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Paper wri)ng PHYS409
Anadi Canepa (17th Jan 2014)
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Physical Review Journals
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• Physical Review Le?ers (PRL) – breakthroughs in all areas
• Physical Review A – atomic, molecular, and op)cal physics
• Physical Review B – condensed ma?er and materials physics
• Physical Reviews C – nuclear physics
• Physical Reviews D – par)cles, fields, gravita)on and cosmology
• Physical Reviews E – sta)s)cal, nonlinear, and soN ma?er physics
• Reviews of Modern Physics – Review in all areas
• ….
Physical Review Le?er
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Discovery of a Higgs boson (Nobel Prize 2013) published
in PLB due to space constraints on PRL
• What are the criteria for having a paper accepted by PRL? – New, Important and Broad
• Crea)ng new research topics; • Moving a field significantly forward; • Having impact on adjacent subfields; • Interes)ng to a broad readership.
• Format – 4-‐page Le?er format (strict length limit).
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Material provided by PRL editors
• What informa)on is essen)al and should be included in the PRL? – Big picture: context and main result, novelty, importance; – Technical informa)on and descrip)on.
• Overall organiza)on: – Abstract; – Introduc)on; – Main Body; – Summary and Conclusions.
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Material provided by PRL editors
• ABSTRACT – Short – Clear and brief – It describes
• the scien)fic problem, • the main/new results, • their importance/relevance.
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Material provided by PRL editors
• INTRODUCTION (it gives the first impression about the paper)
– ~ 1 column – Places the experiment into broader context – Relates to other relevant research results – Describes why the measurement reported in the paper is important – States techniques/methods – Describes organiza)on of the paper
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Material provided by PRL editors
• MAIN BODY (it describes findings in an organized, structured, and logical way)
– Includes a technical defini)on of the problem (theore)cal introduc)on, defini)on of symbols)
– Presents the experiment (experimental technique/detector) – Describes how the experiment is executed – Presents the data – Describes what uncertain)es affect the measurement – Includes data analysis
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Material provided by PRL editors
• CONCLUSIONS – Summarizes the main results and their physical meaning – Discusses their implica)ons for future research or present a scien)fic outlook
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Material provided by PRL editors
• LANGUAGE (key component of the paper)
– Concise – Informa)ve – Technical, jargon-‐free – Factual – Passive form preferred – Every word must be necessary and sufficient – Defini)ons should be made only ones – Symbols should be introduced at the first instance
Overall a PRL is required to be a self-‐consistent paper (either concepts are
introduced in the paper itself or proper references are cited) Strive to write a logical presenta)on and discussion of the results
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Material provided by PRL editors
• FIGURES – Large – Proper x,y axis labels – Legend – No Title! – Cap)on should describe
what data is presented
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Material provided by PRL editors
• Never use: “clearly, of course, roughly, large, big, important”, … • Get rid of superfluous words (“there is ..., the fact that ...”) • Replace sentences such as “I’ve collected data and made a plot of A
(Figure XYZ)” with “A is shown in Figure XYZ” • Include only equa)ons, figures, tables, and references that you refer to • Carefully define every term in equa)ons • Define all the lines and symbols in figures • Each figure and table comes with a cap)on • Number all equa)ons • All non-‐trivial statements should be explained or referenced
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Material provided by PRL editors
Sugges)on
• Read a PRL and learn how it is typically wri?en – On the PRL page h?p://prl.aps.org, follow the link “Editor’s sugges)ons”
• PRL link for instruc)ons to editors is h?p://prl.aps.org/info/infoL.html
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