Technical Writing 2009: A Brief, Comprehensive Guide

Public science is for the public. In at least one top-ranked university in the Philippines, some people are loudly complaining why if you get technical papers published in ISI journals, you are entitled to a permanent position, or elevated to the rank of Scientist, not to mention to receive a cash award for each paper. In other words, the noisy complainers don't appreciate the fact that if you conduct research studies using public funds, you must publish the results – you must share the knowledge you gain with the public, award or no award.

You have to publish. The problem is that they don't teach you in college how to write technical papers; or they teach poorly; or they just assume that you know, or that you can cope. Result? Papers submitted for publications that leave much to be desired. And how do I know this? I have been editing technical papers since 1975. Having edited hundreds, if I see one now, I've seen them all. Been there, seen that.

I want to help. What follows is the guide to contributors I prepared completely by myself almost on the very first day that I became the Editor in Chief of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science (PJCS), which is published by the Crop Science Society of the Philippines 3 times a year; I was Editor from the January 2001 issue to the April 2008 issue. The contributor's guide is entirely original; you can't see anything like it anywhere in the world.

I'm offering it to the world, free. But, you may ask, it any good? What I can tell you is that under me, the PJCS became ISI, meaning it is now listed in the Master Journal List in the ISI-Web of Knowledge of Thompson Reuters, USA (science.thomsonreuters.com). It's world class. Becoming an 'ISI journal' is like being listed by Good Housekeeping as quality product or service. At the University of the Philippines System, they award $1000 for every paper published by an ISI journal whether published locally or abroad. That's not peanuts. The PJCS began publishing in 1976; it was only when I became Editor that it became ISI, sometime in 2007. I must have done something good.

And why did I think of putting the contributor's guide out now when I'm not editing any technical journal anymore? It's my way of encouraging those who wish to improve their writing of technical papers to be submitted for publication in any ISI journal. Here presented as it was in the December 2007 issue of the PJCS, while not everything applies in your case, I'm sure you can pick up many ideas you can use in preparing your technical paper whether you are targeting to publish in a technical journal in the Philippines or in Nigeria, in Asia or in America.

TECHNICAL WRITING 2009, A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE
Prepared by Frank A Hilario, Editor

(1) PERSPECTIVE

More than grain and chaff, your paper we see as evidently an expression of both substance and style. We distinguish:

Substance. Substance comes first. It has to do with materials, methods, meanings. Substance is in your hands; that is why the contents of your paper are your sole responsibility and reflect the knowledge or opinions of neither the Editor nor the Publisher. To help you, we have Section Editors and Reviewers, and this guide.

Style. Style is design, format and layout, the way the message (text and non-text) is put on paper and how it all looks. Each journal is entitled to its own style, which bespeaks of its approach to the language of scientists communicating via print. Style includes grammar; beyond the fundamentals of grammar, the way you write is your style, and we try to preserve it. To help you with style, you have us: the Editor In Chief along with the editorial workforce.

(2) SUBSTANCE

Between two equals, substance ranks higher than style. We expect your paper to be clear, concise, comprehensive, complete. So, think of these:

Title. Be brief; 15 words is too long. You can´t tell the whole story in a title, so don´t try. In the title or text, unless taxonomic identity is crucial, please do not include botanical names of common crops like rice, corn, mango, soybeans and sweet potato. Avoid phrases like ´effects of,´ ´relationship of´ and ´role of. ´

Explanatory Lines. Include, if appropriate, entries like ´Portion of MS thesis of senior author´ or ´Part of the project Sweet Potato Production & Marketing in Central Luzon, CS Gonzales, Project Leader. ´

Authors. In a multiple authorship, state the complete address after each name – please, no footnotes.

Abstract. Summarize rationale, materials & methods, conceptual framework (we recommend it), major findings, main conclusions, implications discerned, and major recommendations offered. 350 words maximum.

Keywords. Present major & minor subjects, as well as concepts & ideas expressed or implied in your paper that are important or contributory to new, additional, revised or related knowledge. Entries can be single words, compounds or phrases. The abstract and keywords will go into an Internet-ready database of PJCS papers as a service to our authors and readers.

Introduction. Include rationale and hypothesis. The rationale is the reason for the paper, and how it relates to a bigger whole. The hypothesis is an explicit/implicit statement of what the study or review is trying to prove or probe.

