Publish & Share

• Pose a question that is answerable and worth exploring - constituting new research or filling a gap in the literature
• Have a clear focus on a topic - the main point of the paper will be an answer to the central question posed
• Review and synthesize existing evidence that is well documented and credited
• Draw conclusions and provide a discussion
• Provide suggestions for further research endeavours

Structure

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides guidance on Preparing a Manuscript for Submission to a Medical Journal, including detailed information on structuring your manuscript. As ICMJE notes, articles reporting original research tend to follow the same general "IMRAD" structure: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.

Reporting guidelines

Most study designs have reporting guidelines that will affect the content and structure of your article. For example, PRISMA for systematic reviews and CONSORT for randomised controlled trials. Ensure that your article addresses all items on the relevant reporting checklist. You can find reporting guidelines for various study designs on the EQUATOR Network website.

Impact of article type

The type of article also influences its format, e.g. a meta-analysis will be structured differently to a case report.

Journal requirements

You will also need to consider the individual requirements of the journal that you will be submitting your manuscript to. Check author guidelines for the publications you are submitting to.

Become familiar with common reference styles and how to maintain a working bibliography using EndNote or other reference management software.

Referencing

Referencing, also called citing, is a systematic way to acknowledge the sources you have used in your research.

To reference appropriately you must follow the referencing style required by your discipline or the style required by the journal you are submitting to. Check the author guidelines for each journal title for referencing style guidance.

EndNote

Access to EndNote Online is free. Get started here. Training and support resources are available on the tutorials & guides page.

Common referencing styles

• APA 7 Style Guide – UoN Libguide
• APA Style for beginners: High school, college, and beyond
• Academic writer tutorial: Basics of seventh edition APA style - overview
• Vancouver Guide – UoN Libguide
• Harvard Guide – UoN Libguide
• JAMA Style – UoN Libguide

More information from UoN

• Referencing & Citations Management
• About referencing

Peer review

Four principles underscore a robust peer review process (Hooper, M, et.al (2018). Journal Peer Review):

1. Fairness – peer review should provide a fair, clear, constructive, objective and accurate assessment
2. Competence – Peer review should be performed by academics who are sufficiently competent in the field to make an informed assessment
3. Transparency – Authors and reviewers should be transparent about any perceived or actual conflicts of interests
4. Confidentiality – Reviewers should maintain confidentiality about the content of the work, and not use information obtained by peer review for personal advantage

Details of the peer review process should be available on a journal webpage for consultation prior to submission.

Beware Predatory Publishers

Predatory publishers skip peer review or only provide rudimentary checks. It is important to check if a publisher’s peer review policy is available and well-explained before you submit your work. Although it is easier to get articles published through predatory publishing it is risky as authors may suffer irreparable reputation damage.

Rules to remember

• Always attribute when referring to another creators work
• Link or refer to original material - do not re-reproduce
• Do not link to infringing material
• If in doubt seek written consent from the copyright owner

Tips

• To add a copyright symbol to your document press Ctrl + Alt + C. Whilst this will not necessarily secure copyright it alerts others that copyright is claimed in your work
• The duration of copyright is generally 70 years after the year of publication
• More information is available from Office for Health and Medical Research – Intellectual Property arising from Health Research

Online resources

• Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) – the law governing copyright in Australia
• National and State resources on copyright: guidelines, position statements and example policies and procedures
• Australian Government – Short guide to copyright: published online November 2016

Organisations

• Australian Copyright Council: resources on copyright law and training opportunities
• Copyright Agency: provides and manages copyright licensing schemes to Australian organisations
• Screenrights: rights system for the screen industry - providing a mechanism for education institutions to copy these materials

Requesting copies from the Library

Libraries are able to supply you with copies of material under exceptions in the Act related to libraries, research, study, education and professional advice. We supply this material within the following limits:

• One chapter or 10% of a book (whichever is greater)
• One article from a journal issue, or more than one if the articles are on the same topic.

Whilst using library resources, computers, scanners and photocopies you may also copy/scan within the same limits - one chapter of a book or 10% of the work, whichever is greater.

To request copies of material from the library, such as journal articles or book chapters, complete our online request form. 

Images

• All images must be verified as licensed
• Attribute to the original creator/photographer and source
• If you cannot verify the source of an image, it should not be used
• Don’t trust online licenses unless the image was posted by the original photographer or creator
• If you cannot find a suitable licensed free image, pay for stock photography

Sources of images

• Wikimedia Commons
• Homepage - Creative Commons

Creative Commons licences - Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation and platform that provides creators with options to share their work so others may re-use it and build on the creativity.  

