Hurdles of publication: to authors to overcome.

The experience of work in BioImpacts and direct involvement in whole the process of publication inspired us to tackle here the dimensions which we recognize as problematic areas in publication, namely, scientific setbacks, language and technical issues. Authors besides readers as competent future authors are urged not to neglect the significance of well-writing either through considering the language-associated issues or attending the technical matters besides enriching the scientific content. The article offers a scope for the authors to manifest themselves, hence we suggest how to best appear in this play.

BioImpacts launched publication process in 2011; however the study phase and evaluation stages had sparkled several years earlier. A platform was to be established to wrap up bioimpacts of events occurring in the wide world of biological and biomedical research. Tackling such a broad domain was a vulnerable task, however the perspectives were adamant and indispensable. The views were converged to focus on publishing a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary international journal that would cover at last but not least aspects of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences which aimed as follows at molecular, cellular, functional and translational levels:

Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary advanced sciences applied in translational medicines

Nanotechnology and biotechnology impacts in biomedical sciences

Biophysics, bio-electronics (e.g., biophotonic) and lab-on-chip towards molecular detection/sensing and therapy

Integration of advanced approaches in the context of “omics” (genomics, proteomics, cytomics and metabolomics) technologies for impacts of high throughout assays

Biomaterial and natural products impacts in biomedical sciences and life sciences including mechanism(s) of the action of natural products

Cell and gene therapy, tissue engineering and stem cells impacts in regenerative medicines

Translation of the basic biomedical/pharmaceutical sciences into in vivo applications

Impacts of biological modeling and bioinformatics in life sciences

Clinical trials in human subjects

The toddling kid in primary years, BioImpacts, has now brought up to a young adult and streaks even whizzes past the achievements one after another.

The staggering fortune of work in BioImpacts has brought us so valuable an experience and idea that deserves to be pooled. The addressees are often those who are concerned with publication as author or readers who like to tread in writing now and then. Given that the scientific content of a paper quite deserves it to be considered for publication, it is the necessary not sufficient condition. Besides the scientific evaluations, technical considerations are of so an importance that not attending them may result in disappointing rejection. This occurs in cases that problems in technical considerations hinder the thorough comprehension of the content.

Problematic dimensions in publication

Three dimensions are to be encompassed here which are the first-hand experience of ours, who have been precisely dragged into publication: scientific setbacks, language, and technical issues ( Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

Problematic dimensions in publication

Scientific setbacks

What is worded here under the subtitle of scientific setbacks is not the precise engagement of ours as the managing and production editors, but a narration of what scientific editors as leading chiefs and reviewers as analyzers and commentators of scientific masterworks of authors grapple with. Although we apt to draw most attention on dimensions that we are right concerned with, dropping a hint may assist. Reviewers and editors count on the experiment to be neatly and systematically designed and conducted and painstakingly discussed, data to be elaborately presented and reproducibly expressed. Further, they put their foot down that the subject of the work be novel and original enough to point out what is not fulfilled or implied by others. All in all, authors are expected to know the ropes of what they desire to retain in the minds of readers.

Language

English language is recognized as the lingua franca to refer to the communication which occurs amongst speakers with different first languages.[1] Only one out of four users of English are known to be native speakers, hence most interactions and communications take place among non-native speakers. Accordingly, the phenomenon of “English as an international language” or “World Englishes” have been proposed.[2-4] As an implication of its international use, now English is being formed much by its non-native speakers as by its native speakers. Hence it becomes crystal clear that how an important issue could be to prepare such a paper which is to be disseminated among broad spectrum of readers from natives who like to be regarded as custodians of acceptable usage of English language[5] to non-natives.

Should we put aside somehow prejudicial policies adopted by some journals on accepting papers only from those countries whose first language is English,[6] majority of journals stress the importance of pouring out the information through a language which could be comprehensible to the readers. In simpler words, even the highly impacted scientific content is in need of the least comprehensible representation to the degree that could attract the eyes of editors who face the text for the first time. Then writers are insistently pleaded to prepare the text in a neat format including the proper syntax, lexicon, and punctuation accompanied with the appropriate semantics.

Authors are anticipated to be familiar with the terminology of biomedical and/or pharmaceutical sciences in general and that of their specific field in particular. Through that terminology, their destined meaning could be freely flowed and perhaps by wisely use of “technical words” of the related field. Indeed, an important demand is the accurate use of technical terminology. It is observed that authors often subconsciously pick out some words in place of some other, whose meanings may be similar but not precisely the same.[7] Few examples may crystallize our thrust or implication:

Augment: A more formal word that generally implies to increase by addition, often to increase something that is already of a considerable size, amount, etc.