Literature Review. Preferably, cite at least one paper to support each assumption, declaration, finding or conclusion. This can be incorporated into the Introduction or treated as a separate section.

Materials & Methods. List materials & equipment and describe them especially if new, unusual, or modified. In any case, give enough details so that someone can replicate the study if need be.

Data. Please triple-check your data. We encourage you: Instead of the mean, use the mode to interpret data, as it reflects central tendency.

Illustrations. Make sure drawings or photo­graphs print well in black & white, and check captions: not too much text, please.

Results. What are your findings? Do results meet objectives? Not too many figures, please; not too many tables either. And yes, please explain each table properly and adequately, not dismiss it with a single sentence like ´Mortality is shown in Table 13.´

Discussion. We strongly urge you to separate Results from Discussion, where you may want to identify your major findings and try to integrate them. Try to relate one thing with another, and come up with a bigger whole, as it were.

Conclusions, Implications & Recommendations. Conclusions are logical extensions of findings. Implications are insights or inferences from conclusions, reached via critical or creative thinking. Recommendations are concrete steps proposed to be taken based on implications conjectured. Thus: Finding – ´Monoculture had the lowest, intercropping the middle and multi-storey highest XYZ diversity index, the differences being significant.´ Conclusion – ´XYZ species diversity is directly related to the cropping system.´ Implication (critical thinking) – ´High crop diversity maintains high natural XYZ predator-prey relation­ships.´ Implication (creative thinking) – ´Trap crops can maintain predator-prey relationships under mono­culture.´ Recommendation – ´Require trap crops under mono­culture for natural pest management.´

Acknowledgment. Include, if you may, sources of funds and materials, and names of offices, institutions or individuals who helped in the study or manuscript.

Literature Cited/References. Lit Cited: For authors & papers mentioned in text. References: For sources not specifically cited in text but where data were taken extensively from. In either case, don´t forget year and page numbers.

(3) STYLE

What follows are aspects of style of the PJCS; note that many of the guidelines aim to simplify the way you prepare your manuscript.

Abbreviations & Acronyms. Put no period in any abbreviation or initial; thus, JB Carcallas. Abbreviate liter to L, gram to g, meter to m, milliliter to mL, megabyte to MB, million to M etc. Make no plurals of abbreviations, but of the making of acronyms, there is no end. Thus: DOST, PCARRD, ERDB, HYV, NGO etc. If you use any acronym, spell out the name first, eg, deoxy­ribo­nucleic acid (DNA) or Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), then use the acronym throughout.

Active Voice & Personal Pronouns. The two go together. We urge you to choose the active voice over the passive, as the latter is the source of much vagueness, wordiness, and a great many grammatical errors. Passive & bad: ´The coded data from these activities can be fed to the program and perform XYZ Analysis´ means that the data can do xyz Analysis, which is incorrect. Active & better: ´Once you feed the coded data into the program, you can run XYZ Analysis.´ More: Here´s an active voice from the silent past, 1974 (CSSP Proceedings of the 5th Scientific Meeting in Naga, p 26):

In spite of its importance, no studies to our knowledge have been reported on it. We have wondered about its application to modern agriculture. Does a corn-rice intercrop combination respond to high levels of management? To answer this question, an experiment was conducted during the 1973 wet season in Los Baños, Laguna.

Excellent! But they are not consistent; the last sentence should read: ´To answer this question, we conducted an experiment ...´

Botanical/Zoological Names. For scientific names of plants, bacteria, fungi, enzymes, compounds etc, consult an authoritative source. Don´t repeat scientific names, as they need extra attention – instead, use abbreviations or acronyms, eg, Jc for Jathropa curcas and JcB for Jathropa curcas cv ´Batac´ (or simply ´Batac´), after citing the full name with authority. Similarly, for a code name like RP2058-78-1-3-2-3, refer to it subsequently as, say, RP78.

Capitalization. Capitalize the first letter of every word in heads and subheads – it´s easier to format with software. Not capitalizing ´of´ and ´the´ and ´about´ and such words adds to formatting time, rules to memorize, but not to the quality of the paper itself.

Italics. You may italicize common names or terms. Spare yourself the trouble of italicizing et al, in situ, ex situ, ad libitum etc.

