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Scientific Writing
Writing High Impact Papers

Module 3

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology - Associate Editor
Nanomedicine and Nanotoxicology Group - Coordinator
Physics Institute of São Paulo, University of São Paulo

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Outline

Module 1: Literary Genre

Module 2: Structure 1: Abstract
Module 3: Structure 2: Introduction
Module 4: Structure 3: Results and Discussion, Conclusion
Module 5: Style, Language 1: Complexity Problems 1
Module 6: Language 2: Complexity Problems 2, Rhythm
Module 7: Language 3: Plain English and Topic Sentences
Module 8: Manuscript Submission, The Editorial Process

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com

Module 3

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Sections of a Paper

Title, Authors and Affiliations

Abstract
Introduction

Methodology
Results
Discussion
Conclusions

References

Adapted from: Hill et al., Teaching ESL students to read and write
experimental papers, TESOL Quarterly, 16: 333, 1982:
Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto
zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com

Introduction

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

3-D Architecture

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

1. Information

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

Why is this Area Important?

Contextualization
What has been done State-of-the-Art
before?
Literature Review
What has not been done ?
Gap
Hypothesis
Why is this Study Important? Formulation
Purpose
What is presented here?

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

1. Contextualization
Present the research field and show the importance of the main area,
Make terms and processes familiar.

“The quest for international financial regulation looks into the future of
finance by considering both the present and the past. The past, because
history matters; institutions and laws are creatures of their times [In the
words of Jorge Santayana, ‘those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it’]. Economists refer to this as path dependency.
The present, because the issues surrounding banking and financial
reform are no longer only the domain of the specialist: after the financial
crisis, they have come to the forefront of economic and policy
debate........”

Source: Journal of International Economic Law, 2014, 17, 787–805, 2014

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

1. Contextualization
Present the research field and show the importance of the main area,
Make terms and processes familiar.

“Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, it is, subject to various defences
and derogations, a criminal offence, inter alia, intentionally (or, in some cases,
recklessly)1 to kill, injure or take certain wild animals; to disturb their shelter; to
use certain methods of killing or taking them even if the killing or taking is itself
lawful; or to offer them for sale, dead or alive. Similar protections exist for
certain wild animals of species designated ‘European protected species’ under
the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2010. Likewise, it is an
offence to take or intentionally kill any deer at night,2 and certain types of deer
are protected from being taken or intentionally killed during the closed
season……….”

Source: J. Environmental Law (2014) 26 (3): 473-494.

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

1. Contextualization
Present the research field and show the importance of the main area,
Make terms and processes familiar.

“The adoption of project driven approaches across different sectors and

industries and economies is steadily increasing and is likely to continue
(Linde & Linderoth, 2006; Winter et al., 2006a; Nocker, 2006). The trend
has led institutions such as the Project Management Institute (PMI) to
promote certification and issue standards to guide Project Management
(PM) practice (Hodgson, 2002; Winter et al., 2006a). Projects are
perceived to be a popular vehicle for delivering organisations’
objectives.”

Source: The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries, EJISDC (2013) 58, 7,
1-32.
Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto
zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

1. Contextualization
Present the research field and show the importance of the main area,
Make terms and processes familiar.

“Customer satisfaction became part of every business process and

crafting new business processes with the help of technology in order to
acquire and retain the most profitable customers is gaining interest
among traditional manufacturing organizations (Anderson et al., 1994).
Customer relationship management (CRM) has become a new branch
of learning in business management (Venkatesan and Kumar, 2004;
Reinartz and Kumar, 2000, 2002, 2003).”

Source: Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing., 28/6 (2013) 468–474

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

1. Contextualization
Present the research field and show the importance of the main area,
Make terms and processes familiar.

“Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR),

based upon supply chain collaboration standards established by the
Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Solutions (VICS) Association, are
information systems that enable partnering firms to integrate their
inventory planning, forecasting and replenishment processes by sharing
information, developing joint forecasts and jointly crafting replenishment
plans.”

Source: Journal of Operations Management 31 (2013) 285–297

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction
2. State the Gap
Open Questions, Restrictions and Limitations

“As such, it can be seen that there are, in one sense, wide legal protections for
many wild animals in the UK. There is, however, no general protection from
unnecessary suffering applicable to wild animals. Section 4(1) of the Animal
Welfare Act 2006 (AWA) criminalises acts or omissions which cause
unnecessary suffering to an animal, if the act/omission is engaged in by a
person who knew or ought reasonably to have known that his/her conduct would
cause, or would be likely to cause, an animal to suffer. However, the offence
applies only to ‘protected animals’, defined in section 2 AWA as animals which
are ‘(a) … of a kind … commonly domesticated in the British Islands, (b) … under
the [permanent or temporary] control of man … , or (c) … not living in a wild
state.’ Therefore, section 4(1) clearly does not apply to truly wild animals: ie to
animals of a kind not commonly domesticated in Britain and truly living in a wild
state, not under the permanent or temporary control of man..”

Source: J. Environmental Law (2014) 26 (3): 473-494.

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

2. State the Gap

Open Questions, Restrictions and Limitations

“Although conceptually simple, CPFR implementations are complex in

practice as they require exchange of large amounts of data for
forecasting a wide range of products. They must account for varying
promotional activities, involve multiple functional areas from multiple
firms, take an extended period of time to implement, and integrate
possibly incompatible business processes between CPFR partners
(Doiron, 2004).”

