Dear postgraduate students, · As of October 2018, Caltech alumni, faculty and researchers include 73 Nobel Laureates (chemist Linus Pauling being the only individual in history to

Dear postgraduate students,

Dear respected scholars,

Congratulations of being chosen to pursue a postgraduate degree in the University of Malaya, a top 100

university in the world and top 20 university in Asia Pacific in 2019.

You are the crème of the crop of all postgraduate students among all local universities. There are many good

students from overseas who are trying to get into a postgraduate degree in UM especially from overseas, but are

unable to due to financial constraints and others.

On the other hand, you carry the name of the university where you graduated with a MSc or PhD.

Therefore, the expectations of a PhD/MSc graduate of UM are different (which is higher) compared to a

PhD/MSc graduate of other local universities.

From: Wan Jeffrey Basirun (PhD)

Strategies and Challenges in publishing in High Impact journals

What is High Impact?

High Impact publications or papers are published in the top 25% of the journal category, which is indexed by the Journal

Citations Reports (JCR) each year. This changes each year due to the changes in the impact factor of the journal and the

rankings of the journal in the subject category.

For example: Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) under Chemistry Multidisciplinary with a total of 170

journals listed in this category. JACS is ranked no. 8 in JCR 2019.

Therefore JACS is in the top 25% in the Chemistry Multidisciplinary category.

JACS is even ranked at the top 5% journals in this category.

The second definition of HIR is quite subjective, which refers to any journals

with high impact factor (IF) for example more than 5, even it is ranked in Q2

(top 50%) in the category or less.

Impact Factor (IF) refers to the journal not to an article in that journal. It is the

average number of citations received by an article published in that journal,

after a 2 year or 5 year publication of the article.

What are journal Impact Factors?

For example JACS has:

533512 citations in 2017, and 514759 citations in 2016

For 2 year impact factor, the total citations in 2016 and 2017 are added and divided by the total number of articles published in

2016 and 2017.

JCR reports that JACS has an IF of 14.357 in 2018, for a 2 year IF.

Same method used for the calculation of a five year IF.

So from this, you are inspired to publish your work in the

top journal of your category.

Whether it is the top 25% (Q1) or even better top 5-10%,

to:

a). make your supervisors happy, for promotion.

b). keep the research grants coming, and

c). to graduate as a high impact PhD scholar in your own

field with a distinction or best thesis award.

Therefore what are the strategies and challenges in publishing in High Impact journals?

What are the challenges in today’s publishing compared to decades ago?

Decades ago, the competition is less due to the lower number of researchers. When we in a larger pool of

researchers with a limited amount of journals which you can submit, then the competition is getting even harder.

But then it is also difficult to be cited decades ago compared to now.

https://futureoflife.org/2015/11/05/90-of-all-the-scientists-that-ever-lived-are-alive-today/?cn-reloaded=1

The total number of researchers by region

https://www.aaas.org/news/data-update-us-and-eu-rd-budgets-remain-flat-asian-investment-decelerates

These increases are largely due to funding for R&D per GDP

https://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676

This led to a rise in the number of journals especially

open-access journals with a publication fee

Selection of Journal:

1). Most important: Check the article is within scope of the journal.

2). Look at the Editorial board. Are they from different countries in different continents? Or they are from the same country.

3). Get a sample copy of the journal, check the contributing authors, whether they are from different countries or otherwise.

4). Some journals publish their list of outstanding reviewers. Take a look at the list and see if your recognize them.

5). It is always good to perform a Turnitin analysis before submitting the paper to the journal.

6). Some journals ask the authors to select their own reviewers. Before selecting reviewers, make sure you have not published

with them in the same journal or elsewhere.

Selecting the journal for submission of your manuscript

Preparing and analyzing your manuscript

1). Get all results and analyze the results. Meet with your supervisors and show your results. Do not wait for your

supervisors to compile and write the paper. Always you are the one who initiate the writing, and your supervisor

can check the manuscript. It is a good practice to learn to write a good manuscript, as a preparation to write your

thesis later.

