not only to be published, but
also to be widely read/cited

• Good research design
• Choose the best journal
• Logically organize your ideas
• Navigate through peer review

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Section 1
download liwenbianji.cn/BNU_2014
Good experimental design
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What do journal editors want?
High quality research
Increase impact
Original and novel research
Well-designed study Logically organized
Real-world applications
Interesting to journals readership
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What do journal editors want?
Real-world relevance
Examine risk factors in 1000 depressed students
Technical quality
Novelty
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What do journal editors want?
Real-world relevance
Technical quality
Compare risk factors between local and foreign
depressed students
Novelty
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Research that has impact

• Read primary literature
• Read reviews
• Identify an important question
• Is the question focused?
• Do you have the expertise/resources?
• What is new?
• How is it useful?

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Publication ethics
Plagiarism
Data fabrication or falsification
Conflicts of interest
Author contribution

• Unable to publish
• Loss of employment

Consequences of unethical behavior
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Section 2
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Journal selection
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Evaluating significance
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Factors to consider when choosing a journal
Aims scope
Readership
Impact factor
Open access
Indexing
Which factor is most important to you?
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Journal Selectorwww.liwenbianji.cn/journal_select
or
Insert your proposed abstract
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Journal Selectorwww.liwenbianji.cn/journal_select
or
Matching journals

• Filter by
• Impact factor
• Publishing frequency
• Open access

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Journal Selectorwww.liwenbianji.cn/journal_select
or
springer.com/gp/authors-editors/journal-author
Journals aims scope, IF and publication
frequency

• Are they published recently?
• Have you cited some of them?

Similar published articles
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Section 3
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Manuscript structure
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Introduction
General introduction
Current state of the field
Problem in the field
Specific aims
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Writing the Introduction
Identify an important problem State aims that
directly address this problem
Nora Zhang Asia Pacific Educ Rev. 2010 11
573584.
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Methods
Study design
Who/what was used
Participants Instruments Data collection
How it was done
Methodology/analyses Measures and outcomes
Quantification methods Statistical tests
How it was analyzed
Consult a statistician
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Results

1. Initial observation
2. Characterization
3. Application

Logical presentation

• Example
• Observe a correlation between depression and
  Internet use
• Characterize the severity of depression, time
  spent online, websites visited
• Demonstrate decreased Internet use improves
  severity of depression