Source: Journal of Operations Management 31 (2013) 285–297

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

2. State the Gap

Open Questions, Restrictions and Limitations

“Rammsayer and Altenmüller (2006) compared performance of musicians and non-

musicians on perceptual auditory temporal tasks and revealed superior performance of
the musicians group on rhythm perception, auditory fusion and temporal discrimination
tasks. By contrast, no significant difference in a temporal generalization task was found
between the two groups. The authors relate this to the fact that the generalization task
requires the storage of the reference interval in long-term memory: because the
underlying process is not automatic they assume that temporal judgements are less
sensitive to musical training (Rammsayer & Altenmüller, 2006). However other studies
have shown superior performance of musicians in memory tasks (e.g. Wallentin, Nielsen,
FriisOlivarius, Vusst, & Vuust, 2010). Furthermore, studies have shown superior temporal
accuracy of musicians on perceptual rhythm tasks (Geiser, Ziegler, Jäncke, & Meyer,
2009; Jones & Yee, 1997; Ramm sayer, Buttkus, & Altenmüller, 2012) indicating that
musicians, as experts in the domain, have developed superior skills in rhythm
perception..”
Source: Journal of New Music Research, 2015, Vol. 44, No. 1, 3–10,

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

2. State the Gap

Open Questions, Restrictions and Limitations

“One common drawback of the full scan MS approach is the lower selectivity
caused by higher background or interferences as compared to that seen in
the SRM approach. Recently, there have been significant advances in the
capabilities of high-resolution mass spectrometry (HR-MS) instrumentation
[11,12]. HR-MS can provide additional advantages in resolving each isotopic
ion from the background so that higher selectivity can be achieved.”

Source: Anal. Chem., 2011, 83 (23), pp 8937–8944

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

2. State the Gap

Open Questions, Restrictions and Limitations

“The complexity of terrain guarding has been an open problem of

interest since 1995, when an NP-completeness proof was proposed
but never completed by Chen, Estivill-Castro, and Urrutia [2]. They
described vertex and clause gadgets and suggested that they could
be put together along the lines of Lee and Lin’s reduction for
guarding polygons [13].”

Source: SIAM J. Comput. 40, 1316, 2011

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction
3. State the purpose of the paper

“In the rhythm span task subjects are asked to make same/different
judgments after hearing two rhythm sequences belonging to one trial.
The sequences of the rhythm span task increase and decrease in
length according to the participants’ performance and therefore the
task difficulty adapts to individual demands and memory limits, and
measures rhythm memory capacity (i.e. how many rhythm elements
and what length of rhythm sequences people can hold in memory).
The present study compares performance on this task between two
groups (non-musically trained people and highly trained musicians) to
see whether musical training influences performance.………….”

Source: Journal of New Music Research, 2015, Vol. 44, No. 1, 3–10,

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction
3. State the purpose of the paper

“In this paper, we explore this question empirically. We first describe

a hypothetical self-dealing transaction between two firms controlled
by the same person that can in principle be used to improperly enrich
this person. We then ask attorneys from Lex Mundi law firms in 102
countries to describe in detail how each country’s legal system
regulates this transaction. (Lex Mundi is an association of
international law firms with members in 108 countries.) ………….”

Source: Journal of Financial Economics 88 (2008) 430–465

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction
3. State the purpose of the paper

“The aim of this paper is to identify the availability and use of

information at the competitive bidding stage. For this, an interview
study with industrialists from different sectors was conducted. The
related literature in contract bidding including the bidding process,
contract conditions and typical payment methods is described in
Section 2. Sections 3 and 4 describe the interview study and its
results.”

Source: Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management 24, 2013 pp. 976-997

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction
3. State the purpose of the paper

“The focus of this paper lies in offering a complementary way of

evaluating the design of new and complex economic mechanisms
beyond the economic criteria (e.g., efficiency, revenue, etc.) that are
traditionally used. Using combinatorial auctions as the context, we ask
the research question: How can we evaluate the user acceptance
potential of complex economic mechanisms? Our general approach
follows the design science paradigm of Hevner et al. (2004). We
describe novel bidder support artifacts, which include information
feedback schemes for bidders to facilitate bid construction. Because
our approach is used to design several different information feedback
artifacts, it meets the design as an artifact criterion of design science
research.”

Source: Journal of Operations Management 31 (2013) 489–503

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

2. Flow

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

Structure

Information in the text flows from General

to Specific, arriving at purpose.

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

General Contextualization Your Field

Sumarizing Previous
Research

Purpose

Specific Your work

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto
zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

3. Citations

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

The citation process:

Authors cite to prove where the ideas came from

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction

Selecting references to cite

Seminal Papers
Contextualization / Gap

Most Recent Papers

State of the Art / Gap

Most Important Papers

Relevance / Motivation / Importance

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Introduction
Style

-Contextualization and Gap: Past, present-perfect

(continuous) generally used.

-Purpose: Present or past tense are preferable.

-Use the active voice as much as possible.

-Third Person with some use of first person.

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Sources

John M. Swales, Genre Analysis: English in Academics and Research

Settings, Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Patwari N. et al, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 2005, p 54
Rubner et al., Langmuir 2004, 20, 1362.
Lowman et al., Langmuir 2004, 20, 9791-9795
Borges et al., International Journal of Information Technology & Decision
Making, 9, 2010, 547.
Urselmann, et al., IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 15,
2011, 659
Olek et al., Nano Lett., Vol. 4, 1889, (2004)
Yoon et al., International Journal of Plasticity 27 (2011) 1165
Podsiadlo et al., Nano Letters, 2008 , 8, 1762
Butcher et al., Human–Computer Interaction, 26, 2011,123.
King et al., SIAM J. Comput. 40, 1316, 2011

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com

Prof. Zucolotto as a Scientific Editor

Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology

Prof. Valtencir Zucolotto, Associate Editor

Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br
www.zucoescrita.com Thank You

Valtencir Zucolotto
zuco@ifsc.usp.br

www.zucoescrita.com

www.nanomedicina.com.br
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Prof. Dr. Valtencir Zucolotto

zuco@ifsc.usp.br