Research Tools Box - The Effective Use of Research Tools Box

The Effective Use of
Research Tools Box

Nader Ale Ebrahim
Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture,
Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
Email: aleebrahim@perdana.um.edu.my

Introduction
The search can be time consuming and sometimes tedious task. How can make it
easier? How do deal with situations such as:

• “I just join as new postgraduate students and I am not sure how to do a literature
search”
• “I have been into research for sometimes now but I spend a lot of time to get the
articles I want”
• “I am sure I have downloaded the article but I am not able to find it”
• “I wanted to write a new paper, how can I manage the references in the shortest
possible time?”
• “I have many references, some for my old papers, and some for my current research.
Sometimes, they are so many that I can’t recall where I have kept them in my
folders!”
• ……..
• “I have written an article and I am not able to find a proper Journal”
• "I want to increase the citation of my papers, how do I do?"


Objectives
– To reduce the search time by expanding the
knowledge of researchers to more effectively use the
"tools" that are available through the Net.
– To evaluate the types of literature that researchers
will encounter.
– To convert the information on the search for a written
document.
– Help researchers learn how to search and analyze
the right journal to submit.
– To promote their publication for further citation.


How to Conduct an Effective
Literature Review

Outline
• Find literature associated with the topic.
• Search and analyze the literature.
• Evaluate the paper before reading.
• Cite literature properly.
• Make a summary table of reviewed papers.
• Avoid plagiarism.
• Write a journal article based on literature review.


The literature review
In your literature review, you should:
– clarify your understanding of the field
– explain the rationale for your research
– place your research within a broader context
– evaluate the results of previous research
– define key concepts and ideas
– identify research in related areas that are
generalisable or transferable to your topic
– identify relevant methodological issues.
UNE. 2009. The literature review [Online]. University of New England. Available:
http://www.une.edu.au/library/eskillsplus/literature/litreview.php [Accessed 25 January 2010].


The literature review
A literature review ensures that you are at least
familiar with the body of research in your field
before starting your own investigations.
Writing a literature review also provides
practice in critical thinking. Once you have
applied critical thinking skills to the findings of
past researchers, you are in a better position
to apply these same skills to your own work.

UNE. 2009. The literature review [Online]. University of New England. Available:
http://www.une.edu.au/library/eskillsplus/literature/litreview.php [Accessed 25 January 2010].


Systematic Review 1/2
• A systematic literature review is a means
of identifying, evaluating and interpreting
all available research relevant to a
particular research question, or topic area,
or phenomenon of interest. Individual
studies contributing to a systematic review
are called primary studies; a systematic
review is a form a secondary study.


Systematic Review 2/2
• A systematic review is a literature review
focused on a research question that tries
to identify, appraise, select and synthesize
all high quality research evidence relevant
to that question.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_review

• A Guide to Writing the Dissertation
Literature Review

Reasons for Performing Systematic Reviews

• To summarise the existing evidence concerning a
treatment or technology e.g. to summarise the empirical
evidence of the benefits and limitations of a specific agile
method.
• To identify any gaps in current research in order to
suggest areas for further investigation.
• To provide a framework/background in order to
appropriately position new research activities.

However, systematic reviews can also be undertaken to examine the
extent to which empirical evidence supports/contradicts theoretical
hypotheses, or even to assist the generation of new hypotheses


The Systematic Review Process

Planning
the review

Systematic
review

Conducting Reporting
the review the review

Source: Adapted from Systematic Review

Planning the review
1. Identification of the need for a
review
2. Development of a review
protocol. (The most important activity during
protocol is to formulate the research question.)


Conducting the review
1. Identification of research
2. Selection of primary studies
3. Study quality assessment
4. Data extraction & monitoring
5. Data synthesis.


Reporting the review

Reporting the review
is a single stage
phase.


Checklist for reading a review paper
• What are the review’s objectives?
• What sources were searched to identify primary studies? Were there
any restrictions?
• What were the inclusion/exclusion criteria and how were they
applied?
• What criteria were used to assess the quality of primary studies and
how were they applied?
• How were the data extracted from the primary studies?
• How were the data synthesised? How were differences between
studies investigated? How were the data combined? Was it
reasonable to combine the studies? Do the conclusions flow from
the evidence?


