There are a bunch of articles online suggesting a long list of advice to follow. Let me take an honest approach. I haven’t seen any actual tips. We will discuss the tips that researchers themselves provided to new authors and writers of academic research papers. When I was working on my research paper. We had a mock presentation to give to some external’s that our research teacher arranged. The presentation did not go well but they pointed out what needs to be worked out.
After careful thought I can confidently say these are some of the top tips that can increase your chances of acceptance.
1. Recheck The Title Of Research
Research reviewers evaluate your command and credibility in the research field by just looking at your title of research. It’s important to realize your title needs to be tailored according to the type of research you are doing. Consider you are doing a qualitative research but you have used “Examining Relationship between x and y variable”. It gets clear to reviewers that you do not understand the exploratory nature of qualitative researches. Similarly if you use title “Exploring xyz” it leaves a wrong impression on the reviewers if your research is quantitative.
2. Note Down References during Write up
Making reference lists can get chaotic and extremely confusing at the end of write up. It also happens that authors cite paper findings but at the end those links don’t work. It gets problematic if you have already highlighted their findings and how they relate to your research. So it gets difficult to edit your manuscript multiple times again and again once you find more errors in citing sources. So even if it feels too much work do it during the write up of each section. Do not delay it for later because it can be more work than you imagine.
3. Improve Formatting
You might be focused on your research content or completing your word limit. So hear me out, one of the most noticeable thing for research reviewers is formatting of your manuscript. If the research paper is not formatted according to the provided guidelines of the journal. It will for sure decrease your chances of acceptance.
4. Collect Appendices Timely
Appendices involve permission to collect data and conduct your research from your institute. Additionally permissions to use Standardized emails from the respective authors, Demographic and consent form. All are to be included in the appendix section . In addition to this include a plagiarism report as well. If you don’t save it in one folder you might not find them when needed. It is trouble to figure out the authors that gave you permission to use their standard scales via email. You can get those emails deleted as well so it’s better to be safe than sorry.
5. Multiple Analyst
Data analysis is a tricky aspect of research. Every good research has a good methodology and results section in which each research finding is highlighted and explained impeccably. But often new researchers just trust their supervisor with the data analysis and findings part and don’t dare to get it checked with a research analyst. Remember, high-impact journals don’t compromise on the effectiveness of data analysis. So it is important to get analysis checked by more than one research analyst to get confident in your findings and you will see how it boosts your confidence and provides you a base to defend your work.
6. Logical Flow
Having flow in your research manuscript can make you stand out. Restrain yourself from randomly introducing ideas and try to logically connect one section with another without compromising with the flow of research paper. It is important to note that if you reject a null hypothesis in a quantitative research then your research hypothesis must match the other aspects of the research paper such as conclusion and discussion. Discussion should start with the aim of study and mention various researches and make through analysis as it is a section that makes or breaks the credibility of a research paper.
7. Take Your Time To Write Research Limitations
Research limitations should be well thought of before writing up because your research paper can never cover every age group or regional area for study and its findings can only be generalized to the population from which the sample size was driven. That’s why it is important to clearly state on your research paper its limitations. It can help your study avoid unnecessary scrutiny that comes with so many claims regarding the scope and generalization of study findings.
8. Write Strong Abstract
Those researchers that get their work published also put effort on making their Abstract as impeccable as possible. Highlighting novel ideas, playing with curiosity. Additionally keeping the balance between providing information and not enough of it to keep the reader interested in the research paper. If you notice they do not provide long paragraphs of information but a concise yet informative abstract. It builds up the rapport for them. It is necessary to read abstracts from published research papers to learn how to start and on what terms to end an abstract.
Conclusion
Overall we discussed all the tips that can help you get your research paper accepted in a journal. We dived deep into the importance of Title of research, logical flow, getting analysis checked from multiple research analysts. Additionally timely collection of appendices and references during write up to avoid distress while submission of manuscript in a journal. Make sure to add in limitations whatever variables your research did not explore to avoid unnecessary scrutiny from research reviewers. Lastly, I would like to add that making your title page according to journal guidelines is yet another plus that can prove to be helpful during journal submission
