Scientific Publishing, 3.0 credits

Entry requirements

Entry requirement for studies on third-cycle education courses

• second-cycle degree,
• 240 credits in required courses, including at least 60 second-cycle credits, or acquisition of equivalent knowledge in some other manner

Specific information

The course is intended for PhD students in the natural sciences.

The course is most suitable for PhD students who are in the process of writing up their first or second manuscript. It is offered in cooperation with the Master’s programs in biology, and only about 10 PhD-students can be accepted.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course the students will be able to:

• Understand what happens to a manuscript once it has been written
• Critique the existing process of publishing scientific papers in journals
• Be more aware of ethical issues connected to scientific publishing
• Select an appropriate journal for one’s scientific work

Contents

This course, organised as a short seminar series with individual assignments in between, aims at giving PhD students in any scientific subject a closer understanding of scientific publication. It is not a course on scientific writing style.

The seminars/lectures cover, amongst other things, the following topics:

• What is special about scientific publishing?
• What are the roles of the key players in scientific publishing?
• The peer review process
• Authorship
• Ethics of scientific publishing
• Strategic publishing
• Measures of journal quality
• Measures of an author’s individual productivity and impact

Educational methods

The course consists of three seminars/lectures.

Short written assignments will be handed out at the first seminar, and are to be handed in before the last seminar.

Examination

3 ECTS (pass or fail) require that the student participates in all three seminars/lectures and completes all short written assignments.

Students who fail are offered one re-examination occasion in close connection to the course. After that participation in a coming course examination is offered. The re-examination should be equally comprehensive as the ordinary examination.

Grading

Course literature

Gastel, B., Day, R.A. (2022) How to write and publish a scientific paper, 9th edition. Greenwood, Santa Barbara, CA.

Malmfors, B., Garnsworthy, P., Grossman, M. (2004) Writing and presenting scientific papers, 2nd edition. Nottingham University Press, Nottingham, UK.

General information

How to Enroll

Send an email with subject: “PhD Course Scientific Publishing” to matthias.laska@liu.se, no later than March 15th.

Include the following information:

• State your full name and LiU-ID (Important!)

• your subject

• your supervisor

• which PhD-study year you are in

• your publication status (e.g. 1 paper published, 1 paper in process of writing)

If it is necessary to select among participants (due to space limitations), priority will be given to students who have few papers written, but have at least started writing. Class will be held at Campus Valla. Participants will be informed about specific lecture room locations.