Checklist for reading a review paper-From a
more general viewpoint
• Can you find an important question, which the review
addressed?
• Was a thorough search done of the appropriate
databases and were other potentially important sources
explored?
• Was methodological quality assessed and the trials
weighted accordingly?
• How sensitive are the results to the way that the review
has been done?
• Have numerical results been interpreted with common
sense and due regard to the broader aspects of the
problem?

Working with literature

Working with
Literature

Find it! Manage it! Use it! Review it!

Knowing the Reading Choosing your research Understanding the
literature types efficiently topic lit review’s purpose

Keeping track Ensuring adequate
Using available resources Developing your question
of references coverage

Honing your Writing relevant Arguing your Writing
search skills annotations rationale purposefully

Informing your work with Working on
theory style and tone

Designing
method

Research Tools Box
©2012 By: Nader Ale
Source: O'Leary, Z. (2004) The Essential Guide to Doing Research. London: Sage - Chapter Six
Ebrahim

Narrow the area of research
R&D and Distributed Teams
Focus of the literature Review
SMEs, Virtual R&D teams and NPD

NPD and Virtuality
Virtual Teams
Virtual R&D teams and SMEs
R&D
NPD

SMEs and Virtual Teams

SMEs
R&D and NPD

SMEs and R&D NPD and SMEs

Ale Ebrahim, N., Ahmed, S., & Taha, Z. (2009). Virtual R & D teams in small and medium enterprises: A literature
review. [Review]. Scientific Research and Essay, 4(13), 1575–1590.


Review biases
• Read outdated version of a paper/book
• Read without writing
• Read unlinked papers (detect as much of the relevant
literature as possible)

• Read before planning (defining a review protocol that
specifies the research question being addressed)

• Start reading with few resources
• Language bias
• Publication bias

Effective Search Strategy-1
An effective search strategy can save hours
of wasted research time and provide a
clear direction for your research. The
benefits of attending this workshop are
numerous and include learning how to
change the direction of research to
discovery and how to use more efficient
the tools that are available through the
Internet

Effective Search Strategy-2

• an understanding of the types of
information available
• the skills to use the various research tools
• an appreciation of how to access this
information
• the strategies to evaluate the literature


Effective searching
» Developing a search strategy
» Searching the library catalogue
» Finding journal articles and papers
» Searching the Internet
» Other sources

Source: http://learnline.cdu.edu.au/myresearch/plan/searchstrategy.html


Developing a search strategy
• » Defining the topic
» Considering the scope of your topic
» Identifying the main or important aspects
» Compiling a list of keywords
» Developing your search strategy
• It is important to develop a search strategy
to, not only, find the information you need
but to also clarify your topic.


How to Find and Develop a Viable
Research Topic?
Step One: Identify a Topic.
Step Two: Test Your Topic.
Test the main concepts or keywords in your
topic by looking them up in the appropriate
background sources or by using them as
search terms.
If you are finding too much information and too
many sources, narrow your topic by using
the and operator
Finding too little information may indicate that you
need to broaden your topic.


Keywords

Selecting keywords lead to get more
citation.

Web of Science


KeyWords Plus
Hi there! This issue, we are going to explain how KeyWords Plus
broadens your search. KeyWords Plus is the result of our Thomson
Reuters editorial expertise in Science.

What our editors do is to review the titles of all references and
highlight additional relevant but overlooked keywords that were not
listed by the author or publisher. With KeyWords Plus, you can now
uncover more papers that may not have appeared in your search
due to changes in scientific keywords over time.
Thanks and keep your feedback and questions coming!
Smiles,
Lim Khee Hiang
Ph.D., Principal Consultant


KeyWords Plus- Example
• New Product Development in Virtual
Environment (ISI Indexed)
• Author Keywords: New product Development;
Virtual teams; Concurrent Collaboration; Review
paper
• KeyWords Plus: DEVELOPMENT TEAMS;
PERFORMANCE; TECHNOLOGY;
KNOWLEDGE; COMMUNICATION;
PERSPECTIVE; INTEGRATION; INNOVATION;
NETWORK; WORKING

Finding review articles
• To demonstrate finding review articles in
a Google Scholar search, enter the
search:
• "health insurance""review article" and click
on the Search button.