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Results

1. Initial observation
2. Characterization
3. Application

Logical presentation
Each subsection corresponds to one figure
Subsections
What you found, not what it means
Factual description
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Discussion
Summary of findings
Relevance of findings
Similarities/differences Unexpected
results Counter-arguments Limitations
Implications for the field
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Discussion the end
Why your work is important to your readers
The Spanish version of AIDA showed good
psychometric properties in Mexico and can be used
to assess the construct pathology-related
identity integration vs. diffusion with
reliability, validity, and content equivalence in
comparison with the original AIDA questionnaire.
This finding supports the cross-cultural
generalizability of the underlying concept and
confirms the importance of culture-specific test
adaption in addition to literal translation of
the questionnaire. Nevertheless, some items
should be improved. Therefore, the test version
of AIDA Spanish Mexico should be further
adapted and should be tested in a more
heterogeneous population.
Conclusion
Implications
Future directions
Kassin et al. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment
Health. 2013 7 25.
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Linking your ideas
General background
Current state of the field
Problems in the field
Objectives
Methodology
Results and figures
Summary of findings
Relevance of findings
Implications for the field
Logically link your ideas throughout your
manuscript
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Linking your ideas
Introduction
no research has examined how interacting with
Facebook influences subjective well-being over
time.
Problem
We addressed this issue bymeasuring in-vivo
behavior and psychological experience over time.
Objectives
Discussion
These analyses indicated that Facebook use
predicts declines insubjective well-being
Conclusion
Kross et al. PLoS ONE 2013 8 e69841.
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Abstracts
Importance of your results
Validity of your conclusions
Relevance of your aims
First impression of your paper
Judge your writing style
Probably only part that will be read
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Sections of an abstract
Concise summary of your research
Background
Why the study was done
Aims
Your hypothesis
Methods
Analyses
Results
Most important findings
Conclusion
Conclusion/implications
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Unstructured abstract
Political thought and behavior play an important
role in our lives, from ethnic tensions in
Europe, to the war in Iraq and the Middle Eastern
conflict, to parliamentary and presidential
elections. However, little is known about how the
individual's political attitudes and decisions
are shaped by subtle national cues that are so
prevalent in our environment. We report a series
of experiments that show that subliminal exposure
to one's national flag influences political
attitudes, intentions, and decisions, both in
laboratory settings and in real-life behavior.
Furthermore, this manipulation consistently
narrowed the gap between those who score high vs.
low on a scale of identification with Israeli
nationalism. The first two experiments examined
participants' stance toward the
IsraeliPalestinian conflict and the Jewish
settlers in the West Bank. Experiment 3 examined
voting intentions and actual voting in Israel's
recently held general elections. The results
portray a consistent picture subtle reminders of
one's nationality significantly influence
political thought and overt political behavior.
Hassin et al. PNAS. 2007 104 19757-19761.
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Unstructured abstract
Political thought and behavior play an important
role in our lives, from ethnic tensions in
Europe, to the war in Iraq and the Middle Eastern
conflict, to parliamentary and presidential
elections. However, little is known about how the
individual's political attitudes and decisions
are shaped by subtle national cues that are so
prevalent in our environment.
Background
We report a series of experiments that show that
subliminal exposure to one's national flag
influences political attitudes, intentions, and
decisions, both in laboratory settings and in
real-life behavior.
Methods
Furthermore, this manipulation consistently
narrowed the gap between those who score high vs.
low on a scale of identification with Israeli
nationalism. The first two experiments examined
participants' stance toward the
IsraeliPalestinian conflict and the Jewish
settlers in the West Bank. Experiment 3 examined
voting intentions and actual voting in Israel's
recently held general elections.
Results
The results portray a consistent picture subtle
reminders of one's nationality significantly
influence political thought and overt political
behavior.
Conclusion
Hassin et al. PNAS. 2007 104 19757-19761.
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Section 4
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Peer review
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What reviewers are looking for

• Relevant hypothesis
• Good study design
• Appropriate methodology
• Good data analyses
• Valid conclusions

The study

• Logical flow of information
• Manuscript structure and formatting
• Appropriate references
• High readability

The manuscript
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Agreeing with reviewers
Reviewer Comment In your analysis of the data
you have chosen to use a somewhat obscure fitting
function (regression). In my opinion, a simple
Gaussian function would have sufficed. Moreover,
the results would be more instructive and easier
to compare to previous results. Response We
agree with the reviewers assessment of the
analysis. Our tailored function, in its current
form, makes it difficult to tell that this
measurement constitutes a significant improvement
over previously reported values. We describe our
new analysis using a Gaussian fitting function in
our revised Results section (Page 6, Lines 1218).
Agreement
Revisions
Location
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Disagreeing with reviewers
Reviewer Comment In your analysis of the data
you have chosen to use a somewhat obscure fitting
function (regression). In my opinion, a simple
Gaussian function would have sufficed. Moreover,
the results would be more instructive and easier
to compare to previous results. Response
Although a simple Gaussian fit would facilitate
comparison with the results of other studies, our
tailored function allows for the analysis of the
data in terms of the Smith model Smith et al.,
1998. We have now explained the use of this
function and the Smith model in our revised
Discussion section (Page 12, Lines 26).
Evidence
Revisions
Location
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Unfair reviewer comments
Reviewer comment Currently, the authors
conclusion that this questionnaire is appropriate
for cross-cultural analyses is not completely
valid because their participants all resided in
China. They should also show the questionnaires
validity in participants living in other
countries.

• Reasons why reviewers might make these comments
• Current results are not appropriate for the scope
  or the impact factor of the journal
• Reviewer is being unfair

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Unfair comments
What you should do

• First, contact the journal editor if
• you feel reviewer is being unfair
• Do the experiments, revise, and resubmit
• Withdraw submission and resubmit current
  manuscript to a lower impact factor journal

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Be an effective communicator
Your goal should not only to be published, but
also to be widely read/cited

• Good research design
• Choose the best journal
• Logically organize your ideas
• Navigate through peer review

36
Any questions?
??!
Jeffrey Robens jrobens_at_edanzgroup.com