Scientific Manuscript: Introduction of Scholarly Articles


The improvement of professionalism among lecturers and researchers in universities, nowadays, is seen via its published works. These works could be in form of books, patents, documents, products, prototypes, or scientific articles, in which these works aim to maintain their theoretical and practical skills as lecturers. Although several reasons in publishing their works probably depicts their integrity as researchers (ethical aspects, in which in this post is not discussed both in general or detail), publishing their works also demonstrates their obligation, such as in Indonesia, it is called as "Tri Dharma Perguruan Tinggi". Conceptually speaking, Tri means three, dharma means dedication;perguruan tinggi means university, there are three dedicational activities that must be performed by a lecturer, which are (1) Studying/ learning, (2) Researching, (3) Community Services. Therefore, the knowledge that a lecturer gains from studying and researching must be implement for community's benefits.


The real example of performing research in field of university is by publishing their works. These works are varied, such as delivering the results in international or national conferences, presenting the works in form of scientific journals, or by writing books that can be donated to libraries. However, for conferences and books, these two are very familiar, while for the scientific journals are quite confusing among lecturers.


What is journal? article? manuscript?

In defining a scientific journal, a common conceptual view of journal can be used. Journal is a book, sometimes it is a notebook, that is used by a person after seeing, touching, hearing, or even tasting something. In the past time in which people travel by sailing ship, a journal is a record of the voyages. It contains a lot of information regarding the voyage, in which some information includes the weather, coordinates, name of islands, meeting to something, or everything related to the voyages.Hence, by doing the same concept, we could define that a journal is a collection of some results, in this case either it is an experimental results or non-experimental results. Thus, A scientific journal is a collection scientific articles that are formed in one bundle, in which the publication process is performed frequently. The manuscripts or articles that are published in a journal are varied.

Types of articles?

Original article. An original research or sometimes is called as original article or just article (depending on the journal), is a type of manuscript that is used to publish full reports of data from the research that has been carried out. The format of this article is:
Introduction -- Methods -- Results -- Discussion sections, or it is shortened as IMRAD

Brief Reports/ Short Communication. This type of paper aims to communicate about some results. However, brief reports of data can be submitted given the results are promising and convincing, by which the editor of the journals might have considered that these results could provide significant impacts to scientists in the future. A Brief Report or sometimes called Letter/ Note are commonly written with the aim of reporting something. This also happens in the medical field with the name of Case Report, where the authors would like to report an unique medical cases found in their workforces.


Review Article. According to Taylor and Francis, a review article is defined as "A survey of previously published research on a topic. It should give an overview of current thinking on the theme and, unlike an original research article, will not present new experimental results". The keywords here are those in bold, and it means that a review article is written to provide a comprehensive summary about research topic. As its aims to summarize the recent research, a review article is commonly written by researchers who have been considered as experts due to their research experiences in particular in certain topics. On the other hand, a review article has a requirement such as approximately 100 primary research articles since it is used for basis to determine a research question.


Conference Proceedings. Then, what about a conference? "A conference proceeding is the published record of a conference, congress, symposium, other meeting sponsored by a society or association, usually but not necessarily including abstracts or reports of papers presented by the participants. When the entire text of the papers presented is included, the result is called transactions" (Pen State University Library). The aim of conference proceedings lies on three features, in which these tend to establish research communication, and they, by quoting from the Pen State University Library again, are (1) "Engage with leading edge research", (2) "Informally present research", (3) "Present new ideas". For number two and three, it can be assumed that the function of conference is to avoid similarity of ideas by proposing the research idea with current data (preliminary data).


The process of journal submission is definitely decided via the types of articles that are going to be submitted. Thus, a good understanding about the manuscript which depends on the aims or objectives determines the submission. 

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