2). Be your own Devil’s Advocate. Criticize your own paper before it is criticized by the editors and reviewers.

Discuss with your co-authors, especially with your supervisors and renowned experts in the field for some advice.

Also discuss the type of journals where the manuscript can be submitted.

3). The main conclusion must be supported by more than one type or many types of data. And all types of

characterization must point to the same conclusion. If there are simulation results, this must be supported or

compared with experimental data.

4). The flow of the manuscript is very important. You are presenting your work to world renowned reviewers who

must not be bored reading your manuscript. Therefore the main characterization data, important results pertaining

to the objective of the manuscript must be presented in the manuscript, not in the supporting information.

5). Cite your own papers if they are related to the work that you are submitting.

But try avoid useless citations, i.e. references which are cited only in the Introduction section but not cited in the

Results and Discussion and Experimental sections.

Only cite a reference in your manuscript if you are:

a). comparing your results with the results of the cited references, in the Results and Discussion section.

b). for a method of calculation or an equation in the Results and Discussion section.

c). as a reference to a synthetic method or a scheme in the Experimental section.

Preparing and analyzing your manuscript (con’t)

Write a very good Cover Letter

The Cover Letter is the first impression of the Editor when he analyzes your manuscript, not the Abstract or

the Conclusion.

In the Cover Letter try to persuade the Editor to send it for peer review.

Explain to the Editor, why is the manuscript so important to the journal.

In what ways is your manuscript is different to so many manuscript published before.

If the manuscript deals with a very important quantitative parameter (although incremental) for example a new

world record setting (such as solar cell efficiencies or the smallest particle synthesized), then state clearly to

the editor that indeed this is a new world record setting that must be reported.

If there is a correction methodology which must be published, for example to correct or enlighten an erroneous

concept which has been held as correct a few years, explain clearly in the letter the correct methodology or

concept which must be followed.

What Editors look at:

a). the publication cost for a hardcopy version is getting more expensive.

b). Only include important data in the manuscript which points to the main conclusion of the manuscript, which

answers the research objective of the manuscript. The others can be submitted as the supporting information.

c). Editors are looking for shorter manuscripts, unless the journal is Open Access with a publication cost.

d). Editors have to deal with hundreds of manuscripts submitted to the journal each month, and they have to be

very selective before sending it to peer review. Due to the large amount of manuscripts, most Editors do not even

have enough time to select potential reviewers to review the manuscript.

e). Therefore Editors always look for some weakness in your manuscript, such as language, technical errors etc,

and reject it even before peer-review.

f). Editors are always looking for manuscripts which can increase the citation rate (impact factor) of the journal.

The current view is: the best journal is the journal with the highest the impact factor or highest ranking (top 5-

10% or Q1).

What reviewers look at in a manuscript?

Questions which were asked to me as a reviewer in a top 10% journal in its own category:

In your review please make an objective assessment of the technical rigor, originality and overall clarity of the paper, as well as

the level of advancement in research that the work offers.

1. Is the paper relevant to the readership of the Journal? [Yes/No]

2. Does the paper offer important new insights, conceptual advancements or novel applications over previously published

work? [Yes/No]

3. Does the paper give a complete description of the experimental methods and procedures so that these could be reproduced by

others in the field? [Yes/No]

4. Is the level of written English appropriate for publication? [Yes/No]

5. Is this paper in the top fifth (20%) of papers in its field? [Yes/No]

6. If not, could this paper be improved with appropriate revisions to become part of the top fifth of papers in its field? [Yes/No]

What is your recommendation regarding publication in the Journal? [Reject/Major Revision/Minor Revision/Accept]

Couldn’t publish your work in high impact (IF) factor journals?

Don’t worry, because the current IF metric refers to the impact of the Journal, not to the impact of your

article

What is more important is the impact of your article, not the impact factor of the journal which your article is

published.

A new metric is needed to measure the impact of the articles.