Literature Cited/References. Sort entries by last names of senior or lone authors. Don´t all-caps names of authors. For accuracy, give full names of journals, not abbreviations. Examples of entries follow; for more, see any of the papers in this issue:

Del Rosario DA, ETM Ocampo, AC Sumague & MCM Paje. 1992. Adaptation of vegetable legumes to drought stress. In Adaptation Of Food Crops To Temperature And Water Stress: Proceedings Of An International Symposium, CG Kuo (ed), Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center Publication 93-410. 360-371 (article in book/volume)

Divinagracia Nena S & DA Ramirez. 1976. Morphology and cytology of Saccharum officinarum L. indigenous to the Philippines. Philippine Journal of Crop Science 1(1): 1-25. (article in a journal)

Yuniaty A. 1998. Screening For Drought Resistance With The Use Of Some Morpho-Physiological Characters In Soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) MS thesis, University of the Philippines Los Baños, College, Laguna. 57-59 (thesis)

When citing in the text, use the family name & year: Carpio 1997, Reyes & Lopez 2000, Protacio et al 2001 (3 or more authors), and no comma before year. Indonesians have no family names, so always cite complete name. Chinese names start with that of the family.

Measures. Use the Système Internationale (SI). SI units have to do with meter, gram, second. Indicate dollar equivalents for money. Use P (P with a doublestrike) for the Philippine peso.

Numbers. A preposition is great to end a sentence with. But not a numeral to begin. Spell out one to nine, except with units of measure: 1 L, 9 lb. Incorrect: ´from 7-13 flowers.´ Correct: ´7-13 flowers.´ Please round off digits as much as possible.

Tables & Figures. Use the series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and not 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 2c, 3a, 3b, which is difficult to number, renumber and check – by you and us. Format tables so that they read and print upright – portrait is easier and more inviting to read than landscape. If you can´t portrait, split data into 2-3 smaller tables.

Whatelse. Don´t hyphenate any word. Never mind having only the first line of a paragraph at the bottom of a page or column (called orphan; see below, column 1), or the last line at the top (called widow; see previous page, column 2): we don´t mind either. ´Respectively´ – Avoid it like the plague when comparing; your sentence will be shorter and clearer if you do. Correct: results in not results to, based on not based from, cope with not cope up with, aim at not aim to, in support of not in support to.

(4) MANUSCRIPTS

Major Papers: We accept papers of these categories: (1) research done, (2) thesis conducted, (3) review made or state of the art arrived at, (4) paper presented, (5) lecture delivered, (6) theoretical paper brain-stormed, (6) policy proposed or pronounced, (7) reaction paper reasoned out.

Special Papers: We publish brief reports on any interesting develop­ment, or a small part of a bigger effort.

Views: We do not espouse any ism; all things being equal, our view may be the opposite of yours, but we will publish yours. Letters welcome.

(5) COPIES

The electronic copy you submit to us should be in Microsoft Word. Type tables in Word too – one item, one cell, please. Tables in Word are a must for data & text – learn to align by software, not by the spacebar, tab key or Enter. If possible, put into one electronic file everything: text, table, graph, drawing, photo­graph etc – that way it´s easy to check for missing items. Don´t layout pages; after the text, put everything else at the end of the file. If you want your photograph to print beautifully, make sure your scanning is excellent; else, send us an original with good contrast.

Submit 2 hard copies plus 1 electronic copy of your manuscript. Copy into a CD disk, or send via email as attachment.

We will be sending back to you your paper edited with Word´s Track Changes, to make it easy for you to look for modifications or revisions if any. Make your corrections, comments on the same file, still under Track Changes, and send it back to us.

(6) SOFTWARE

From the April 2002 issue onward, we have been using Word 2003 as desktopper, as we find it most author-friendly, most editor-friendly, and most publisher-friendly. We are going after maximum use of software (Windows & Word) for optimum sustainable yield of printed pages. We had a dream: Working together as one – author, reviewer, editor and publisher – we brought the PJCS up-to-date. And then ISI. Thus, the PJCS stands as the only journal in the world that has achieved world-class status using Word 2003 solely as desktop publishing software. The Editor who was responsible for such a feat is the same one who is bringing you this guide. He has proven that excellence is in the details.