A Pocket Guide to Scientific Writing in Aquaculture Research

Rodrigue Yossa

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000473186
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Technik, Forschung & Kompetenzen

Writing for a high-quality scientific aquaculture publication is challenging, and many students and early career aquaculture scientists find the task daunting.

Expanding on his popular workshop on Improving Scientific Writing at the 2017 World Aquaculture conference, Rodrigue Yossa provides new researchers with all the tools they need to write abstracts and a variety of articles (original, research reports, magazines, working papers, conference proceedings and more). He also takes the reader step-by-step through the process of reviewing submitted manuscripts and replying to reviewers, as well as understanding research ethics. Each section is accompanied by examples, and attention is focused on providing advice on grammar, how to focus your paper and possible loopholes when writing.

A Pocket Guide to Scientific Writing in Aquaculture Research offers a lifeline to aquaculture students and early career researchers getting a grasp on the basics of science communication through writing.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.1201/9780429322648-1

To write or not to write?

Although publishing is the bread and butter of any scientist, writing a publishable scientific manuscript is a struggle for many. The reality is that writing is essential in any scientific discipline, including aquaculture science, because “If it is not written down, it didn’t happen”. Moreover, publishing observations, facts and findings legitimizes a creation and establishes propriety. Every other person using the idea is bound to acknowledge the source of this idea by citing its author. Publication also defines productivity. Authors who publish many articles are regarded as “highly productive” and more likely to receive promotions and other accolades.

Writing combines inspiration, patience, imagination and hard work. Inspiration is subjective, as people get their inspiration from diverse sources reading, isolation, meditation, prayers, drinking, etc. Writing is time-consuming and involves many rounds of rewriting, editing and review, involving blood, sweat and tears. Thomas Edison said “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” and “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”. Imagination is the result of deep thinking, vision and/or creativity. Albert Einstein once said that “imagination is more important than knowledge”. Imagination is necessary during the identification and expression of the research question, during the design of the experiment, including the definition of treatments and setting of the experiment (upstream), and during the writing of the manuscript, especially in the discussion section (downstream).

Writing an aquaculture manuscript is the last activity in the scientific research cycle, as it only happens once the experiment and the hard work that is related to the execution of the aquaculture experiment on-station or on-farm is completed, and the results are deemed relevant to the end users. It is worth noting that the end users of the message contained in an aquaculture article are not necessarily the readers of the articles. The readers could be farmers, academics, extension services, policy makers, government officers or any other person who can read, understand the message and then relay it directly or indirectly to the farmers, feed millers, etc. for use.

Although there are many types of publications, including peer-reviewed articles, research report, working papers, conference abstract, articles in conference proceedings and technical articles published in magazines, which will all be covered in this book, the peer-reviewed articles are still considered as the highest ranking publication resulting from a single experimentation. The peer review is the process used by editors and publishers of academic journals to invite independent scientists (peer reviewers) to evaluate manuscripts submitted for publication. A successful peer review of a manuscript leads to its acceptance and publication, while an unsuccessful peer review leads to its rejection and therefore no publication. Peer review is an important way to spread significant advances in knowledge in the aquaculture community because the quality of the overall scientific work, presentation of research and results and novelty of findings are validated by peers prior to publication. Peer review publication is also the process through which scientific research is given legitimacy. The number of published peer-reviewed articles, the quality of the journal where they have been published and the number of article citations are commonly used by universities and research institutions in the evaluation of scientific productivity of an aquaculture scientist or researcher (Hayer et al. 2013). Along with the rise of the aquaculture industry, the number of international scientific journals dealing with aquaculture has increased from less than ten just a few decades ago to over 130 nowadays.

Aquaculture is predominantly an affair of less-industrialized economies. Despite the dominance of, particularly, Asia in terms of fish production and consumption, the technology that drives productivity and efficiency is derived from scientific research that is largely conducted and published in Europe and North America. Less than 20% of the world’s population lives in the 34 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), but out of the total of 139,257 engineering and technology papers published in 2007, almost 60% came from OECD countries (UNESCO 2010). However, over the last decade, we have seen more and more published papers whose authors are based in Asia. For instance, the science and engineering publication output of China rose by fivefold between 2003 and 2016, and China output in terms of absolute publication quantity is now comparable to that of the United States (NSF 2017).

