A party to celebrate having an article published
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No matter what the activity, the harder it is, the happier we are afterwards. The process of writing a scientific article is so agonizing that the parties to celebrate its publication should be correspondingly fun. For me, the most joyful parties are those thrown to celebrate my students being hired. My students and I have suffered for a long time together, so those parties are very cheerful and tend to last all night.
Newspaper article is unlike scientific article. A newspaper article that doesn’t reveal its source might seem irresponsible, like a work of fiction; however, the truly irresponsible newspaper article is one that does disclose its source. When you tell your friends a juicy piece of gossip, some may ask about the source. If you tell them where the gossip came from, you are being irresponsible. People who disclose their source are not even qualified to gossip.
Graduate students are often confused about equivalent elements. For example, their articles contain sentences like this: “The results of this study are different from other studies.” Results and studies are not equivalent. The results are just a part of the study. Instead, they should write sentences like this: “The results of this study are different from those of other studies.”
The Chinese word for “research article” can be interpreted as meaning “logical writing.” Logical writing can be summarized into tables. Therefore, tables should be made before writing, even if they are not included in the final article. However, many graduate students do not know how to make tables that logically show their experiences and thoughts. They should be trained to make well-organized tables.
Scientists know how tedious proofreading is. It is an endless job. However, they also know that it should be done thoroughly because published articles are unalterable. Articles are not mere documents, but permanent records. In other words, the articles outlive the authors.
Notes
No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.
Acknowledgements
This research was financially supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) through the International Cooperative R&D program (grant no. N0002249).