Writing A Publishable

Paper
Roberto N. Padua

NOTES ON FORMAT OF
PUBLISHABLE PAPERS
Institutional Format: this is the format
that your institution has adopted for use.
This is only good for your respective
institutions.
ISI (International Scientific Indexing):
this is the journal indexing or listing of
internationally-recognized journals e.g.
Thomson-Reuters, Scopus and others.

 CHED-JAS Indexing: this is the

journal indexing adopted for the
Philippines by the Commission on
Higher Education. There are two(2)
categories: Category A (internationalequivalency) and Category B (for
national circulation)

 To be ISI or CHED-JAS Indexed, we

will follow the international journal
format for published papers.

Lecture 1: The Introduction

Introduction introduces the topic and the
background or context of the study.
Introduction consists of four (4) major parts:
Part 1: What is the study about? State the main
thesis of the investigation. Why do you want to
study the topic?
Part 2: What do other authors say about the
topic? Summarize the major literature/studies
conducted on the topic.
Part 3: What are the gaps in knowledge based
on the literature reviewed? Identify what has not
been explored by the other authors.
Part 4: How do you intend to address these
gaps? Outline your plan to address these gaps.

 Part 1 deals with the thesis of the study.

A thesis is a claim or assertion that you wish
to prove or disprove.
Example: The study claims that people,
regardless of gender or age, generally take
risks that maximizes perceived returns rather
than avoid risks with sure but minimal returns
Every researcher study has a thesis. The
presence of a thesis differentiates research
from simple surveys.

 Part 2 is a summary of what other

authors say about the topic.
This is what is traditionally labelled as the
Review of Related Literature.
Example: It has been established that
people generally apply the principle of
rational choice when faced with options
(Albert (1996), Smith et al. (2003),
Johnson (2007), Avery et al. (2010)). In
this principle, people choose the option
that maximizes benefits to themselves.

 Part 3 indentifies what gaps or areas

of analysis have not been explored
by other authors.
Example: The principle of rationale
choice, which had been extensively
studied in the past, claimed that people
tend to choose options which maximize
benefits to themselves. However, the
connection between risks and perceived
benefits have not been studied at length.

 Part 4 is an outline of your

strategy to address the gap.
Example: In this study, a social
experiment is set up to observe how
people make decisions given a risk
and their perceived (not actual)
benefits for each options they take.
This is achieved by.....

Workshop 1
Choose a topic of interest and do a
literature search on the topic.
Write the INTRODUCTION of your
paper based on the four-part format.

Lecture
2.
The
Conceptual/Theoretical
Framework
Conceptual Framework
translates the Theories into their
component concepts expressed at
the Variable level.

 Example: The Rationale Choice Theory

(
) avers that people choose options
that maximizes their personal benefits.
In a decision situation, a person asks
what will accrue to me if I take this
option? The Rational Choice Theory is
one of several Choice theories that are
currently entertained including Paretos
Choice Theory (a person chooses on
option that improves the lot of a sector
but does not make other sectors worse
off) and Contingent Choice
Theory
(based on a persons valuation of the
options).

 Example
(Continued):
In
the
Rationale Choice Theory, the choice (C)
of an option depends on a perceived
reward (X) for that option but ignores the
risks (R) associated with that option. As
long as an option provides the highest
perceived reward (X), regardless of the
amount of risks (R), the theory stipulates
that a person will generally prefer that
option

 The succeeding discussions will focus

on the main variables identified viz.
C, X and R, and other variables that
may be of interest in relation to the
theory adopted.
The section culminates with a
discussion of the relationships and
inter-relationships of the variables.

Workshop 2
Write the theoretical/conceptual
framework of your study.

Lecture 3. Research Design

and Methods
Research Design refers to the
plan or outline of the plan for the
study
Research Methods refers to the
execution of the plan.

 Example: A social experiment is designed

to test the claim of the study. One hundred
subjects were asked to enter a booth. One
after another. In the booth, the researcher
waits with three (3) beautiful wrapped
boxes and a 10.00 bill. Each time a subject
enters, the researcher offers to give the
10.00-bill or offers any of the three (3)
boxes to be opened and its contents given
to the subject. The researcher notes the
choice made by the subject.

 Example (Continued): The subjects

of the study were randomly chosen from
University A representing both genders
with ages ranging from 18 to 50. These
participants were not informed of the
contents of the boxes and the
researchers intent for conducting the
study in order not to introduce bias.
Discuss how the values of the variable C,
X and R are to be obtained.
Discuss how these values are going to be
processed to respond to the thesis.

Workshop 3
Write the methodology of your study

LECTURE 4: RESULTS
AND DISCUSSIONS
This section has three(3) major parts:
Presentation of Results
Analysis of the Results(objective
part)
Interpretation of the Results and
Analysis
(subjective part)

PRESENTATION OF THE
RESULTS
Results are often displayed in
summarized tabular forms or graphs.

ANALYSIS OF THE
RESULTS
Guides
the
reader
on
the
components of the results that are
interesting
Breaks down the results into smaller
meaningful components.

INTERPRETATION OF THE
RESULTS
INTERPRETATION = to give meaning.
This is necessarily subjective because
the author gives his own interpretation
or meaning to the results obtained
based on his own expert opinion.
PRESENTATION and ANALYSIS are
the OBJECTIVE PORTION
of this
section; INTERPRETATION is the
SUBJECTIVE PORTION of the section.

WORKSHOP 4
Write the RESULTS AND
DISCUSSIONS portion of your study.

LECTURE 5: CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION = general statement
about the implications of the findings to
the THEORETICAL /CONCEPTUAL
FRAMEWORK
General Framework :

IF :
Finding 1, Finding 2, Finding 3
THEN
Conclusion

WORKSHOP 6
Write the CONCLUSION of your
study.