Tag Archives: scientific publishing

Are You Registering That? An Interview with Prof. Chris Chambers

There is no panacea for bad science, but if there were, it would certainly resemble Registered Reports. Registered Reports are a novel publishing format in which authors submit only the introduction, methods, and planned analyses without actually having collected the data. Thus, peer-review only focuses on the soundness of the research proposal and is not contingent on the “significance” of the results (Chambers, 2013). In one strike, this simple idea combats publication bias, researchers’ degrees of freedom, makes apparent the distinction between exploratory and confirmatory research, and calms the researcher’s mind. There are a number of journals offering Registered Reports, and this is arguable the most important step journals can take to push psychological science forward (see also King et al., 2016). For a detailed treatment of Registered Reports, see here, here, here, and Chambers (2015). Continue reading →

Fabian Dablander

Fabian Dablander is doing a PhD at the Department of Psychological Methods at the University of Amsterdam. You can find more information at https://fdabl.github.io/.

Meet the Authors

Do you wish to publish your work but don’t know how to get started? We asked some of our student authors, Janne Hellerup Nielsen, Dimitar Karadzhov, and Noelle Sammon, to share their experience of getting published. Continue reading →

Leonor Agan

Leonor is a postgraduate student at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences (University of Edinburgh), pursuing a MSc in Neuroimaging for Research. She holds a BSc in Psychology from the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and a BA in Psychology from Maynooth University in Ireland. She worked as a Research Assistant in Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Complex and Adaptive Systems Laboratory (University College Dublin), and Psychology Department (University College Dublin). Her research interests include cognition, memory, and neuroimaging techniques, specifically diffusion MRI and its applications in disease. She is also an Editor of the Journal of European Psychology Students. Find her on Twitter @leonoragan and link in with her.

Most frequent APA mistakes at a glance

APA-guidelines, don’t we all love them? As an example, take one simple black line used to separate words – the hyphen: not only do you have to check whether a term needs a hyphen or a blank space will suffice, you also have to think about the different types of hyphens (Em-dash, En-dash, minus, and hyphen). Yes, it is not that much fun. And at JEPS we often get the question: why do we even have to adhere to those guidelines?

Common APA Errors; Infographic taken from the EndNote Blog http://bit.ly/1uWDqnO

The answer is rather simple: The formatting constraints imposed by journals enable for the emphasis to be placed on the manuscript’s content during the review process. The fact that all manuscripts submitted share the same format allows for the Reviewers to concentrate on the content without being distracted by unfamiliar and irregular formatting and reporting styles.

The Publication Manual counts an impressive 286 pages and causes quite some confusion. In JEPS, we have counted the most frequent mistakes in manuscripts submitted to us – data that the EndNote-blog has translated into this nice little graphic.

Here you can find some suggestions on how to avoid these mistakes in the first place.

References

American Psychological Association. (2009). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Vainre, M. (2011). Common mistakes made in APA style. JEPS Bulletin, retrieved from https://blog.efpsa.org/2011/11/20/common-mistakes-made-in-apa-style/

Katharina Brecht

After finishing her PhD at the University of Cambridge, Katharina is currently a Postdoc in the Institute of Neurobiology at the University of Tübingen. Her research interests revolve around the mechanisms of social and causal cognition in animals.

Why We Publish: The Past, Present, and Future of Science Communication

Why We Publish-Recovered
Have you ever wondered which scientific journal was the first of its kind? Or why there are scientific publications at all? In this post you will learn how far we have come since the first journals, what it means to communicate science today and what the future might hold for traditional journals and publishers.

Probably these issues crossed your mind, but you never found the time to dig deeper. I don’t blame you. It’s tough to be a young and upcoming researcher these days. Today’s advances in scientific literature are so fast-paced that it can be hard to keep up, let alone ask such remote questions.

At the same time I think you will agree that it may be useful (or, just plain interesting) to have a broader perspective on how scientific journals came to be and how this might help us understand today’s publishing landscape. This article will guide you through the different stages of science communication, going back to ancient civilizations, the invention of the printing press, all the way to a present where to “publish or perish” is the name of the game and restrictions in the access to science are an harsh reality. Continue reading →

Pedro Almeida

Pedro Almeida is a graduate student and research assistant at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. His main research interests are evolutionary psychology and the intersection between marketing and psychology. Previously, he worked as an Editor for the Journal of European Psychology Students (JEPS).

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts: