The Order of Sentence Elements in World Languages

In the process of writing, whether in one’s native language or a foreign language, one of the primary concerns of a writer should be the order of elements in a sentence. Decisions about this will create results at many levels, from intimacy with the reader to the scientific quality of a paper. Sentence structure requires the attention of not only writers, but also translators and editors. The changes that are made when translating a manuscript from the source language to the target language are determined by the grammatical rules of the target language. From time to time, this makes it necessary to reorganize a sentence and put clauses in new places to preserve the original emphasis. When writers see different sentence structures in their source text and the translated manuscript, they perceive this structural difference as a difference in meaning. However, every language has a unique way of expression, and translation is not merely selecting the corresponding words in a foreign language, but also writing a new manuscript that suits these ways of expression.

Let us consider the sentence rules in a few different languages. The rules of sentence structure in Japanese differ from most European languages. A Japanese sentence begins with the subject, and the verb is placed at the end. The object comes between them. Another characteristic of Japanese is that this order is quite flexible, and it allows the verb to be put at the beginning of a sentence or the subject to be put at its end. This flexibility is more suitable for casual use though, and the general preference is subject/object/verb. English sentences begin with a subject and a verb. The other components to complement the theme of the sentence (for example, time, place, people or objects) come last. This changes when a sentence is in the passive voice, and the use of a verb at the end of a long sentence can be undesirable.

In Turkish, the main verb comes at the end of a sentence. In a sentence in the active voice, all the elements that complete the meaning are placed before the verb. This structure makes it possible to provide all details before the verb. Another difference from other languages is the use of clauses. In Turkish, clauses can be written before an element like an adjective, while they need to be written after them in English, and this requires restructuring translated sentences.

Turkish writers writing in Turkish usually want to provide the details first and put the verb at the end (of a sentence in the active voice) and expect to see clauses in these places, which leads them to prefer English manuscripts that are written in the same way. However, it is not possible to preserve these characteristics in translations to English.

For all these reasons, it is quite ordinary for translated manuscripts to include differences in structure. Translators and editors focus on following the rules of the target language rather than keeping the word order of the source text. Thanks to this approach, the translated paper does not read and sound like a translated manuscript and is easier to follow since it has the appropriate characteristics for the target language.

The 20 Golden Rules for Increasing Your Citation Numbers

Your articles’ number of citations are crucial for your career. Out of thousands of articles in your field, your article can be cited most. The number of citations also indicates the impact of your article on the literature. How would you like to be cited by scholars from around the world?
You can increase the number of citations of your articles by using these 20 techniques:

• If your unpublished work is related to a work you have already published, then make sure that you cite it. By citing your published works, you can both raise the profile of all your studies and increase your articles’ number of citations by more than 50%. You should make sure that your self-citations are relevant to your new work, and that you do not quote more than 20 to 30% of an article. However, do not refer to every article you have published for the sake of increasing your citation. You can also increase your h-index by quoting from your works.

• Quote the leading scholars in your field. Show that you know the work of your field’s prominent researchers by quoting them. You can also enhance the quality of your work by including findings from their studies. This will also lead you to use more accurate terminology for new concepts. Quoting leading scholars has a great impact on your citation numbers.

• Publish in journals that have a high impact factor. Articles in journals with a high impact factor are cited more frequently. Your publications will be noticed by a large number of people since such journals have readers from around the world.

• Select your keywords attentively. Many journals have word limits of 4 to 8 for keywords, so you should choose them carefully. To increase your work’s visibility in databases, choose the keywords that best describe your topic and that researchers are most likely to use for web searches. For selecting your keywords, you can use online sites such as MeSH on Demand.

• Use the keywords of your study in the title and abstract frequently. Frequently using your keywords increases the likelihood of your work rising to the top of search engine lists, which will get you more citations.

• Quote your colleagues. Another key technique for maximizing your citation numbers is to quote your colleagues’ work. This also shows that you know the latest research well. You should quote your colleagues as much as possible, and you should also quote colleagues whose findings conflict with yours. Articles are more likely to be cited in journals that publish articles with many citations.