1.1 Why Writing Matters

Authors write scientific papers for many reasons, including the willingness to share their knowledge, personal pride, recognition, financial incentive, institutional visibility, graduation, promotion, job applications and fund raising. Some authors are very happy to dedicate their time and energy to sharing the extensive experience that they have acquired on one or several subjects over time with a large audience through articles or books. The best example who comes to my mind while writing this book is Professor Claude Boyd of Auburn University, who is a regular contributor on topics related to water and pond soil not only in peer review journals, books and book chapters but also in popular aquaculture magazines. Some authors are proud to have their names attached to publications, to be recognized as published authors and to have their names appearing in online search engines with a link to a published title that they have authored or co-authored. Some professional aquaculture authors make a living through writing and receive a pay check for every article that they contribute to aquaculture journals or magazines; whereas, other authors receive financial incentives in the form of bonuses every time they publish peer-reviewed articles, book chapters or books, as is the case in some African, South American and Asian universities and research organizations where publications improve the image and visibility of the employer (organizations). A certain number of publications is required for graduation from academic institutions especially at the graduate level (MSc and PhD) and for professional promotion. The expression “publish or perish” describes well the pressure of publishing articles that is on the shoulders of the scientific community. Some universities or academic advisors ask students to publish at least one article for an MSc and two for a PhD, as a minimum requirement for graduation. The promotion from Associate Scientist to Junior Scientist to Scientist to Senior Scientist and to Principal Scientist, and from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor to Professor are all associated with a certain number of publications that demonstrate the scientific and academic maturity of the applicant. Furthermore, the number and the quality of publications represent an important criterion when selecting candidates for scholarships, university admission and aquaculture jobs. Many scientists are scored on the basis of their scientific publications during the evaluation of grant proposals by the funding agencies. The more prolific authors, who have authored or co-authored many referred articles, would thus score high and have more chances to have their grant proposals funded.

Despite the popularity of scientific publications, it is still considered inappropriate to ask a scientist or a professor how many articles she/he has published, because there is no established threshold on the number of publications that can be considered as good or bad. For the same reason, it is considered arrogant to boast about the total number of articles that you have published. It is however acceptable to create a blog or webpage or ResearchGate account or Google scholar account where you compile your publications, because only people who are interested in your scientific productivity will be inclined to check your publication list.

1.2 Who Should Write Publications

Everyone is authorized to submit peer-reviewed or non-peer-reviewed aquaculture manuscripts for publication, irrespective of one’s race, academic qualification, professional affiliation, work experience, religion, country of origin, political aspirations, mother tongue, etc., as long as the content of the submitted manuscript is aligned with the scope of the receiving journal and the text is edited as per the instructions for authors, available on the journal’s website. The focus of the review process is not the authors but rather the material (manuscript, cover letter, etc.) submitted to the receiving journal for review and publication. It is thus important that the topic covered by the manuscript contains original information, advances knowledge on the topic and presents the results generated through a rigorous scientific approach.

Some journals have a scope that is specific to one research area, such as Aquaculture Nutrition and Aquaculture Economics & Management, while other journals are more general and accept papers covering a wide range of aquaculture topics, including Aquaculture, Aquaculture Research, Journal of Applied Aquaculture, Journal of the World Aquaculture Society, etc. Journals usually accept manuscripts written in only one language, with English being the most popular, although some journals still receive manuscripts written in French (Tropicultura, Cahier de la Méditerranée and Aquatic Living Resources), Spanish (AquaTIC, Acta Agronómica, Limnetica and Boletín del Instituto Español de Oceanografía), Portuguese (Acta Fisheries and Aquaculture, Acta Scientiarum. Animal Sciences, Boletim do Laboratório de Hidrobiologia, Acta Iguazu and Arquivos de Pesquisa Animal), German (Archives Animal Breeding), Japanese (Aquaculture Science and Nippon Suisan Gakkaishi), Korean (Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences and Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology), and Mandarin (Journal of Fishery Sciences of China, Fisheries Science & Technology Information and Fisheries Science). English is popular in the scientific aquaculture community, as it is generally considered to be the “language of science”. For most of the scientists in the world, English is not their first language, but this should not prevent them from being widely published. Scientific writing tools and techniques are the same irrespective of the language because scientific principles are rigorous, not flexible and not sensitive to the scientist’s mother tongue.

