Ad hoc collection of papers on publishing ethics, writing, refereeing, science communication and social media
Publication ethics
After prompting by the excellent Dynamic Ecology blog post by Brian McGill and a few run-ins of our own....
Hair-raising case studies of real bad behaviour in scientific publishing from COPE
Best Practice Guidelines on Publishing Ethics: A Publisher's Perspective. Second Edition
Hair-raising case studies of real bad behaviour in scientific publishing from COPE
Best Practice Guidelines on Publishing Ethics: A Publisher's Perspective. Second Edition
How to be a good scientist
How to be a good MALE scientist - Don’t be that dude: Handy tips for the male academic
How to write better, like
Publish like a pro
25 tips on better science writing from Science Associate Editor Dr. Sacha Vignieri
Ten Simple Rules for Writing a PLOS Ten Simple Rules Article
10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly, Michael C. Munger in The Chronicle of Higher Education 18th Sept. 2013
Quick and dirty tips on how to write from @grammargirl
The absolute classic, must-read is... Notes on writing papers and theses by Ken Lertzman. Read, re-read and re-read again...regularly.
Publish and flourish; become a prolific scholar by Tara Gray
Great piece by Tim Radford, former science editor of The Guardian, on how to write: A manifesto for the simple scribe.
Learning to Write: Wisdom from Emerging Scholars
Bourne, P. E. and Chalupa, L. M. (2006) Ten Simple Rules for Getting Grants. PLoS Comput Biol, 2, e12.
Bourne, P. E. (2005) Ten Simple Rules for Getting Published. PLoS Comput Biol, 1, e57.
How to get published
Jeremy Fox on How to interpret editorial decision letters. via Dynamic Ecology
How to write a cover letter to accompany your paper submission, from Methagora the blog of Nature Methods
The dos and don’ts of communicating with editors and reviewers, from Methagora the blog of Nature Methods
Bourne, P. E. (2005) Ten Simple Rules for Getting Published. PLoS Comput Biol, 1, e57.
How to write a cover letter to accompany your paper submission, from Methagora the blog of Nature Methods
The dos and don’ts of communicating with editors and reviewers, from Methagora the blog of Nature Methods
Bourne, P. E. (2005) Ten Simple Rules for Getting Published. PLoS Comput Biol, 1, e57.
How to referee a paper
Guide to peer-reviewing by the British Ecological Society
Mark A. McPeek, Donald L. DeAngelis, Ruth G. Shaw, Allen J. Moore, Mark D. Rausher, Donald R. Strong, Aaron M. Ellison, Louise Barrett, Loren Rieseberg, Michael D. Breed, Jack Sullivan, Craig W. Osenberg, Marcel Holyoak and Mark A. Elgar (2009) The Golden Rule of Reviewing. The American Naturalist, 173, E155-E158.
Bourne, P. E. and Korngreen, A. (2006) Ten Simple Rules for Reviewers. PLoS Comput Biol, 2, e110.
Mark A. McPeek, Donald L. DeAngelis, Ruth G. Shaw, Allen J. Moore, Mark D. Rausher, Donald R. Strong, Aaron M. Ellison, Louise Barrett, Loren Rieseberg, Michael D. Breed, Jack Sullivan, Craig W. Osenberg, Marcel Holyoak and Mark A. Elgar (2009) The Golden Rule of Reviewing. The American Naturalist, 173, E155-E158.
Bourne, P. E. and Korngreen, A. (2006) Ten Simple Rules for Reviewers. PLoS Comput Biol, 2, e110.
Science communication and social media
From the AAAS meeting How to use social media for science
If a tweet worked once, send it again — and other lessons from The New York Times’ social media desk. New York Times -- If you wish to tweet use this as a guide to developing your personal brand and twitter policy
Five Fundamental Social Media Communication Skills. Ann McElhatton November 2013
Online media and science make for awkward partners. 22 Aug 2013
Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, the Science of Science Communication Sackler Colloquium. 13 Aug 2013
Darling, E. S., Shiffman, D., Côté, I. M. and Drew, J. A. (2013) The role of Twitter in the life cycle of a scientific publication. PeerJ PrePrints, 1, e16v1.