Tips

• When using Creative Commons material always attribute the author regardless of licence and state the title of the work
• Provide information about where the original work is hosted, or a direct link.

Online resources

• Creative Commons : international site, includes the licence-choosing tool and CC search
• Creative Commons Australia: website for Creative Commons in Australia and Australian CC licences

Search tools

• Flickr Advanced Search or Flickr: Creative Commons subset of the Flickr images
• Google Advanced Image Search: use the "usage rights" filter to select images labelled for re-use and other options.

Researcher profiles  

A researcher identifier is a unique identifier used by authors, publishers, universities and corporations to match authors to their research outputs.  

Researcher identifiers can assist with name ambiguity problems caused by: 

• Shared names – often more than one researcher in the same field can share the same name
• Different versions of names – for example, full name versus just initials. As far as possible, use the same version of your name consistently throughout your career
• Transliteration of names, accents and diacritics  
• Name changes - researchers should try to use a unique name consistently throughout their academic career. If a name is common, consider adding an initial

ORCID: stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID. It is a unique, permanent identifier that is portable and will travel with a researcher throughout their career, across organisations, institutions, and countries.  

The aim of ORCID is to automate linkages to research outputs such as publications, grants, datasets, patents, and other identifiers, linking these all to the researcher.

An ORCID can be used in the following situations:

• When submitting research outputs to a publisher
• Media stories
• On websites and anywhere a researcher has a public profile
• On CVs
• Email signatures

Create an ORCID

Information about other researcher profile sites for sharing your research is available via the UoN Library Researcher profiles and networks libguide

Persistent Identifiers

A persistent identifier (PI or PID) is a long-lasting reference to a document, file, web page, or other digital object. Most PIDs have a unique identifier which is linked to the current address, or location, of the metadata or content. Unlike URLs, PIDs are often provided by services that allow you to update the location of the object so that the identifier consistently points to the right place without breaking.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): is a unique alphanumeric string that identifies content and provides a persistent link to its location on the Internet. While a web address (URL) might change, the DOI will never change. DOI numbers start with a 10 followed by a full stop and contain a prefix and a suffix separated by a slash: doi:10.xxxx/xxxxx. Often, a publisher assigns a DOI when an article is published and made available electronically and they are increasingly being used for final data sets. 

Research metrics: Information on measuring and visualising the impact of publications using a range of metrics and tools is available via the UoN Library Research metrics libguide

Information about promoting your research using social media is available here.

Data sharing

Sharing research findings and research data allows others to build upon research already conducted. In the health sciences, this can help to increase the translation of research into practice and improve patient care. For a number of ethical, legal, and privacy reasons, sharing data from clinical research tends to be more complex than sharing research data from other disciplines, such as life sciences.

You may need ethics approval to share data. Additional approvals may need to be sought to re-use existing data. Check with the HNELHD Research Office.

Practical Guidance on data sharing is available from the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC).

Data preservation

Funders, institutions and publishers will have strict requirements specifying how data should be preserved long-term. It is important to check these requirements on acceptance of funding.

Values underpinning the preservation of data are:

• Unique data should be stored in such a way it cannot be replaced or replicated
• Data should be verified by the researchers as authoritative and correct to support sound research
• Legal requirements are complied with, eg. Copyright

The following organisations provide guidance on preservation formats and best practice for data storage.

• Australian Research Data Commons - provides useful information relating to data preservation including tools and frameworks for assessing preservation needs
• National Archives of Australia (NAA) - a valuable guideline on long-term file formats
• Preservation Management of Digital Materials: The Handbook - maintained by the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) in collaboration with the National Library of Australia and the PADI Gateway, this handbook is a practical guide to managing digital resources over time and ensuring long term access to them
• The National Archives - Digital Preservation Guidance Note: Selecting File Formats for Long-Term Preservation - covers the selection and evaluation of file formats for long-term preservation

Information on accessing, reusing, and citing research is also available from the UoN Manage Data Libguide.

Disposal of data

Disposal of digital research data: Data disposal (also called destruction or disposition) is the process of rendering your data unreadable. You may need to dispose of your data once your project is complete or has reached its retention period to ensure privacy and security or comply with government or institutional regulations.  

Disposal of physical research data: Placing physical research data items in a physical bin or shredding them does not ensure that they are adequately disposed of. HNELHD has secure document disposal bins that can be used to dispose of paper-based research data appropriately.