What Makes a Good Peer Review: Peer Review Week

Posted on September 20, 2016 by India Stephenson

For many academics, especially Early Career Researchers, writing a review can seem like quite a daunting task. Direct training is often hard to come by and not all senior academics have the time to act as mentors. As this week is Peer Review Week, we wanted to provide some advice on what makes a good review and what makes a bad review. This advice has been kindly provided by the Methods in Ecology and Evolution Associate Editors – all of whom are authors and reviewers as well.

The BES Guide to Peer Review in Ecology and Evolution

Before we dive into the tips from our Editors though, we want to highlight one of the best resources for anyone looking for peer review guidance – the BES Guide to Peer Review in Ecology and Evolution. This booklet is intended as a guide for Early Career Researchers, who have little or no experience of reviewing journal articles but are interested in learning more about what is involved. It provides a succinct overview of the many aspects of reviewing, from hands-on practical advice about the actual review process to explaining less tangible aspects, such as reviewer ethics. You can get the PDF version of the guide (and the other BES guides) for free on the BES website. Continue reading →

New Initial Submission Requirements

Posted on May 10, 2016 by India Stephenson

Submitting to Methods in Ecology and Evolution is now easier than ever!

Formatting manuscripts for submission can take a long time.

Formatting a manuscript for journal submission can be time-consuming and frustrating work, especially for the first version. To make things a little bit simpler for our authors, we now have just a few small formatting requirements for initial submissions.

To have a paper considered in Methods in Ecology and Evolution it just needs to:

Be double line spaced and in a single column
Be within the word count (6000-7000 words for Standard Articles, 3000 words for Applications)
Include both line and page numbers
Have a statement of where you intend to archive your data
Follow the standard manuscript structure: Author details, Abstract (must be numbered according to journal style), Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion

This means that you do not need to worry about the format of your references, the placement of your figures (they can be within the text, at the end of the document or uploaded as separate files), whether or not you have used scientific names or anything else like that. Continue reading →

Writing Manuscripts: The Alternative ‘Guide to Authors’

Posted on March 15, 2016 by India Stephenson

Post provided by EMMA SAYER

If the reviewer doesn’t get it, you haven’t explained it clearly enough! ©Chelm261

“If the reviewer doesn’t get it, you haven’t explained it clearly enough!” This is one quote from my PhD supervisor that I haven’t forgotten. Getting research funded and published depends to a very large extent on our ability to get the point across. Although scientific texts appear to differ wildly from other forms of writing, a good research paper actually follows the same basic principles of effective communication as a newspaper article or advertising text.

There are some fairly simple guidelines on presenting and structuring written information to get the point across and highlight the key messages that are very useful for manuscripts, thesis chapters, proposals, basically any kind of academic writing. At Functional Ecology, we’ve collected tips and tricks from various sources to help authors effectively communicate their research and ideas. Here are our key points:

1) Know Your Audience

A research paper is about communicating your research in a way that makes sense to others. © Vinch

The central principle for any type of communication is: know your audience. A research paper isn’t just about presenting information – it’s about communicating your research to others. When you start preparing a manuscript, you need to think about who will read it. In the first instance, this is probably a busy editor or reviewer, so you should make sure that you get your key messages across without making your readers work too hard. Good science writing isn’t about using clever-sounding words and sentences, it’s about getting the point across in such a way that readers can understand the research and reach the right conclusion (i.e. the one you want them to reach). Continue reading →

Choosing Where to Submit: Is Your Manuscript Right for MEE?

Posted on September 2, 2015 by India Stephenson

You’ve spent months, or even years, working on a project. You’ve finalised your manuscript and you’re ready to submit. But which journal should you send your paper to?

@ Colin (click image to see original)

In recent years, this question has only gotten harder. As more and more journals enter the market, the decision of where to send your paper is becoming increasingly confusing. With predatory journals muddying the waters and an increasing pressure to publish, deciding where to submit can be a daunting task for even seasoned academics.

Is Methods in Ecology and Evolution the right journal for your manuscript? Is your manuscript right for Methods? Hopefully this blog post will give you a set of tools to make that decision a little easier. Most of these can be applied to other journals too (although some may need to be tweaked a little). Continue reading →

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