• Use your name consistently in all of your articles. Using the same name for all your articles will make them easier for others to identify. If your name is a common name, you should definitely have an online account with ORCID or ResearcherlD. You should share your identity in your e-mail signature and access your publication list using a link or this identity so that anyone you e-mail can easily access your publications.

• Make sure your information is accurate. Proofread the final draft of your article to ensure that your name and your institution’s name are spelled correctly, and that database searches will accurately access your article. You should not use abbreviations for your institutional credentials. Write them out in full.

• Choose comprehensive topics for your articles. You will have less difficulty in finding references for comprehensive topics, so your articles will be cited more frequently. Otherwise, you will only be able to cite a few other scholars and also be cited by fewer researchers’ articles. You should write long articles with many references. You should not choose topics that are questions. Studies that include good explanations are also more likely to be cited.

• Be unique and innovative. Uniqueness and novelty increase the likelihood of getting your article published. Discovering a form of expression that is unique in your field and using it throughout your academic career will increase your citation numbers.

• Make your articles easily accessible. Open access increases citation numbers. However, if your article has not been published in an open access journal, you should send pre- and post-publication editions to a pool. You should also self-archive by storing the articles you publish in peer-reviewed journals on your own website or free electronic archives, and you should share them with everyone on open access platforms. Check the link to SHERPA/RoMEO to find publishers’ copyright and self-archiving policies regarding the sharing of published articles.

• Share your data. Be sure to publish in-depth research findings and to share your data. There is some evidence that sharing your article will increase its citation numbers. You should send your work to data-sharing platforms such as Figshare and SlideShare, websites, contribute to Wikipedia and add links to your published works.

• Stress the importance of your article. Tell people about the importance of your articles. You should also take part in the conferences, meetings and discussions of scholarly organizations. Although your article may not be cited by others during conference presentations, presenting it at a conference will make it more visible to academic and research organizations. You should also take advantage of the press bulletins provided by publishers and the public relations agencies of many institutions. You should also create podcasts to complete your project or prepare educational programs for scientific studies. Using YouTube, TedTalks, TedEd Lessons, Dynamic Posters or Prezi you can also spread information about your work to large numbers of people.

• Write influential articles. Send your best and most persuasive articles to the most field-specific and prestigious journals with the highest numbers of abstract publications and indexes. Make sure you choose journals that are popular in your field. You should study popular subjects, use compelling titles, and prepare clearly written abstracts. Get feedback about your article as you design it and as a draft. Keep in mind that even rejection is a first step, and that a previously rejected article may be cited more frequently after being accepted.

• Do joint work with authors from other countries. Co-authored articles get more citations. Doing joint work with authors from other countries, Nobel Prize winners or well-known authors in your field will increase your citation numbers. You can also do joint work with authors from other fields.

• Introduce your article actively. Try to spread information about your articles to as many people as possible. Discuss your articles with other researchers even from other fields, and send copies to all the researcher you think it may interest. Send hard copies to the authors you have cited or you know it will interest. You should also create a blog or website for your research and share it with others. You can also increase your recognition by adding your latest published article to your e-mail signature.

• Use social media. Actively use social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Academia.edu, ResearchGate and Mendeley to spread information about your articles. You should create pages about your research, open discussions, and participate in discussions. Talk with people from around the world and ask questions. Write blog posts, make updates, and talk about the conferences and meetings you attend. You should also demonstrate your knowledge of the field and even list your publications on your website. You should be very careful to keep your website up-to-date, and add links to your institutional profile page and your other social media pages.

• Do a literature review. A well-written literature review contains many citations of the leading scholars in your field. Literature reviews are an effective way to increase your citation numbers, and thus impact factor.

• Get citations by publishing your work in different media. Change title and text of an article you have prepared to present in a conference to prepare it for submission to a journal and add a citation of the conference text. This will increase your citation numbers and get you two publications.

• Introduce your work to native and foreign academics by e-mail. Thousands of articles are published in every academic field. Since researchers have countless references to cite in their studies, it is quite unlikely that they will notice your article. You can access the e-mail address of the academics in your field through their university profiles. E-mails that include your publications will highlight them and increase your citation numbers.

How do Languages Affect Studies?

Up until a century ago, scientific studies were largely published in French, German and English, and before that, in Latin, but today the dominant language for such studies is English. This is because most of the prestigious journals publish in English, and publishing articles in these journals is very important for the career of a researcher.