The best metric is the Article Impact Factor (AIF), not Journal Impact Factor (JIF):

If an article is published in a journal, then it is the total number of citations that article has obtained in 2 years

divided by the number 2, for a 2 year AIF.

Or the total number of citations that article has obtained in 5 years divided by the number of 5, for a 5 year AIF.

Is JIF is a relevant or a significant metric?

The citation distributions are so skewed that up to 75% of the articles in any given journal had lower citation

counts than the journal's average number.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/hate-journal-impact-factors-new-study-gives-you-one-more-

reason Netizens have called Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings into question after

the 2018 list of top universities ranks Nanyang Technological University (NTU) as the 11th best

university in the world, ahead of Ivy League schools like Princeton, Cornell, Yale and Columbia.

This also makes NTU the best university in Asia, having beaten the National University of

Singapore (NUS) for the honor. NUS slipped to the 15th spot this year after holding on to 12th

place in 2016 and 2017.

NTU ranks ahead of Princeton, Cornell, Yale and Columbia in 2018 QS results: “really shady”?

June 9, 2017

[http://www.theindependent.sg/ntu-ranks-ahead-of-princeton-cornell-yale-and-columbia-in-2018-qs-results-really-

shady/]

As of October 2018, Caltech alumni, faculty and researchers include 73 Nobel Laureates (chemist Linus Pauling

being the only individual in history to win two unshared prizes).

QS rankings are based on number of citations per document. Therefore You don’t have to be the world most cited

researcher to become a Nobel Laureate.

The performance of Faculty of Science

Inst/

Jabatan 2016 2017 Oktober 2018 November 2018 November 2017

ISB 310 293 241 276 273

ISM 80 74 35 37 66

Kimia 353 243 149 164 223

Fizik 438 411 282 323 381

Geologi 45 36 14 14 36

S&T 18 14 14 14 12

Jumlah 1244 1071 735 828 991

Inst/Jab (no. staff) Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 NA Total

@2018

ISB (91) 101 67 58 47 3 276

ISM (33) 8 6 12 11 - 37

Kimia (53) 46 63 32 23 - 164

Fizik (33) 233 45 36 9 - 323

Geologi (13) 5 3 3 3 - 14

S&T (11) 8 3 - 2 1 14

Jumlah& 401 187 141 95 4 828

%Tier JCR 48.4 22.6 17.0 11.5 0.5

What is more important is the number of Citations per document and not the number of documents.

Journal impact factors are influenced heavily by a small number of highly cited papers. In general, most papers published in

2013–14 received many fewer citations than indicated by the impact factor. Two journals (Nature [blue], PLOS One [orange])

are shown to represent a highly cited and less cited journal, respectively. Note that the high citation impact of Nature is derived

from relatively few highly cited papers. E. Callaway, Nature 535 (2016) 210-211.

Is JIF is a relevant or a significant metric? Con’t

Is JIF is a relevant or a significant metric? Con’t

E. Callaway, Publishing lite turns against impact factor,

Nature 535 (2016) 210-211.

As in most Capitalist countries, 95% of the wealth is held by

5% of the population which is responsible for the wealth gap.

The average salary of a country cannot be used to judge

whether a country is a rich or poor country.

Then in a sample of 10 people, if 9 of them earns RM 10 per

day, while only one earns RM 1000 per day. Then the average

salary of all of them is RM 109 per person every day. When in

fact, 90% of the people (9 in a sample of 10) suffers a deficit

of RM 109 – RM 10 = RM 99.

Which means that 90% suffers a deficit of almost 10 times of

what they actually earn!

