Research Methodology Article Writing

7/30/2019 Research Methodology Article Writing

1/21

1

1

Article WritingResearch methodology

SATO Shin-ichi ([email protected])

2/41

Thesis a Book or a paper?

Thesis

Graduation thesis

Master thesis

Ph.D. Thesis

Researchers CV (Curriculum Vitae)

Publications

Reviewed articles

Books Thesis

Conference proceedings (International/Domestic)

Research project (Budget)

Classes (Lectures)

Patents

Awards

Academic society


2/21

2

3/41

Thesis a Book or a paper?

A thesis is categorized as a book in CV for a researcher,but the contents is rather close to a scientific paper

Conclusions

Each chapter must be an originalcontents of the author

Introduction

Preface

Acknowledgments

Table of contents

As a bookAs a scientific paper

4/41

Articles previously published are good database

We are not in the Department of Literature, so we don tneed to care about the expression style very much.

Actually what we need is the precise expression asscientific paper which enable a reader to repeat yourexperiments only with the information in your article

(= Reproducibility).

You may copy the sentences from the previous (good)articles (But dont copy the contents of the otherauthors..)


3/21

3

5/41

Contents of an article

Abstract: Provide the information which readers want toread

Introduction: Motivation, previous studies, andassumption (purpose of the study)

Procedure: The important thing is Reproducibility

Results: Describe the behavior of the data collected

Discussion: Describe the reason why the above resultshappened.

Conclusions: The findings of the study. The purpose ofthe study has been archived?

References: Usually a reader checks the abstract, figs.

and references first.

6/41

Introduction


4/21

4

7/41

Introduction

Motivation of the study

Describing the present situation in the relatedfield

What is the problem?/What is needed?

Previous studies

Past tense: Specific author(s)

Past participle: General condition

Purpose of the study (Objectives)

The purpose of the present study is to

investigate In the present study, was investigated

8/41

Typical verbs in Introduction section

Find the verbs (except for be and have):

The author(s) + verb

the passive voice + by author(s)


5/21

5

9/41

Typical verbs in Introduction section

Find the verbs (except for be and have): The author(s) + verb

the passive voice + by author(s)

Show (The author) showed /was shown by (the author)

Find (The author) found /was found by (the author)

Investigate (The author) investigated /was investigated by (theauthor)

Propose (The author) proposed /was proposed by (the author)

Conduct (The author) conducted /was conducted by (the author)

Use (The author) used /was used by (the author)

Determine (The author) determined /was determined by (theauthor)

Evaluate (The author) evaluated /was evaluated by (the author)

Propose (The author) proposed /was proposed by (the author)

Define (The author) defined /was defined by (the author)

Suggest (The author) suggested /was suggested by (the author)

10/41

The words However and Therefore in Introduction

(previous studies)

However,

has not still fully investigated yet.(Though, Although, Despite)

Therefore, it is needed to investigate

In other words, if you cannot describe howeversentence, you dont need to write an article


6/21

6

11/41


The previous research results investigating the interactionbetween acoustic and visual stimuli in theaters are still limitedin their applicability and generalizability. Therefore, there is aneed to further investigate the effects of acoustic and visualinformation on the subjective evaluations of concert hall andtheater experiences.

However, their investigation only used singing voices with astationary amplitude and pitch, and the music signals analyzedby the r-ACF were therefore limited. Studies on therelationship between subjective preferences and the ACF of thesource signals used musical pieces with durations ofonly a fewseconds, and most of the music signals were comprised of a

single instrument and vocal signals.Therefore, this study investigates the r-ACF analysis of

orchestral music signals of a few minutes duration and whichshow a wide variation in tempo and composition.

12/41


Find the word:

However (Also though, although, despite)

Therefore


7/21

7

13/41

Google Scholar search

14/41


Keywords

When you type free field , thesearch result gives you the listwhich includes the word free

and field .


8/21

8

15/41


When you type free field , thesearch result gives you the listwhich exactly includes the word

free field .

16/41

Google scholar search

Search results:

free field: 32,100 hits

free sound field: 323 hits

Statistically, free filed seemscorrect.


9/21

9

17/41

PDF search

1. Make database (PDF files of your own research fields in afolder)

2. Use search menu

18/41

Tables and figures

All the tables and the figures must have a number in theorder of appearance in the main text

All the tables and figures and the tables must beexplained in the main text

Table caption is above the table

Figure caption is below the figure


10/21

10

19/41

Figures

Figure 1 shows the

As shown in Figure 1,

Relationship between x-axis and y-axis.

y-axis as a function ofx-axis (as a parameter of).

x-axis [unit]

y-axis[unit]

x-axis [unit]

y-axis[unit]

20/41

Figures

One figure caption corresponds to the one figures, thus,in the figure caption we don't use Figures 1 and 2, (ormore). Use Figure 1(a) and 1(b) ...

If there are more than two curves, bars, or sets of plotsin the figure, use the legends to distinguish them


11/21

11

21/41

Figures: Is simple best?

It depends on the authors preference, but at least:

The labels for x- and y-axis should be enough large

The figure can be printed even in grayscale (not in color)

-1.5

0.0

1.5

-1.5 0.0 1.5

Calculated scale value

Measured

scale

value

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

-1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5

Calculated scale value

Measured

scalevalue

simple complicated

22/41

Tables

Table 1 shows

is listed in Table 1. / is shown in Table 1

As listed in Table 1, /As shown in Table 1,

JASA

ACUSTICA

JSV


12/21

12

23/41

Equation

Equation does not need the caption

Put the equation number in parentheses on the rightside of the equation.