According to the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) data, there are currently 9,153 open access journals in 43 languages listed in this index, of which, 53% are published only in English and 47% are published in an another language. Moreover, 62% of the English-language journals only include articles dating back to 2010.

However, the preference for English in scientific studies makes it difficult for non-native English researchers to share their articles globally. It can also be challenging to communicate with journal editors and reviewers in such situations, as communication takes place mostly in the electronic environment, which can create problems related to trying to understand the wording of the other party in this environment. More problematic communication may arise when the language becomes complex for one of the parties.

15 Million Hours Lost in Peer-Review Process

Many studies receive a rejection response after being submitted to a journal, but the reviews are often not shared among journal reviewers. Even in cases where there has been such sharing, the lack of a standard practice concerning this issue means every journal on the market requires the author to fulfill their own evaluation requests before making a decision. This situation may result in reviewers having to repeat the procedures previously performed by their colleagues for the same study. It is estimated that over 15 million hours are spent on additional evaluations each year.

What do the figures say?

There are two notable metrics for finding the amount of time unnecessarily spent in this process – the quantity metric, for number of studies reviewed and rejected, and the time metric, for how long each submission was peer reviewed. For example, the following shows the results related to the assessments including 12,000 journals.

Each year approximately 3,360,000 submissions are made to Sciences, Technology and Medical Journals published in English.

According to Thompson Reuters data, the average number of submissions per journal is 280, which means that the 280 submissions made to each of the 12,000 journals corresponds to roughly 3,360,000 submissions each year.

The number of submissions in question refers to how many times submissions are made, not to the number of studies performed. To clarify, a study which has been rejected by a journal but accepted by another within a year goes through two review stages, and these stages are considered as two separate submissions.

Each year roughly 1,344,000 (40%) submissions are accepted

Thomson Reuters reports that 37% of all submissions it receives are accepted, while Mark Ware PRC reports this rate as 50% on average. Based on Thomas Reuters data and other data, the average rate of acceptance is 40%, which means roughly 1,344,000 studies are accepted each year.

Factors Affecting Acceptance

• Achieving results supported by strong evidence
• Proposing a new idea or approach and seeking answers to new questions
• Pointing out findings that are extremely important to scientists in a particular field and appealing to researchers from different disciplines
• Having logical and clear arguments that are not self-contradictory, but rather, well-constructed with an easily understandable style and built on a good story
• Addressing an important topic and shedding light on unanswered questions
• Having been prepared with sound research methods
• Establishing an accurate connection with previous studies in the field
• Creating a new theory or developing an existing theory
• Clarifying why and how data affect the results

Each year roughly 705,600 (21%) submissions are rejected WITHOUT REVIEW, while roughly 1,310,400 (39%) submissions are rejected WITH REVIEW

MarkWare PRC reports that the rate of submissions rejected without peer review, which is also known as “desk rejection”, is 21%. In such cases, authors experience both time and opportunity loss and the incurrence of additional costs, and have to try their luck in another journal. Outside the 21% desk rejection rate and 40% acceptance rate, the remaining 39% of submissions are rejected later, which corresponds to 1,310,400 submissions per year.

Desk Rejection Process

In 50% of desk rejections, editors inform authors within one week. However, 17% of the journals inform authors in such cases after a period longer than four weeks. Sometimes this period can even exceed three months, prompting authors to sometimes withdraw their studies.

The desk rejection period of one-third of the journals exceeds two weeks, while that of one-sixth of the journals exceeds four weeks. The average desk rejection period is 10 days for medical journals, 11-12 days for natural sciences, health sciences and engineering journals, and 15-17 days for psychology, social sciences, math, and computer sciences journals.

In some cases, the editor may cite the unsuitability of the study for the journal as the reason for desk rejection, and therefore slow down the procedures such as preparing reports etc. Weakness in the professional working approach of journals can also affect the lengths of time for desk rejection. Accordingly, the journals with the shortest first response times are medical journals, which have the most professional approaches. In addition to the desk rejection period, the first review process and the total review period are also shorter in journals with high impact factors. Thus, the overall review process is more efficient. A more professional organizational structure also has an effect on this process. If the desk rejection period exceeds one month, the evaluation process of the reviewer reports may also be prolonged.