Shiffman, D. S. (2012) Twitter as a tool for conservation education and outreach: what scientific conferences can do to promote live-tweeting. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2, 257-262.
How to live-tweet a conference: A guide for conference organizers and twitter users, by David Shiffman
Editorial: So you want to be a Jedi? Advice for conservation researchers wanting to advocate for their findings, by E.C.M. (Chris) Parsons
Using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities: A guide for academics and researchers
If a tweet worked once, send it again — and other lessons from The New York Times’ social media desk. New York Times -- If you wish to tweet use this as a guide to developing your personal brand and twitter policy
Five Fundamental Social Media Communication Skills. Ann McElhatton November 2013
Online media and science make for awkward partners. 22 Aug 2013
Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, the Science of Science Communication Sackler Colloquium. 13 Aug 2013
Darling, E. S., Shiffman, D., Côté, I. M. and Drew, J. A. (2013) The role of Twitter in the life cycle of a scientific publication. PeerJ PrePrints, 1, e16v1.
Shiffman, D. S. (2012) Twitter as a tool for conservation education and outreach: what scientific conferences can do to promote live-tweeting. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2, 257-262.
How to live-tweet a conference: A guide for conference organizers and twitter users, by David Shiffman
Editorial: So you want to be a Jedi? Advice for conservation researchers wanting to advocate for their findings, by E.C.M. (Chris) Parsons
Using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities: A guide for academics and researchers
My own writing checklist
1. Correlated with, related too, associated with, and predict.
Use correlate when talking spearman's / Pearsons's etc, never use when linear modelling, for which case you should use the term 'relationship', and 'association is reserved for 'chi-squared'. Never say 'predict' (unless you are actually making a prediction and using cross validation or similar to measure accuracy and precision of prediction).
2. On the misuse of impacted. Meteorites impact, once you know that phrases like "human impact on ecosystems" invoke a a jarring image of people crashing into coral reefs and forests. The term "impactful" should not be used, ever. There is a tendency to say "impacted" as a synonym for "affected", as in the reef was impacted by fishing. NPR says don't do this. Ever since grammar goddess, Sonja Fordham, told me that meteorites impact all I can imagine are fishing vessels flying through the atmostphere to physically strike the reef.
3. Dulvy et al. 2013 says, "never start a sentence with a citation". It shows you care more about name-checking than the narrative.
4. Yoda clauses, avoided should be. By the application of electrofishing gear, we estimated fish abundance in streams. Using mixed effects modesls with family as a random effect, we controlled for phylogenetic history. Modeling lionfish prey consumption in relation to the productivity of their prey fish over this same period, we found that the observed pattern of depleted reef fish biomass exactly reflects the impacts of lionfish predation for all nine of the sites
Use correlate when talking spearman's / Pearsons's etc, never use when linear modelling, for which case you should use the term 'relationship', and 'association is reserved for 'chi-squared'. Never say 'predict' (unless you are actually making a prediction and using cross validation or similar to measure accuracy and precision of prediction).
2. On the misuse of impacted. Meteorites impact, once you know that phrases like "human impact on ecosystems" invoke a a jarring image of people crashing into coral reefs and forests. The term "impactful" should not be used, ever. There is a tendency to say "impacted" as a synonym for "affected", as in the reef was impacted by fishing. NPR says don't do this. Ever since grammar goddess, Sonja Fordham, told me that meteorites impact all I can imagine are fishing vessels flying through the atmostphere to physically strike the reef.
3. Dulvy et al. 2013 says, "never start a sentence with a citation". It shows you care more about name-checking than the narrative.
4. Yoda clauses, avoided should be. By the application of electrofishing gear, we estimated fish abundance in streams. Using mixed effects modesls with family as a random effect, we controlled for phylogenetic history. Modeling lionfish prey consumption in relation to the productivity of their prey fish over this same period, we found that the observed pattern of depleted reef fish biomass exactly reflects the impacts of lionfish predation for all nine of the sites