Critically Analyzing Information Sources
1- Initial Appraisal:
Author
Date of Publication
Edition or Revision
Publisher
Title of Journal (Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from other Periodicals)
2- Content Analysis:
Intended Audience
Objective Reasoning
Coverage
Writing Style
Evaluative Reviews


Keywords used in the research

Source: PÓS, P., DE PRODUÇÃO, G. P. D. E. E., SISTEMAS, E. & FERREIRA, P. G. S. 2011. THE
COMPREHENSION OF PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT INDICATORS BY VIRTUAL TEAMS. Master of
Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering.

h-index (Jorge E. Hirsch)
• A scientist has index h if h of [his/her]
Np papers have at least h citations each,
and the other (Np − h) papers have at most
h citations each.

H-index from a plot of decreasing citations for numbered papers


Where to Find Research Literature

• ISI Web of Knowledge
• Research tools Mind Map (Refer to “search
for proper article” section)


Web of Science Coverage Expansion
by ThomsonReuters on 04-27-2010 01:42 PM
In recent years we have witnessed an explosion in the production and
availability of scholarly research results. This growth is reflected in the
gradual expansion of journal coverage in the Web of Science.

Journal coverage in Web of Science consists of three major indexes,
namely the (Science Citation Index Expanded, the Social Sciences Citation
Index, and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index. In addition, the
Conference Proceedings Citation Index (formerly ISIProceedings) became
an edition of Web of Science in October) 2008.

In 2000 journal coverage in Web of Science totaled 8,684 titles. In 2005,
Web of Science covered 9,467 journals, an increase of 9%. As of April 1,
2010 11,519 journals are covered in Web of Science, and increase of 22%.


Published Items in Each Year (Retrieved on 2 December 2011) from WOS


Citations in Each Year (Retrieved on 2 December 2011) from WOS


Citation tracking

• Citation indexes allows you to search the
academic literature in ways that illuminate the
progress of academic debate in your field. With a
citation index, you can easily identify the most
influential articles, and the leading academic
authorities. You can track backwards (using lists of
cited articles) and forwards (using lists of articles
which cite a particular article). As a result, you can
determine the position of academic debate at any
time in the past


Cited Reference Searching

Traditional search Cited reference search
2004 2003
paper paper

1987 1993
paper paper

1996 1996
1982 paper 1982 paper
paper 1957 paper 1957
paper paper

Literature Citation Information – Driving Discovery of
“CLOSE Art”

2002 2004

2007
Times
Cited
2003
2001 Cited
References 2005

2000 Related
1998
Records

1993 2004

2000
 Citing 

…navigating 1998
• Backward in time via Cited References 1994
• Forward in time via Times Cited
• and through Related Records
Time
27


Paper/journal quality
• Another guide to paper/journal quality is
the general reputation of the association,
society, or organization publishing the
journal.
• Leading professional associations such as
American Psychological Association (APA)
or the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE) publish a range of
journals that are highly regarded.


For More Info.

How to do an Effective
Literature Search?
Application Training Module Series I
by Customer Education Team

ts.training.asia@thomson.com

Stop Searching, Start Discovering

Review Paper Examples
• Example 1
• Example 2
• Example 3
• Example 4


Search Performance
Subjects Research Methodologies Source information
Result Effects

Time Compression Technologies
References

simplification of structure

identifying critical chain
involvement of partners

concurrent engineering

development capacity
Project management

training & rewarding

Case study(small n)
Supplier integration
product complexity

concurrent product

virtual production

Empirical(large n)

creative software
pattern matching
Theory -Building
CAD technology
project strategy
E-collaboration

Math. Modeling
Process Model
team structure
manufacturing

setting buffers
quality control
procurement

organization

www-based
Experiment
Framework
techniques

Simulation
innovation

pilot study
statistical

prototype
lead user
planning

process
product

Review
Quality
design

variety
speed

other
Time

cost
tool

√ √ √ √ √ (Clift, T.B et al 1996)

√ √ √ √ √ (Griffin, A 1997)

√ √ √ √ (Carter, 1997)

√ √ √ √ (Hartley, J.et al 1997)