Micromagnetic resonance relaxometry for rapid label-free malaria diagnosis,

Nature Medicine, 20 (90 (2014) 1069-1073. 10.1038/nm.3622

Journal IF (2 year) = 32.621 Journal IF (5 year) = 33.409

JCR® Category Rank in

Category

Quartile in

Category

BIOCHEMISTRY &

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 1 of 293 Q1

CELL BIOLOGY 2 of 190 Q1

MEDICINE, RESEARCH &

EXPERIMENTAL 1 of 133 Q1

From 2014 until now = 38 citations

From 2014 until 2016 (2 year) = 27 citations

Article IF = 27/2 = 13.5

JCR® Category Rank in

Category

Quartile in

Category

CHEMISTRY,

MULTIDISCIPLINARY 8 of 171 Q1

Electronic Control of the Protonation Rates of Fe-Fe Bonds,

J. American Chemical Society, 136 (37) (2014) 13038-13044. 10.1021/ja506693m.

Journal IF (2 year) = 14.357 Journal IF (5 year) = 13.613

Citations from 2014 until 2018 = 16

Citations from 2014 to 2016 (2 years) = 10 times

Article IF = 10/2 = 5

Most or all Nobel Laureates in Chemistry have papers in JACS.

JCR® Category Rank in

Category

Quartile

in

Category

CHEMISTRY, ANALYTICAL 7 of 81 Q1

ELECTROCHEMISTRY 4 of 28 Q1

INSTRUMENTS &

INSTRUMENTATION 2 of 61 Q1

One-step hydrothermal green synthesis of silver nanoparticle-carbon nanotube reduced-graphene oxide composite

and its application as hydrogen peroxide sensor,

Sensors and Actuators B-Chemical, 208 (2015) 389-398.

IF (2 years) = 5.667 IF (5 years) = 5.118

From 2015 until now = 88 citations From 2015 to 2017 (2 years) = 64 citations

AIF (2 years) = 64/2 = 32

Clathration of two-dimensional coordination polymers: Synthesis and structures of [M(4,4 '-

bpy)(2)(H2O)(2)](ClO4)(2)center dot(2,4 '-bpy)(2)center dot H2O and [Cu(4,4 '-

bpy)(2)(H2O)(2)](ClO4)(4)center dot(4,4 '-H(2)Bpy) (M = Cd-II, Zn-II and bpy = bipyridine),

Inorganic Chemistry, 37 (2000) 2645-2650. 10.1021/ic9714293.

JIF (2 years) = 4.7 JIF (5 years) = 4.513

JCR® Category Rank in Category Quartile in

Category

CHEMISTRY,

INORGANIC &

NUCLEAR

5 of 45 Q1

From 2000 until 2018 = 438 citations

From 2000 until 2002 (2 years) = 45 citations, AIF (2 years) = 45/2 = 22.5

From 2000 until 2005 (5 years) = 174 citations, AIF (5 years) = 174/5 = 34.8

Plan your future accordingly:

a). Choose a research topic in your PhD and post-doctorate studies which you are sure will carry on for another 30-

40 years so that you will be recognized as an expert when you reach there.

b). do not choose a research topic which will eventually expire or become obsolete in the future, although this is

difficult to predict.

Rudolf Mossbauer

1961 Nobel laureate in Physics

2000 and onwards

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

is a better technique

Kai Siegbahn

1981 Nobel laureate in Physics

Mossbauer spectroscopy

After 1961

Cathodic Ray Tube (CRT)

30 years ago

Now

LCD, LED, OLED, AMOLED, Plasma

Modern research are all multidisciplinary – it is all about teamwork,

nobody works alone

Choose a research field which you can collaborate extensively with others from other disciplines

Plan in for collaborations the University and outside, especially foreign renowned universities

Therefore seek collaborations with renowned researchers.

Seek research collaborations with Academic Icons (with H-Index of more than 25) and High Centre of Excellence

(HiCoE) in the university.

World’s best all round players but never won the World Cup

Like modern research, football is all about

TEAMWORK

Thank you for your attention

Dr. Wan Jeffrey Basirun (PhD),

M030, Department of Chemistry, University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia.

[email protected], [email protected]

http://fs.um.edu.my/department-institute/department-of-chemistry

http://umexpert.um.edu.my/jeff

Tel: +603 7967 4082 / 012 9354 200

Fax: +603 7967 4193