For some, getting published in the journal Nature would be achieving the Holy Grail for research. It is the gold stamp of approval signaling a researcher’s work is innovative, provides new insight and is among “the best.”
Visiting his parents in Exeter, Ont., a half-hour drive north of London, Leslie Sage, Senior Editor, Physical Sciences for Nature Publishing Group – whose office is located in Washington, D.C. – dropped by the Department of Physics & Astronomy Sept. 24.
Leslie Sage, Senior Editor, Physical Sciences for Nature Publishing Group, offers advice on getting research papers past the editor’s desk of the prestigious scientific journal.
Full of advice on how to avoid having a scientific paper dumped on the cutting room floor, he offered inside knowledge on the tricks of getting published in the prestigious journal.
It was standing room only for the colloquium series talk hosted by the Physics & Astronomy and Earth Sciences departments, the largest attendance for any guest speaker in the series, say organizers. Interested researchers piled into the room, some standing in the hallway, waiting to catch the editor’s ear.
Making it onto the pages of Nature means “your work is recognized as important outside your specialty,” says Sage. The journal looks for research that reports a fundamentally new physical insight, and sometimes, announces a startling, unexpected or counter-intuitive result.
“I just don’t have the page space for stuff that isn’t going to have an impact,” he says.
Making the cut is not easy. Sage alone rejects about three-quarters of the papers that come across his desk. Overall, the journal publishes about seven per cent of the submissions received.
To catch the editor’s attention, Sage says good writing is the first step. Because the journal is read by a wide audience, from members of the scientific community to politicians, funding agencies and the general public, the first paragraph explaining the research should be written at a level no higher than a first-year university class. The bulk of the paper should be written at the level of someone in the first year of graduate studies.
Sage recognizes most researchers have little formal training in writing a good paper, but poor writing may prevent them from getting published.
His recommendations: tell your audience why it is a good topic; tell them what problems are in the field; explain what you have done in your research; and discuss how your work helps to advance towards a solution to the problem.
“People need to just establish a context within which the paper will seem important, (but) without all of the hype,” he says. “If a paper is incomprehensible, it is a waste of my page space.”
Sage says the journal mostly focuses on observational and experimental papers and rarely publishes theory. “We want papers to be right, or at least the best available explanation … that’s just not what theory does.”
Addressing a criticism that Nature can be a bit conservative when it comes to publishing controversial topics, Sage says “if you cannot persuade a couple of people in your field, it’s not ready for primetime.”
Before a paper hits the presses, Sage sends a copy to referees to be peer-reviewed. The best referees are a researcher’s most direct competitors, he says, noting this may create conflicts of interest.
He also points to a loophole in the peer-review process. In many fields of study it is difficult to get access to the raw data. Without that data, peer reviewers can only assume “you have collected your data in good faith.” If the results have been faked, there is no way to track it down.
But he cautions anyone from thinking making up data is a good idea.
“If you fake your data, you will get caught. That’s the way science works; it is self-correcting.”
Aside from bragging rights from getting published in Nature, researchers get world-wide publicity and exposure. It is a good way to inspire young people to get into the field, he adds.
Even after following Sage’s advice, getting your name inked in Nature isn’t guaranteed.
About 15 Western researchers from the Faculty of Science have been published in the journal, says Peter Brown, Canada Research Chair in Meteor Science and Director of the Centre for Planetary Science & Exploration at Western. But he doesn’t want researchers to get discouraged.
“It’s important for people to understand the process of publishing in Nature,” he says. “It gets people thinking not just in their field, but how their research impacts widely.”
Sage encourages anyone interested in publishing in Nature to contact him with questions before writing the paper or making a submission. He can be contacted at l.sage@naturedc.com.