√ √ √ (Athakorn et al 2001)

√ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ (Xie, S. Q. et al 2002)

√ √ √ √ √ (Kusar, J. et al. 2004)

√ √ √ √ √ √ (Petersen. et al 2005)

√ √ √ √ √ (Tan, C.L. 2006)

√ √ √ √ √ (Roberts. et al 2006)

√ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ (Zhou, Z. et al 2008)

√ √ √ √ √ √ (Bashir, H, et al 2008)

√ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ (Ahlemann, F. 2009)

√ √ √ √ (Selvaraj,P.et al 2009)

√ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ (Xia-Bao. et al 2009)

√ √ √ √ √ (Lifang W. et al 2009)

√ √ √ √ √ √ (Vinodh, et al 2009)

√ √ √ √ √ (Hebert et al 2010)

√ √ √ √ √ √ (Roemer, T. et al 2010)

MOHAMMADJAFARI, M., AHMED, S., DAWAL, S. Z. M. & ZAYANDEHROODI, H. 2011(Article in press). The Importance of Project Management in SMEs for the Development of New
Products through E-Collaboration. African Journal of Business Management.


FIXSON, S. 2007. Modularity and commonality research: past developments and future opportunities. Concurrent Engineering, 15, 85.


Keeping up-to-date
What is an alert service?
• Many journal databases and book publishers offer free alert
services. These are an effective means of keeping track of the
latest research.
• Alert services come in different forms. The most common
include:
– a search alert. This is a saved search which alerts you when a
book or article that matches your search terms is published.
– a TOC (Table of Contents) alert. Such an alert notifies you when
a new issue of a journal is published, and provides you with the
issue's table of contents.
– a citation alert. This advises you when a new article cites a
particular work.
– Most alert services are email-based. An increasing number are
now offered as an RSS feed. If you are just beginning, you might
like to try email alerts first. These are generally easier to create.


Keeping up-to-date

Alert services are an effective
means of keeping track of the
latest research.


Keeping up-to-date
Create a Google Alert
• Enter the topic you wish to monitor.
• Search terms:
• Type:
• How often:
• Email length:
• Your email:


Example - 1
• From: Google Scholar Alerts [mailto:scholaralerts-
noreply@google.com] • Doctoral dissertation for the degree
Sent: 2011/02/01 06:21 ‫ق.ظ‬
Subject: Scholar Alert - [ Virtual Teams: A "Literature
of Doctor of Science in Technology to
Review" + ebrahim ] be presented with due permission of
•
• Scholar Alert: [ Virtual Teams: A "Literature Review"
the School of Science for public
+ ebrahim ] examination and debate in
• [PDF] How to Conduct a Literature
Auditorium T2 at the Aalto University
• NA Ebrahim
... Page 10. Narrow the area of research ©2011 Nader School of Science (Espoo, Finland) on
Ale Ebrahim SMEs NPD Virtual Teams R&D
R&D and NPD SMEs and Virtual Teams R&D and
the 4th of February 2011 at 12 noon.
Distributed Teams SMEs and R&D Focus of
the literature Review SMEs, Virtual R&D teams and
NPD NPD and Virtuality ...

• [PDF] Web Application User Interface Technologies • Aalto University
• M Pohja
... are 7 Page 28. Introduction discussed in the next • School of Science
section of this thesis. Finally, web
servers may sup- port virtual hosting, content • Department of Media Technology
compression and other things that
may help manage client-server communication.
Application ...
• This Google Scholar Alert is brought to you by Google.

Cancel alert Research Tools Box ©2012 By: Nader Ale Ebrahim
List alerts

Example - 2
Document Citation Alert: 2 new results
Document Citation Alert for:

Ebrahim, N.A., Ahmed, S., Taha, Z.
Innovation and R&D activities in virtual team
(2009) European Journal of Scientific Research, 34 (3) pp. 297-307. Cited 2 times.

Access all new results in Scopus for this Document Citation Alert.

In the table below, you can see the 2 new results for this Document Citation Alert.
Results: 2

1. A collaborative model of engineering education for complex global environments
Qiu, R.G., 2010, Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE, art. no. 5673356, pp. S3J1-S3J5.

2. University role in the development of future high-tech engineers
Ilas, M., 2010, 2010 IEEE 16th International Symposium for Design and Technology of Electronics Packages, SIITME 2010, art. no.
5650869, pp. 327-330.


Keeping up-to-date


Search Alert: 2 new results
Access all new results in Scopus for: AU-ID("Ebrahim, Nader Ale" 22974706300) AND (LIMIT-TO(AU-ID, "Ahmed,
Shamsuddin" 35241743000)).

In the table below, you can see the 2 new results for this Search Alert.

Results: 2
Document Author(s) Date Source title Citations
African Journal of
Critical factors for new product developments Ebrahim, N.A., Business
1. 2010 0
in SMEs virtual team Ahmed, S., Taha, Z. Management,
4 (11) pp. 2247-2257.
Virtual R&D teams and SMEs growth: A African Journal of
Ebrahim, N.A., Business
2.comparative study between Iranian and 2010 0
Ahmed, S., Taha, Z. Management,
Malaysian SMEs 4 (11) pp. 2368-2379.

Access all new results in Scopus for: AU-ID("Ebrahim, Nader Ale" 22974706300) AND (LIMIT-TO(AU-ID, "Ahmed,
Shamsuddin" 35241743000)).

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Web 1 new result for "Virtual R&D teams"

Virtual R&D Teams for NPD in SMEs
ALE EBRAHIM, N., AHMED, S. & TAHA, Z. (2008). Virtual R&D Teams for NPD in SMEs: Past, Present and
Future Trend. In: APCMOTTE2008 (Asia pacific Conference ...
www.wepapers.com/.../Virtual_R&D_Teams_for_NPD_in_SM...

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EndNote
• EndNote is an almost
indispensible tool for the
serious researcher. And best
of all, its free to all UM
postgraduates!


Why use EndNote?
• EndNote allows you to create your own
reference library. This library can be used
to store the bibliographical details relating
to the articles and books that you use.
When it comes time to write your thesis,
you can employ the library to insert
references into your text and produce your
bibliography. EndNote will save you
hundreds of hours over the course of your
research.

ScienceDirect (Elsevier) allows you to check your desired citations, then click on the
“Export Citations” link…

… then you select which pieces of information you really want in your EndNote database,
using the radio buttons, then click on the “Export” button to bring up the dialog box we
have seen before to transfer the temporary file into EndNote

Humanities International Index is a bit more convoluted; I conduct a search, then click on
the first result from the search for more information

Scanning through the icons at top, I spot the one that exports to Bibliographic Manager…
naturally, I click on it to move to the next step (watch for icons like this within indexes)

Click on the correct radio button to select EndNote, and we next see the comforting and
familiar dialog box that allows EndNote to ingest our citation

Where should I submit my publication?

Impact Factor
• The most commonly used measure of
journal quality is Impact Factor. This is a
number which attempts to measure the
impact of a journal in terms of its influence
on the academic community. Impact
Factors are published by Thomson-ISI


Impact Factor-Journal Ranking
• Relative impact factors are often a better guide to the
importance of a journal than raw numbers. JCR allows you to
compare the impact factors of different journals in the same
subject area
• The Economic History Review has an impact factor of 1.051.
At first glance, it would appear that this journal is relatively
unimportant. In fact, it is arguably the premier English-
language journal in its field (its major competitor, the Journal
of Economic History Review, has an even lower impact factor:
a mere 0.529!). Far more illuminating is the journal's relatively
high impact factor compared to other journals in the history of
the social sciences. Economic History Review ranks first out
of 15 journals in the Thomson-ISI's list of journals in this sub-
discipline.


INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRODUCTION RESEARCH
Impact Factor in 2008

Cites in 2008 to Number of items
2007 = 144 2007 = 278
items published in: published in:
2006 = 280 2006 = 270
Sum: 424 Sum: 548

Calculation: Cites to recent items 424 = 0.774
Number of recent items 548

Impact
Factor


Total Cites


Objectives
• To improve the quality of articles.
• To manage the submission procedure.
• To evaluate Journal measuring factors (like: Journal Impact Factor,
Immediacy Index, Cited Half Life, five Year Journal Impact Factor) before article
submission.
• To search and analyze the right journal to submit.
• To identify journals to publish in or which journals are the best in a
particular discipline.
• To write and submit journal articles using time-saving bibliographic
management tools.
• To deal with the editor response
• To deal with the Publishing Process (How to Deal with Proofs)


Getting published
Why publish?
Apart from the final thesis, you should also consider
publishing your work as you go along. There are
various reasons for this:
– publications assist in final preparation of your thesis
disseminating your knowledge and experience,
– it gives you an academic profile and raises the profile of
your institution,
– research publications generate income for the University,
– publications enhance your CV and may help in gaining
employment, and
– you may even become rich and famous - but don't count
on it!


Paper Structure
• Title
• Affiliation
• Abstract
• Keywords
• Nomenclatures
• Introduction
• Materials and methods
• Results and Discussions
• Conclusions
• References


Abstract
Abstract should not exceed 300 words (without reference).
Abstract must include following sections:
Problem Statement: This section should include answers of the questions:
• Why was research needed?.
• What was the context of the work?.
• Introduce the problem or provide background for what you will address.
Approach:
• What did you do and how did you go about solving or making progress on the problem.
• Describe the method of research, study, or analysis applied to the problem.
Results:
• What results did you get?
• State what you found and relate it to the problem.
• Summarize the major results in numbers, avoid vague, hand waving results such as “very
small” or “significant”.
Conclusions/Recommendations:
• What are the implications of your answer?
• State the relevance, implications, or significance of the results or conclusions, to the
business.
• Significance of work is often implied by the recommendations or implications for future
work.


Type of journal paper
• Full-Length Paper
• Communication (results of complete small investigations or
giving details of new models or hypotheses, innovative methods, techniques
or apparatus)

• Technical note/Note (discussion related to a paper
previously published)

• Data bank
• Viewpoint (concise, to the point, and bring novel new insights on a
specific problem)

• Review
• Letter Research Tools Box ©2012 By: Nader Ale Ebrahim

Choose a category for the paper
• Research paper. This category covers papers which report on any type of research undertaken
by the author(s). The research may involve the construction or testing of a model or framework,
action research, testing of data, market research or surveys, empirical, scientific or clinical
research.
• Viewpoint. Any paper, where content is dependent on the author's opinion and interpretation,
should be included in this category; this also includes journalistic pieces.
• Technical paper. Describes and evaluates technical products, processes or services.
Conceptual paper. These papers will not be based on research but will develop hypotheses. The
papers are likely to be discursive and will cover philosophical discussions and comparative
studies of others' work and thinking.
• Case study. Case studies describe actual interventions or experiences within organizations.
They may well be subjective and will not generally report on research. A description of a legal
case or a hypothetical case study used as a teaching exercise would also fit into this category.
• Literature review. It is expected that all types of paper cite any relevant literature so this
category should only be used if the main purpose of the paper is to annotate and/or critique the
literature in a particular subject area. It may be a selective bibliography providing advice on
information sources or it may be comprehensive in that the paper's aim is to cover the main
contributors to the development of a topic and explore their different views.
• General review. This category covers those papers which provide an overview or historical
examination of some concept, technique or phenomenon. The papers are likely to be more
descriptive or instructional ("how to" papers) than discursive
• Source: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/authors/guides/write/abstracts.htm?part=1#2

HOW TO WRITE/EDIT
SCIENTIFIC PAPERS
(I) MINDSET, (II) CONCEPTS, AND (III) LOGIC

I. Right mindset for writing

“State your facts as simply as
possible, even boldly. No one
wants flowers of eloquence or
literary ornaments in a research
article.”
-R.B. McKerrow (Well-known British editor
& educator 1882-1940)


Example 1

• Ok: It is clear that factor A up-
regulates the pathway.

• Better: Factor A clearly up-regulates
the pathway.


II. Modern writing concepts
1. Styles
2. Use “We”
3. Use active voice
4. Avoid vague IT, THERE, THIS/THAT
5. Avoid long sentence
6. Write a strong sentence core
7. One message per paragraph


1. Styles

• BOG—Business or Government
style, the more traditional style

• CLEAR—Clear Easy Reading, the
more modern style


Example

• BOG: It is anticipated that an annual
training rate of 100 employees will be
achieved by the time the program is
fully operational.