The instruction for authors dictates the way the main text, figures, tables and artwork must be edited and presented prior to the submission of the aquaculture manuscript. The instructions for authors provide information on the scope of the aquaculture journal, the type of English to use (e.g., American English versus British English), the main sections of the manuscript, the reference style to be used both in the text and the reference list and the format of the units of measure such as the metric system, the imperial system and the International System of Units. It is important to strictly follow the instructions for authors while preparing the manuscript to avoid an immediate rejection of the manuscript following the submission, without sending it further for peer review.

1.3 What Is Writing Well?

Although everyone has the right to write an aquaculture manuscript, not everybody knows what writing in aquaculture research and science is really about and how to write in the way that increases the chances of the manuscript getting into print. That is probably why most submitted manuscripts are rejected, and many experienced aquaculture scientists and educators complain about the quality of the papers that are published and made available in the public domain by “predatory journals”, which can be defined as paid journals that care more about making money than publishing papers that contribute to the advancement of knowledge. Although the authors cannot always be blamed for publishing low-quality research, they can be blamed for low-quality writing. I strongly believe that some authors just don’t invest enough time in learning how to write well and take advantage of the availability of predatory publishers to push out low-quality papers, which have been rejected by “serious” journals.

1.4 What This Book Will Do for You

Although there is nothing such as best writing, there is a way of editing and presenting an aquaculture manuscript that is considered as good practice by reviewers and editors and makes your research easy to understand. This book is written with the intention of improving the way less-experienced aquaculture scientists and students approach writing or changing the “bad” writing habits of seasoned researchers who struggle to get into top-flight journals. This book argues that a good presentation of an aquaculture manuscript, using appropriate writing tools and techniques, will increase the chances for getting accepted and published. wwwguarantee that the paper will be accepted, as the originality of the research, a sound methodology and a suitable choice of receiving journal, among other factors, are also important determinants of the acceptance of a manuscript for publication. Taking this into account, this book will provide the reader with the elements that are needed to appropriately plan and execute the writing of aquaculture manuscripts, including peer-reviewed manuscripts, scientific research reports, working papers, abstracts for aquaculture conferences, manuscripts for conference proceedings and technical manuscripts for aquaculture magazines, with a special emphasis on writing peer-reviewed aquaculture manuscripts. The reader will also receive insights on how to effectively submit aquaculture manuscripts to academic journals, review manuscripts for an academic aquaculture journals, respond to reviewer’s comments and manage a manuscript writing project.

2 Principles of Scientific Writing

DOI: 10.1201/9780429322648-2

Scientific writing is both an art and a science.

Scientific writing is both an art and a science. It is an art because it tells the story of a set of scientific aquaculture activities and presents the findings in a way that keeps the reader awake and willing to keep reading. It is a science because the writing principles are rigorous and non-flexible and specific parts of the aquaculture manuscript such as the introduction, the materials and methods and the discussion cannot be skipped or ignored in any original research article. In order to clearly tell the story of the research that led to aquaculture findings, the aquaculture manuscript should be written using the available best practices to pragmatically frame the manuscript and avoid loopholes.

2.1 How to Frame and Focus a Paper

Each manuscript should focus on advancing knowledge on one subject, by providing solutions or tentative solutions to the research problem addressed. It is important to clearly define the research problem in a way that presents the extent of the problem and describes previous approaches to tackle the problem. For instance, if the authors want to talk about a new natural substances to treat a fish disease, the author could start with an opposite approach to disease treatment in aquaculture, that is the use of chemical and medicine, then present the limitation of the use of medicines and then gradually move toward the use of natural products and their beneficial effect. As such, a way to frame a paper is to first introduce the current way of dealing with the problem and then introduce the new idea that will either be confirmed or disproved through the research that will be described in the subsequent sections of the manuscript. Such a focus on the main subject of the manuscript could be illustrated in the way sentences are written. Using the same example previously, every sentence that has the “natural substance” ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Author
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Principles of Scientific Writing
• 3 Ethics in Scientific Writing
• 4 Writing a Peer-Reviewed Original Article
• 5 Manuscript Submission
• 6 Reviewing a Manuscript for a Peer-Reviewed Journal
• 7 Preparing Authors' Responses to Reviewers' and Editors' Comments
• 8 Writing a Research Report
• 9 Writing a Working Paper
• 10 Writing a Conference Abstract
• 11 Writing an Article for Conference Proceedings
• 12 Writing a Technical Article for a Magazine
• 13 Overview on Managing a Manuscript Writing Project
• 14 Practical Considerations to Improve Scientific Writing Skills
• 15 Conclusion
• References
• Index