from:http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog/user_content.aspx?id=16812

I mean how to write good papers. Research Evaluation is one of hard tasks in scientific management. because it needs to judge about something that it is not in the field of manager experts. alwayse there was different factors to do such evaluations. number of papers published by a special scientist, impact factor of journals he published his papers in, and number of citations he recieved are different factors for evaluation of scientists performance. citation number is must popular factor in use toay. it used for evaluation of university facuties in universities and in university rankings. it also used for evaluation of scientific impact of nations and determine impact factor of scientific journals. then what's the way to write a highly cited paper. I spent about a year to find out this way. these are results of my study in this regard.

Scienctific society  is a large  and complicated chain construced of individual researchers as loops. then it is very hard and sometimes really imposible to identify everyone's role in achieve an important scientific aim.  you can not correspond every scientific discovery just to one people. of course we like to do it becasue we always had a hero and champion in our life from our childness  but it is not always true specially in science. for example computers have very important role in science today. we always use "Search motors" such as Google or etc. but we dont refer them in each of our papers. then we cant not always trust to evaluations based on citations because all factors and important resources are not mentioned in them. another misleading thing is all cited papers are not used equally. for example each scientific paper is based on several pervious published papers but it mention too many other papers as a reference for reader or as a historical review.

1. Describe a real physcial phonemena

I have seen many papers in my life who had written just to solve a just a problem. they overcomed many computational difficulties but at the end they proint out not important result. i think this is really waste of time and energy on these synthetic problems when there are important problems unsolved in the world. try to find these important unsolved problems and then solve them. not just solve some problems to make more papers.

2. How to find a valuable problems.

I mentioned that the scientific society is a chain constructed of different research groups. every research group use result of other research groups. try to find out which group of research teams or individual researcher use your papers and then try to comply their needs. just think science as a bussiness. this business needs marketting to improve. then do this marketing before selection of a topic to research. read papers of people who use your works even speak with them or do joint work with them to find out their needs. then i repeat again that dont just read papers in your topic read paper of people who use your papers to see their need. then READ MORE PAPERS.

3. Just think science as a business. Marketing is important factor in success.

Must researchers just think about what they can do interesting with their skills and laboratory facilities . but it is not true. just think about people who read your papers and want to use it. how you can help them. what they need.  imagine your self as a virtual reader to see how a reader can use your work.

3. Develop a suitable model not a very general and complex models

dont just try to develop a very complicated model which can solver more general problems then befire. most general method is already exist. people can model their systems with modlling constructing atoms and their interaction with quantum mechanics but it is a really impossible one!.  complex models have two important disadvantages as below

1. first disadvantage of more complex models it is harder to describe a system. complex models often need more variables to describe a system and finding these values are not so easy in practice. then people need to estimate these variables and these result to their accuracy become low as like as less accurate models.

2. complex models need more time to learning, programming, and even in computation time.

then they never would use complex models  if simpler models can result similar conclusions.then try to develop a model which is logical. note that your model is always different from real model which are in use in practice then try a model which have logical simplicfication. always remember very simple formuala for error of the result. error is the result is greatest error of error producers. then if you ignore one source of error in your model then it is very funny to analyze another factor which may be more negligible. or when your model is different from what is in use in practice. note this difference and neglect factors that add accuracy more that is between overall accuracy of your model.

4. think about usefullness of results

  try to develop a simple model who can show important trends and specially important behaviour of the system as a leading for experimentalis peoples which deal with real systems. one of main important duties of theoretical science is determine the order of importance for one factor not how  a factor can affect a result. people can do experiment to see how is effect of a factor exactly. as a theoretical scientist you must convince expermentialist to do such experiments even if they are hard. this was exactly what Albert Einestein did!.  try to make a paper when your result have concluded to an important point which is valuable to note. not just when you solved a problem. then as i think most important role of theoritians is find out impotant variables in a physical phonamena and their overall impact on results.

5. Joint work is a magic strategy.

because every scientist knowledge of science is limited any way. it is very beneficial to consult with bigger society  very much. then Joint work is very important. more people would read the work before it be in hands of the reader. every person can imagine himself by  reader as a different point of  point of view. number of authors always has been an determining factor in citation number.

