An important part of writing up your research into a paper or dissertation involves being open and honest about what you think you could have done better, or what you would do differently if you were to repeat the experiment. This article offers some advice for deciding which limitations to include and how to frame them in your writing.

It has become more important than ever to work with colleagues from adjacent, and sometimes, completely different fields to tackle pressing issues. In this article, we discuss how to approach working in this way and also the skills (especially soft skills) needed to extract the most value from inter- and multidisciplinary research collaborations.

Academic writing is not only about technical words or jargon but many other words that help you to convey your thoughts. How do you expand your vocabulary? This article provides some practical ways to do so.

Retractions are usually the result of concerns raised by editors or readers. When authors request the retraction of their own work, it is called a self-retraction. 

Errors can affect the scientific rigour of a paper and the publication record of the author. There may also be times when a vital piece of information comes in just after your paper is published. As a researcher, you must know how such errors (errata) or missing details (addenda) are dealt with in academic publishing. 

Beginning the design of a quantitative research project can feel like stepping foot into a maze. Due to the potential complexity of designing a study like this, knowing which first step to take can be confusing. To help make it easier for you, we’ve split up the decision making into several distinct points that you can address separately.

Choosing whether you will carry out a quantitative or a qualitative research project is one of the questions that many early career researchers (ECRs) struggle with the most. This article will help you to work out which approach you should use for your project.

Creating a qualitative research project can feel overwhelming. However, by breaking the process down into simple questions, you will find that you’re ready to start collecting data sooner than you think. This article offers a series of questions that you can use as a guide to design your qualitative research project. 

While methodology and method are sometimes used interchangeably, they certainly are not. This article explains the difference.

A concept paper is a one- to two-page written document describing an idea for a project. There is no hard rule as to how this should be structured, but here are some tips on what to include and why to include them.

Chances are that you and other early career researchers (ECRs) have been using ‘dissertation’ and ‘thesis’ interchangeably. This article looks at the difference between the two terms, if indeed there is a difference.

There is no standard number of references for an article. However, the pointers in this article should help you work towards an optimal number.

The purpose of the revisions letter is to convince the editor that you have adequately revised the original manuscript to address all the comments made by its peer reviewers. This article shares pointers for writing an effective revisions letter after peer review.

When a translated version of an already published article is published, it is known as a ‘secondary publication’, and it is acceptable if conditions of transparency and disclosure, proper permission and appropriate attribution are met. This article discusses these conditions and also how to request making an acceptable secondary publication.

Accidental plagiarism occurs when an author fails to cite their sources and/or unintentionally paraphrases from a source without attributing it. This article helps you understand how accidental plagiarism arises and how to avoid it.

A meta-analysis is a quantitative (statistical) means by which to determine whether a particular effect reported in literature is real. This article explains when and how to perform a meta-analysis.

Writing a systematic review takes a lot of meticulous planning, in-depth research and rigour. Here, we go over a few things to consider when taking on a systematic review.

Scientific misconduct is a wilful violation of standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behaviour in the publication of professional scientific research. While misconduct can occur at any stage of the research, writing, peer review and publication processes, this post focuses on how journal editorial offices investigate and act upon allegations of scientific misconduct of authors.

A conflict of interest (COI) can be described as a situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity. This article explores the various problems posed by COIs in scientific publishing and how authors and journals can handle them.

This article reviews some of the key research tools available for writing biomedical articles. Most of these tools take the form of content databases, which include peer-reviewed published articles, non-published manuscripts in article or data repositories and registered clinical trials.