• CLEAR: When the program is
operating at full capacity, we expect to
train 100 people per year.


2. Use ‘We”

We-sentence is a more-modern style, reads
more interesting, and communicates with the
reader more directly.

– We report …
– We speculate …
– We generated …
– We measured …


We-sentences appear in many leading
journals

• In this report, we define a mechanism for
… and discover distinct roles for … We
use … assays to … We demonstrate that
… We provide evidence that … (Science)


3. Use active voice

• Active voice is more informative, clearer, and
more reader-friendly than passive voice.

– The results indicate …
– Table 1 shows …
– Recent studies have reported …
– Zhang and coworkers have suggested …


Example 1

• Bad: Twelve soil samples of 4 agricultural
areas were investigated for…, and the co-
relationships between … were analyzed.

• Good: We investigated 12 soil samples of
4 agricultural areas for …, and analyzed
the co-relationships between …


Iyn dupré writes: (The author of Bugs in
writing: A guide to debugging your prose)

“If you want to learn only one
technique to improve your writing
substantially, you should learn to
avoid using passive voice.”


4. Avoid vague IT, THERE, and
THIS/THAT

• IT is unknown.

• THERE is no where.

• THIS/THAT could be anything.


IT is old style

1. Old style: It is likely that it will rain soon.

• Modern style: It will rain soon.

2. Old style: It should be borne in mind that the
current research has imitations.

• Modern style: The current research has
limitations.


III. Logic issues

1. Logic flow
2. Connection
3. Parallelism
4. Redundancy


1. Use transitional words to promote logic flow

• Also, and, again, further, furthermore
• First, then, second, next, lastly
• Soon, after, previously, meanwhile
• But, yet, still, instead,
• In short, in other words,
• Similarly, consequently, accordingly

2. Connection of clauses

1. Compound (and, but)
2. Cause/effect (as, because, for, so, )
3. In between (semicolon)
4. Condition (if, whether, when)
5. Concession (Although, even if, whatever)
6. Result (so that)


Example 1

She has a fever, and she
Incorrect:
probably has an infection.

She has a fever; she
Correct:
probably has an infection.


3. Parallelism

1. Verb
2. Subject
3. Similar parts in a sentence
4. Meaning


Verb

• Incorrect: She swims, plays basketball,
and was running bicycles.

• Correct: She swims, plays basketball, and
runs bicycles.


Subject

Incorrect: The ignition was tested, an
examination of the belts was carried out,
and the levels of the lubricants were
checked.

Correct: The ignition was tested, the belts
were examined, and the lubricant levels
were checked.


Other parts

• Not only, but also
Bad: The plant is not only capable of growing on high-salt soils, but
also accumulating concentrations of salts.

– Good: The plant is not only capable of growing on
high-salt soils, but also capable of accumulating
concentrations of salts.

– Better: The plant is capable of not only growing on
high-salt soils, but also accumulating concentrations
of salts.


4. Redundancy

• Most-commonly seen problems in non-
English speaking writers

– Wording repetition
– Sentencing repetition
– Meaning repetition
– Wordy


Wording

1. Bad: These differences grew smaller, and
they finally faded out after a stimulation of
3 min.

• Good: These differences grew smaller and
finally faded out after a stimulation of 3
min.


(Cont.)

2. Bad: The result indicates that this
assumption can be considered
reasonable in some sense.

• Good: The result indicates that this
assumption may be reasonable.


Meaning

1. Bad: A method to evaluate this effect, rather than
to assume subjectively, was proposed.
• Good: A method to evaluate this effect was
proposed.
2. Bad: As a rule, the temperature was generally
adjusted to the room temperature.
• Good: As a rule, the temperature was adjusted to
the room temperature


Selecting keywords


Improving Readership of Your Articles
Appearing at the top of the list of search results, and having a
useful description of your work, greatly improve the likelihood
that a reader will find and download your document.

• Abstracts should include keywords that potential readers are
likely to use in searches. It is especially valuable to modify and
reuse words that appear in the document's title and full text to
improve the article's rank when readers search for those words.