6. interdisciplinary work speccially joint with different field experts

Large percent of citations to a paper always been from peoples in topics far from main authors topic. then try to consult with these people to make something better for their important consumers. interdisciplinary works are good in another point of view. people of a any science built what they could built. they need a professional in another science to build something that they dont know how to build.

7. international works and alliances and also advertising!

Althought there exist a internet and it is a international network. it is very large network. and sometimes your work would not be seen by its real costumer. then try to advertise your work if you think that is valuable. this can be done by submit your work to international conferences and discuss with people there.

8. dont forget IMPACT FACTOR and RELEVANCE Of Journal to your work

Reviewers are very important part to determine the quality of your work. Try to submit your paper to a journal which is more relevant to your work. (Impact factor is not important in this level). because such journal have more expert reviewr in that field. but if there are many journals who publish such works send it to journal with higher impact factor. for example if your work is really related toVibration of systems Journal of Sound and Vibration is very good. (in addition to NATURE!) but this is not Best Journal if your work is related to even Acoustics. in that field (Journal of Acoustical Society of America) is better. or Dispersion Science and Technology impact factor is near to 1 by if your work is related to ultrasonics in solutions send it to Ultrasonics.

8. Marketing is most important in EXPERIMENTAL WORKS.

Some expermentialists thinks because their work is experimental in nature. it is practical and it dont need marketing. note that there are infinity number of systems you can build in the world. from systems consisteed of several Atoms to milions of them. which is really needed?. you need to read papers and speak with people to see what is their difficulty with current available systems. which property in new systems are really important. even listening to news is important. Climate change is special topic then NO2 and CO2 are two important compounds. HIV is disease of the century. which reactions are related to that? with these news and papers you can even predict  what is the next revolution and which topics are revolutionary in these decade.

9. Science is a stream which everyone must swim in its direction

Note that is not just a result of work of one people. it is a result of the whole society. its social aspects are important as well as its professional aspects. every time in each level of the time some discoveries must be done by scientists. Finite element method become useful when computers come into scene. and DNA damage and RNA damage are important because they are related to current disease. scientists who dont pay attention in the level of science are not so successful today. then try to be part of new discoveries and try to predict next revolutions to be part of that.

10." Easy to Use" and "Easy to Develop", also "OPEN SOURCE" and "Open archetecture"

Try to make your work easy to use. laziness are one of important characters of humankind. people have no time to learn your hard way to state any thing. state any thing in easiest way that even a school student can understant what you say. if you develop a package make it OPEN SOURCE and READABLE too. open source packages are not beneficial if they not be READIBLE. in this regard to build your program and tool with open architecture who any one can use it as he/she wants. market is very important thing as you know in experimetal devices. think about how your work may progress and enhance. and let people to do it. it will result in progress of your work in addition to citation for you.

11. Pay attention more too result than tools or methods you used or category which your work belong to

 if you use high-tech elements in your work it dont means your work is really a progress. what is important is what is physical and practical result of your work in real world. even if be by must elementary things. ROD LAKES made negative poission ratio foams with laws from elementary geomtery. (if i think true).  number of citation your recieve if you dont abuse is very related to number of people who can use your works. then just ask your self this simple question more and more how people can use my work. it is not important you work be in highly cited group just try to do something beneficial to mankind. your work would be cited.

12. FOCUS on an AIM

it dont contradicts with interdisiplinary work. do something complete.  ant try to reach a big AIM. doing one thing GREAT is very better than doing somany things but small. have an aim which can improve science very much. each paper is a step to reach that goal.

13. FOCUS on Elements

if you work experimental focus on elements of a system is better than whole system. if you are writing computational tasks witing a program who can do something special very good is better than develop a new general computational soft and if you work on biology focus on one aspect is very better than doing general experiments. because general concepts are discussed very much and today small concepts are future general concepts.

 Roozbeh Sanaei.

Bioengineering Department.

National University of Singapore