According to an analysis of an evaluation of 3500 manuscripts, 572 (16.3%) manuscripts were rejected without being sent to the reviewer, 693 (19.8%) manuscripts were rejected after the first revision, 2128 manuscripts (60.8%) were accepted after one or more revisions, 43 (1.2%) manuscripts were immediately accepted without peer-review process, and 64 (1.8%) manuscripts were withdrawn by the author.

The peer-review process typically begins with the editor’s acceptance or direct rejection of the study. Studies that pass this first stage are sent to reviewers and decisions are made on whether to accept or reject the study or to provide the author with the opportunity to make revisions based on the evaluation report of the reviewer.

Authors’ Approaches

In a previous study conducted on this subject, it was reported that 72% of 480 participants felt that a long or short peer-review process was not an indicator of acceptance or rejection of a manuscript. According to the same study, participants considered that it was necessary to keep the rejection time short to allow time to prepare the manuscript for submission to another journal.

In another study, it was found that in the case of an unpublished manuscript, authors tended to accuse reviewers of being incompetent or editors of being indifferent, whereas in the case of the publication of the study, authors tended to see it as their own achievement. Furthermore, native English-speaking authors tend to have more negative reactions when their manuscripts are rejected or subject to multiple revisions, which can be an indication that they have higher expectations.

Factors Affecting Rejection

• Being technically inadequate (plagiarism, being simultaneously evaluated in another journal, incomplete/missing sections, language errors, missing and incomprehensible figures, non-compliance with the publication principles of the relevant journal, and missing or outdated references
• Having been submitted to an inappropriate journal, and incompliance with the Aims and Scope of the relevant journal
• Not yet complete and including mostly observations
• Being incomprehensible and inadequate in terms of language quality
• Failing to have an interesting topic
• Giving the impression that it is the extension of another study of the author and not contributing to the improvement/development of the relevant field
• Having results that disregard the literature, data that do not support the results, and invalid arguments
• Having misleading methods or analyses, being statistically invalid and failing to comply with the standards of the relevant field
• Manuscript is too long or too short
• Non-compliance with ethical values
• Being weak in terms of presentation
• Includes theoretical methods within a weak framework
• Being weak in terms of context
• Making no new contribution to the field
• Non-compliance with article criteria
• Non-compliance with the standards of the relevant journal and with academic writing

Reviewers spend an average of 11.5 hours on each submission

According to the Mark Ware STM report, an average of 5 hours is spent for each review, and according to the Mark Ware PRC report, an average of 2.3 reviewers are assigned for each submission. This means that an average of 11.5 hours in total is spent for each submission. This period refers to the amount of time the reviewers spend on each submission. During the peer-review period, the time spent by the journal or the publishing house (e.g., appointing reviewers, editor checks, relevant software costs, etc.) and the time spent for handling the relevant studies (e.g., editor assessments, technical checks, other operational processes, etc.) are not included in the period in question.

Every year, 15,069,600 hours are wasted on peer review

Considering that 11.5 hours are spent for each submission, and that 1,310,400 submissions are reviewed and rejected, it is concluded that an average of 15 million hours is wasted every year.

Given that one year corresponds to roughly 8760 hours and assuming that a single reviewer works for 24 hours, this period corresponds to roughly 1,720 years.

Even Nobel Laureates are Rejected

A study on 923 journals published between 2006 and 2009 showed that manuscripts initially rejected for publication received more citations than those accepted immediately. Furthermore, manuscripts that were rejected by one journal and then submitted to another and accepted for publication generally received more citations than manuscripts published in the first submission attempt in this second journal.

A reasonable explanation for this case could be that rejected manuscripts are rewritten and improved in line with the reviewer and editor comments in the first peer-review and thus become more effective studies. Another explanation could be that the greater the time span between the submission and the publication, the more the relevant study is mentioned in conferences. Lastly, it could also be argued that studies which contradict the status quo are generally rejected at first. An example of this is when studies involving Nobel prize-winning discoveries are rejected in the first submission. Ground-breaking studies of over 20 Nobel prize winning researchers are reported to have been rejected in the first submission try. Considering that even Nobel prize-winning discoveries are rejected in the first submission try, it is not surprising that other studies that contradict the status quo are rejected.