• The first sentence of the abstract is all that is likely to be
displayed in the search page results, so make your first sentence
one that will encourage readers to click the link.


Using keywords
• Using keywords is a vital part of abstract writing,
because of the practice of retrieving information
electronically: keywords act as the search term.
Use keywords that are specific, and that reflect
what is essential about the paper. Put yourself in
the position of someone researching in your
field: what would you look for? Consider also
whether you can use any of the current
"buzzwords".
Source: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/authors/guides/write/abstracts.htm?part=1#2


Author Self Check
Is the title of the paper well described clearly and shortly?

Is the abstract addressed the summary of the manuscript?

Are the keywords selected wisely?

Is the content of the paper treated original and innovating?

Is the methodology well discussed (clear and accurate)?

Are the paper structure and all figures well designed?

Are all tables and figures in the paper useful and commented in
the text?

Author Self Check- Con.
Are the parameters, legends and units well described in the
figures and its axis?

Is the nomenclature in the paper well described in the equations
and the text?

Is the introduction of the paper dealt the relevant topics?

Are the experimental apparatus and procedure clearly described?

Are the conclusions supported by derived results of this work?

Are the references used latest and appropriate?

Is the standard language Tools Box ©2012
Research used? By: Nader Ale Ebrahim

Cover letter
• Research background,
• Innovation and significance of the
research,
• Latest publications
• Relationship to prior publication


Cover letter
Dear Professor Katsuhiko Ariga,
Good Day!

Enclosed is a paper, entitled " Small and Medium Enterprises; Virtual R&D (Research and Development) Teams and
New Product Development: A Literature Review." Please accept it as a candidate for publication in the Advanced
Science Letters Journal.

Below are our responses to your submission requirements.
1. Title and the central theme of the article.
Paper title: " Small and Medium Enterprises; Virtual R&D Teams and New Product Development: A Literature Review." This
study reviews the concepts of new product development and distributed teams in small and medium enterprises. It
proposes the state-of-the-art literature review in order to provide an overview on the structure and dynamics of R&D collaboration
in SMEs.

2. Why the material is important in its field and why the material should be published in the Advanced Science Letters
Journal?
The necessity of having an effective virtual team network is rapidly growing alongside the implementation of information technology.
Finding an appropriate virtual teams management has become increasingly important today's distributed environment. However,
the conventional centralized architecture, which routinely requests the information by face to face meeting, is not sufficient to
manage the growing requests for new product, especially in small and medium enterprises.
Recently, a new phenomenon that uses virtual teams to assist the distributed R&D teams has emerged. The virtual teams reduce time-
to-market, distribute SMEs risk in new product development, and improve SMEs operational performance. Given today's virtual
teams demand over the SMEs, it is important for the “Advanced Science Letters Journal” readers to understand this new
phenomenon and its benefits. This study gives a comprehensive literature review on different aspects of virtual R&D teams
collected from the reputed publications. It is the first in the literature that reports the analysis of proceeding about the topic. We
strongly believe the contribution of this study warrant its publication in the “Advanced Science Letters Journal”.


Cover letter Con.
3. List of FIVE (5) potential referees
1-
2-
3-
4-
5-
Finally, this paper is our (I, Prof. Zahari Taha and Associate Professor Dr. Shamsuddin Ahmed) original unpublished work and it has not
been submitted to any other journal for reviews.

Best Regards,
N. Ale Ebrahim
PhD Candidate
Department of Engineering Design & Manufacture
Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya (UM)
Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia
http://www.researcherid.com/rid/C-2414-2009


Acceptance Procedure
• Editor-in-Chief tests the manuscript according to the several criteria
of subject scope, style, apparent technical validity, topical
importance, relationship to prior publication, conciseness,
appropriate references, and length. Papers that vary widely from the
prescribed archival style (those written as speeches, ill-defined
manuscripts, progress reports or news releases, or those strongly
flavoured with advertising) will not be considered for publication.

• Associate Editor (Editor) evaluates the paper according to the
same criteria and, in most cases, has the paper sent to one or more
reviewers in the field (usually two) for confidential review. The
Associate Editor may, however, at his or her discretion, accept the
paper without review, reject it giving explicit reason, or request that
the author prepare it in a different format.


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