How to write an article for an academic journal? Writing articles for academic journals is not a simple task.

Even if you are a specialist and have a worth reading message for the audience, the challenge remains... You need to be prepared for writing academic style and applying proper structure. The aim of this paper is to investigate the rules of writing academic articles. The guidelines differ with various languages and cultures. As English is known to be the language of international academic writing, it serves the example for this article, based on Macmillan Scientific Communications presentation !see" http"##www.mscediting.com$. %n this respect there are four issues to be considered" in addition to structure and st&le anal&sis, work and publishing organisation are taken under surve&. How to organise your work? There are five stages of writing an article and &ou never sa& '% am writing an article( because &ou never do it. %nstead, &ou do the research and preparation work, outline the plan, write parts of &our work and, finall&, revise it. )hen &ou are dealing with plan, &ou keep in mind the structure of the article. )riting process and revision re*uire thorough work on st&le improvement. +owever, to begin with, &ou have to do the research and preparation in order to get read& for writing. ,esearch work, in its order, has a few levels as well. -irst of all, &ou need to formulate &our idea in one or two sentences. )hen &ou have a clear idea, anal&sis of previous data is needed. This includes taking notes, deciding on methods of the future work, stating ma.or *uestions and starting h&pothesis. /eveloped approach means provided approval and supporting evidence. 0nl& after exhaustive work on previous data &ou have the opportunit& to start producing &our own material. %f &ou succeed with &our research and have enough data to share, then &ou proceed with the preparator& stage. +ere the goal is to find the place of &our work in context. This consists of finding the focus of &our future article, choosing the right audience and deciding on the main message delivered. The result is a written good and appropriate scientific *uestion. The re1 evaluation of the original data is extremel& useful to conclude this stage. The purpose is to select publishable ideas, data and avenues of research. To avoid a flow of arguments &ou have to outline coherent parts of the future article. The most wide spread outline is the so1called AI !A" !abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion$. A proper outline is based on the list of all ideas structured according with the stressed main points !such structure is called the backbone of the paper$. How to organise your paper? 2aper organisation is related to the paper outline or plan which is divided into abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusion. )hile organising the paper &ou

deal with the working title. Afterwards &ou are to come with the final title that brings the ke& message and reflects its novelt&. Such a title is descriptive and understandable. 2referabl&, it should consist of ke&words for electronic search. And for sure it s better to avoid general words here. 3ou write the abstract after having completed the paper and having chosen the final title. 3ou should overload it with neither methods depicted, nor with references to literature. The abstract and the title are the most read parts of &our article and to attract attention to &our paper the& should be e&e1catching and informative at the same time. /o not confuse the abstract with the introduction. The introduction differs from the abstract telling about various points in brief. %n the introduction &ou touch upon the sub.ect, &our tasks and ob.ectives. 3ou overview the context of &our work and state its actualit& and novelt&. 3ou introduce basic literature, methods and up to 456 of the ke& findings. )hile one paragraph with .ust the main idea is enough for the abstract, the introduction contains a few paragraphs or at least a few items. The introduction is followed b& portra&ed methods. 3ou outfit this part with reasons for choosing methods and with details for replicating it. 7on1essential but still necessar& supplementar& material should be put in appendix. 8eep in mind the importance of the part since the reader ma& refer to it to check the results. As for results, the& might be combined with the discussion or separated from it. ,egardless this or that structure here, the fundamental notes remain the same. -irstl&, the narration order is pedagogical not chronological for the reader to catch the ideas. Secondl&, with the same aim paragraphs are top1down embod&ing one concept each. -inall&, the main message from the first sentence of each paragraph is further .ustified with proved data and provided with alternative explanations. The last, but not the least is to limit the range of mentioned results with those crucial for &our argumentation. 3ou round off a successful argumentation with a short conclusion. ,emember that for an article conclusion the less is the better. 3ou never simpl& sum it up. 3our goal is to demonstrate a deeper understanding and impact of &our work. Conclusion is not the final point of &our paper. 9ibliograph& !or webliograph& for electronic .ournals$ succeeds it. To escape plagiarism &ou accomplish it properl&. %t means that &ou refer sources for both directl& *uoted and paraphrased opinions, theories, case studies, research proceedings and findings. The references must correspond to the format of the .ournal. 7otice that critical references are suitable. +owever, in general do not overuse references and especiall& self1citation. How to write academic style?

E#amples are provided in the online $ui%& http&''www.mobilestudy.org'u'())*(' +and http&''www.mobilestudy.org'u'())*('m' for mobile devices,. -he $ui% is based on acmillan .cientific /ommunications0 presentation. The chief guideline for writing proper st&le is the so1called A9C rule !be Accurate, 9rief and Clear$. 9eing accurate means being precise instead of appl&ing vague language +see 1( +$uestion ( in the $ui%,. 9revit& implies the idea of explaining concepts with fewer words +see 1),. To achieve brevit& &ou need to avoid writing :eroes +see 12, and redundancies +see 13,. Sentences can be reduced b& appl&ing s&non&ms +see 1*,. Clarit& includes the two previous points and enlarges them with the ban to over1explain. The st&le has to simplif& understanding that is wh& even within the academic st&le it is crucial to stick to the basic sentence structure" sub.ect ; verb ; ob.ect. Moreover, sentences should consist of not more than <51<= words. All in all, comprehensible sentences contain onl& one message each and are short. Effective paragraph is also devoted to one theme. The fundamental structure of this unit is as following" topic ; moreover, topic ; example. %n other words &ou place the material at the beginning and then it gets more attention. 0rdering, relationship and transitions create coherent sentences and paragraphs. How to get your paper published? To get &our paper published &ou need to choose a proper .ournal. The two crucial issues to be taken into consideration are the audience and the scope of the .ournal. 7evertheless, such points as publication fre*uenc& and form, .ournal owners and production services are of great importance as well. The& .ust reflect the *ualit& of the .ournal. +aving chosen the .ournal, it s worth sending a cover letter with the text of &our article. And then &ou face the procedure. 7ormall&, it includes peer review and a flow of criticism from the editors. >ust take it constructivel& to succeed? Suitabilit& for .ournal, adherence to its st&le re*uirements and the length tend to be checked first. Extensive anal&sis of originalit&, relevance and effectiveness follows. %f &ou deal with a high ranked .ournal be prepared that &ou come across professionals. Dont give up..! Most papers are re.ected... even if the& seem to meet all the re*uirements. 9e persistent but respectful, don t give up and once &ou will get it published... however, onl& if in addition to hard work &ou follow the guidelines.