Explain all the parameters in the equation in the whereclause after the equation

Example:

The minimum distance between the microphones and the source is obtained by:

(1)

where V is the volume of the room, T is an estimation of the reverberation time and c

is the sound speed. It was chosen the sine sweep method to measure

24/41

Equations

is defined by

(Equation)

is calculated as follows

(Equation)

The formula for is

(Equation)

is represented as

(Equation)

Not only the articles published but also the textbooksshow you a good examples.


13/21

13

25/41

Reference

Describe all the items below

Journal article

All authors names

Title

Journal name

Volume number

Publication year

pages of each reference

Book

All authors names

Title

Publisher and the place (city) of publication Publication year

Chapter number (if necessary)

26/41

References

Dont forget a space after period/comma

Please be careful to use a uppercase/lowercase letters

Not all readers read the whole manuscriptAbstract, Figures, and References are (especially)important

JASA ACUSTICA

JSV


14/21

14

27

Review of an articleResearch methodology

28/41

Peer review system

The purpose of reviewing papers:

1. to ensure that the paper is of sufficient merit

2. to ensure effective communication

It is best to assume that if a reviewer failed to

understand a point you were making, that readers of thejournal will do likewise.

It is necessary to answer the comments made byreviewers in the manuscript


15/21

15

29/41

The reasons for review

Finding deficiencies in:

Technical approach & analysis

Computation

Ignorance of related research

Detecting problems such as

Style and grammar that confuse the reader

Patent or legal issues

30/41

Review process

In the early stage of review process, we sometimesreceive very severe comments, but you dont need to beshocked very much.

The review process is not the problem of the right/wronganswer. The important thing is the effective

communication between the author(s) and the reviewers.

Basically, the author must reply to all the comments ofthe reviewer. If the author tries to rebut the reviewer scomment, show enough evidence/additionaldata/references.

The best thing to improve the skill of journal articlewriting is to submit many papers and to receive manyreview comments (To make the review is also useful).


16/21

16

31/41

Communication with reviewers

The presentation for Ph.D. thesis sometimes is calleddefense.

This should be a discussion, but usually:Professors experience >> Students experience

So professors easily tend to be a side ofoffence.

The relationship between the author and the reviewerstends to become like the above (under the peer-reviewsystem).

Reviewers Authors

Reviewer makes comments onsome of authors descriptions

32/41






Reviewers Authors

Reviewer pointed out ,But author thinks


17/21

17

33/41






Reviewers Authors

Basically, accept all thecomments and modify themanuscript according to thesecomments.

34/41






Reviewers Authors

But if youre sure that thecomment is not acceptable,reject it with enough

descriptions


18/21

18

35/41

What to write for review

Title & author of paper

Summary of paper

A few sentences, it should demonstrate that youunderstand the paper

Good things about the paper

It is strongly recommended if the review is critical

Major comments

Authors assumption and Technical approach

Analysis and Results

Conclusions and References should be discussed

Suggestions of the reviewers own opinion

(importance and usage of the paper, improvementsneeded)

Minor comments

Style, figure, grammar

36/41

Checklist for a reviewer

Abstract

Does it actually summarize the paper?

Does it include the conclusions as well as thestatement of the original problem?

Is there information not presented elsewhere in thepaper?

Introduction

Does it explain why the topic is important?

Does it excessively broad?


19/21

19

37/41

Checklist for a reviewer (continued)

Body of the paper

Has the author integrated discussions of errors anduncertainties in his analysis at suitable points?

Is the level of detail reasonable? (Are too much datapresented?)

Is this the right amount of work for a paper? (Shouldthe paper be divided into two papers?)

Tables, Graphs and Figures

Is every table and graph necessary?

Do the tables contain more digits than are actually

significant?

Can the table data be presented better in a graph?

Are all figures and tables appropriately captioned andreferred to in the text?

38/41

Checklist for a reviewer (continued)

Conclusions

Is there any surprises, most important and newmaterial introduced?

References

Are all of the references old? Has the author forgotten important references?


20/21

20

39/41

Further reading

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) isone of the most active international journals onAcoustics. Its guideline includes not only the style formatbut also the attitude of article writing. It is worth reading.

40/41

Active voice and personal pronouns

In general, personal pronouns, including the tutorial we, arepreferably avoided in scholarly writing, so that the tone isimpersonal and dispassionate. In a few cases, it is appropriatethat an opinion be given or that a unique personal experiencebe related, and personal pronouns are un avoidable. Whatshould be assiduously avoided are any egotistical statementsusing personal pronouns. If a personal opinion needs to beexpressed, a preferred construction is to refer to the author inthe third person, such as: the present writer believes that ... .


21/21

41/41

Selection of references

References are typically cited extensively in the introduction,and the selection of such references can play an important rolein the potential usefulness of the paper to future readers andin the opinions that readers and reviewers form of the paper.

Demonstration of the relevance of the work is oftenaccomplished via citations, with accompanying discussion. Theimplied claims to originality can be strengthened via citations,with accompanying discussion, to prior work related to thesubject of the paper, sufficient to establish credibility that theauthors are familiar with the literature and are not duplicatingprevious published work. Unsupported assertions that theauthors are familiar with all applicable literature and that theyhave carried out an exhaustive literature survey are generallyunconvincing to the critical reader.

Documents

Research Methodology Article Writing