Enhance: An evaluative word that means to add to something already attractive, worthy, or valuable, thus increasing its value.

Improve: To advance to a better state or quality; to make better.

In the meantime, misspellings recognized by Word processor either in red or green underlines should not be neglected as it could be of great help in most cases. Or the incorrect grammar pointed to by underlines should not be ignored. In most journals, authors are advised to give the manuscript be revised by a native language editor or proposed to take the benefit of edition services provided by the journals.

Technical issues

The second jeopardizing yet challenging dimension requiring the vigilant precision of the author is technical issues. By the technical issues, we mean ideally the skillful array of the scientifically-enriched content according to the style or framework of the journal to which the author desires to submit his/her masterpiece. The preliminary step which authors are expected to take is to undertake a detailed review of the elaborate “guidelines” of the destined journal. Here we desire to tackle the technical problematic areas covered under the general workflow of guidelines which authors possibly neglect and regretfully get the disappointing response of rejection based on these materials. Rejection occurs basically for cases the excess occurrence of technical problems hinders the editorial board members as well as editorial office to consider the case for further evaluation. The categories, problematic areas and suggestive comments are as follows:

The abstract is not prepared within the determined word limit.[8]

The format of preparation whether it should be structured or not, is not considered.

We understate the relevant capital versus small letters, use of abbreviations and references.

Authors may not consider that abbreviations should be completely written in their first mention and should be written in abbreviated form in subsequent mentions.

Authors copy and paste the text or symbols from other sources without deleting the background codes. This action may copy the standard samples as nonstandard or unusual symbols in authors’ text. In such cases, pasting from “notepad” or inserting from the Microsoft Word symbols would be helpful.

Authors use unusual methods in writing which neither is necessitated by journal nor it is normal in writing, like writing in several columns or using headers and footers. Following the style of journal suffices.

Authors sometimes neglect referring to tables or figures within the main text.

Authors may not consider the correct use of abbreviated form of some recognized words such as hour as h, kilogram as kg, 0C as ◦C, etc. Reference to International System of Units (SI) could give help.

Authors mistakenly use textboxes instead of table insertion.

They prepare tables of a paper in English language right-to-left instead of left-to-right.

Authors insert the captions as a row or column of table.

They insert several categories in one row or column separated by “enter” button.

Authors use graphical objects in tables.

Authors are sometimes unaware what image format exported from particular graphical software would provide the highest resolution. According to journals policies, they can export high-resolution appropriate image files.[9-12]

Authors draw charts in Microsoft Word or insert images from other sources and retain them ungrouped. This makes the figures messy and further processes like PDF creating difficult for journal office.

Authors do not use suitable software or use software with low resolution in exported file.

Authors must remind that figures comprise an important part of article. Hence they should provide figures and images with high quality for the professional community of readers. It should be further reminded that figures should solely be illustrative enough to render the specific meaning which author intends to.

Authors should not use image files which may declare competing interests to/against a specific industry, company or so.

Authors copy formulas from sources as images. Typing the formulas with proper software like MathType is recommended.

Copyright

Authors insert information (e.g., figures, tables) from other sources without permission from the owner.

Some authors usually prefer manual insertion of the references. This makes the process difficult as information may be inserted not completely. Export from databases especially known databases such as Medline is recommended. One further beneficiary aspect of export from PubMed is that abbreviations of journal titles will be correct and there will be no bother of authors to make abbreviations for journal titles.

References should be inserted by the specific style of every specific journal.

References should be checked in the last step to find possible incorrect symbols which may be inserted as a result of difference among databases from which references are exported to Endnote, RefMan, or so.

References

In conclusion, it deserves to remind that what mentioned above under dimensions of scientific setbacks, language and technical issues were the least not the last areas faced in articles. Hence, authors besides readers as potential future authors of articles are recommended not to neglect the significance of well-writing either through considering the language-related issues or the technical matters besides the rich scientific content. The article is but the manifestation or exhibition of author mind which is arrayed in the framework of meticulously and conscientiously chosen words and portrayed via artistically yet skillfully drawn images, tables and figures. We factor out here the prominence of what we phrased around scientific dimension, as we take it for granted.

Acknowledgements

The authors sincerely appreciate the Editor-in-Chief, Dr Omidi, who inflamed and indeed suggested projecting the trajectory of BioImpacts in a miniscule yet succinct framework of this editorial. What now sticks out as BioImpacts is but, we dare to say, the ramifications of his uninterrupted endeavor and relentless determination. Further we express our heartfelt appreciation to our colleague, Farhad Shokraneh, whose selfless devotion and altruistic aids has been omnipresent and everlasting for evolusion of BioImpacts.

Ethical issues

No ethical issue to be declared.

Competing interests

None to be disclosed.