The English nephrologist Peter John Ratcliffe’s study presenting findings on how cells react to the changes in the oxygen level was rejected by the journal Nature in 1992, but 27 years later, Ratcliffe, along with William Kaelin Jr. and Gregg Semenza, were awarded the Nobel prize for their promising discoveries related to the fight against anemia, cancer, and many other diseases.

As can be seen, it was not until much later that the value of some studies were appreciated, a phenomenon not limited to the field of medicine but one that occurs in various disciplines. Hans Krebs’s study on the citric acid cycle, which is also referred to as the “Krebs cycle”, won him a medal in 1953 but was rejected by the journal Nature in 1937 on the grounds that there were too many pending manuscripts. In 1988, seven years after the death of Krebs, an anonymous editor published a letter in Nature defining this event as the biggest gaffe to have been committed by the journal.

Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1977 thanks to her groundbreaking findings on insulin and antibodies, had received feedback many years prior from the Journal of Clinical Investigation stating that her findings were dogmatic, and that the relevant data were not precise.

Chemist Richard Robert Ernst was rejected twice by the Journal of Chemical Physics. His study outlining Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, which is extremely useful for chemists and biochemists, as it reveals the details about the structures and dynamics of molecules, was subsequently accepted for publication by the Review of Scientific Instruments and resulted in Ernst winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Theoretical Physicist Peter Higgs’s study about the eponymous “Higgs model” was rejected by Physics Letters, but following the studies he did in 1966 and after CERN researchers found evidence supporting the presence of the Higgs boson in ATLAS and CMS experiments, he won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2013.

Even scientists whose studies are taught as textbooks have received rejection responses, and even the titles of the studies have sometimes been the reasons for rejection. Yet, the rejections of the study by Johann Deisenhofer, Robert Huber, and Hartmut Michel on photosynthesis, the study on Cherenkov radiation, and Hideki Yukawa’s study on meson, as well as the initial rejection of Stephen Hawking’s study on black hole radiation, are indisputably considered to be among the major historical blunders of the scientific world. From these examples, we can draw the following conclusion: authors whose studies have been rejected but who believe their studies are worthy of publication should continue to develop their studies in line with the feedback they receive and continue to submit their studies to journals until they are published.

Journals’ Classical Reasons for Rejection of Manuscripts

Journals generally reject manuscripts for the following reasons:

A reasonable explanation for this case could be that rejected manuscripts are rewritten and improved in line with the reviewer and editor comments in the first peer-review and thus become more effective studies. Another explanation could be that the greater the time span between the submission and the publication, the more the relevant study is mentioned in conferences. Lastly, it could also be argued that studies which contradict the status quo are generally rejected at first. An example of this is when studies involving Nobel prize-winning discoveries are rejected in the first submission. Ground-breaking studies of over 20 Nobel prize winning researchers are reported to have been rejected in the first submission try. Considering that even Nobel prize-winning discoveries are rejected in the first submission try, it is not surprising that other studies that contradict the status quo are rejected.

• Incompliance with the Aims and Scope of the journal
• Simultaneous evaluation by another journal
• Not written in an easily understandable form
• Non-compliance with the writing style of the journal
• Make no contribution to the journal
• Make no contribution to advancement in the field
• Lack a clear or new hypothesis
• Failure to include supportive evidence in achieving results
• Include weak analyses
• Written using a wrong or outdated research methodology
• Include inconclusive findings
• Failure to answer the questions proposed by the hypothesis
• Violate the research ethics
• Manuscript is too long or too short
• Lack the qualifications of a scientific manuscript
• Language inadequacies
• Failure to introduce any innovation regarding the relevant topic
• Non-compliance with the standards of the journal and, in general, with academic writing
• Theoretical weaknesses
• Poor presentation

Peer-review is affected by many other factors apart from those given above, such as the obligation to accept a certain number of manuscripts, which means many qualified studies have to be eliminated due to this restriction. Furthermore, studies are generally less likely to be accepted on the first submission try. In addition to these, fundamental errors in terminology can also lead to the rejection of a study. The use of consistent, clear, and explicit terminology in long studies will reduce the possibility of criticism in this respect.