Miscellaneous Talks and Notes
===

###### tags: `PhD`

This document consists of the notes taken during the various talks and seminars

[TOC]

### CONVERSATION WITH EDITOR-IN-CHIEF SERIES (A\*Star)

#### Prof. Kirk S. Schanze --- Editor-in-Chief of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 9 Feb 2022

- Papers submitted here first go to executive editors to check for:
1. Fit to the scope. Looking for materials with applications (strong connections between materials and the applications). Typically do not publish papers that are material characterisation (will send transfer).
2. Novelty.

- Then go to editor:
1. Match papers with expertise according to editor. Editors are responsible for choosing peer reviewers.

- Desk rejection -> reviewed by at least 2 editors.

- Number of papers per year is 20k to 25k. So divide up among the executive editors.

- Sister journals
- ACS Applied energy materials : 4000 submissions
- ACS Appplied nano materials: 6000 submissions

- Selection of reviewers:
1. They don't use age as a criteria in selecting reviewers.
2. Find related works using web of science or references
3. Find the authors and and use them as reviewers.
4. They try to make the reviewers collaborate with the new authors as well(?).

- Early career senior scientists are generally the reviewers. Either that or senior students acting as saikang warriors for senior scientists are the ones reviewing.
- "ACS reviewer lab" course if you are interested to be a reviewer, puts you into a database so high chance of being a reviewer. https://www.acsreviewerlab.org/

- Goal of the ACS AMI (from Chief editor perspective)
- Broad impact journal
- Keeping submissions up (25% publication rate)

- In Asia, RSC and ACS are equally good (society-based) so they try to publish more while keeping the impact factor high compared to Wiley and Nature.

- Perspectives mostly contact those scientists that are 10 to 15 years after their PhDs. If interested to publish a review with them, contact [e-mail], if rejected will respond in 2 days.

#### Prof. Sara Skrabalak --- Editor-in-Chief of ACS Journals, Chemistry of Materials and ACS Materials Letters, 17 Feb 2022
- Title Selection
- Avoid generic titles (show what is new and significant of the work, represents content well)
- Avoid too long/too-detailed (work appears incremental; devaluation)
- Title and abstract is to gain reader's attention and make them read the paper

- Experimental
- Written in past tense, provide all details necessary, inclusion of safety hazards.

- Figures
- Provide an outline for the manuscript
- Convey the significance of work, not the order in which the experiments were run.
- Aesthetics, legibility, details
- Nearly square plots, avoid green-red, consider if it is black and white then how.
- San-serif fonts are the best, avoid times new roman.

- Writing style
- Key takeaways from the figures.
- remove unnecessary words.

- Cover letters
- Address to editor in chief; response letters addressed to assigned editors.
- Include manuscript type and if it is invited or not.
- 1 paragraph to descript the significance of the work and how it fits the scope of your selected journal
- Don't want too long, too many statements of significance, don't wrong gender lol.

#### Nature Synthesis (Dr Alison Stoddart): 18 March 2022
- What makes a good paper (great research)
- Asking a good qns
- Expt design
- Strong evidence
- Noteworthy conclusions

- Nature editors are looking for:
- Breadth of interest (best if can relate to scientists in other fields),
- Striking conceptual advance (change understanding of the field).
- Strong logical support for conclusions, mechanistic insight;
- **Works that inspire further research.**
- Sometimes: resource value, technical breakthrough.

- Writing style:
- Accurate (precise embedding of data in the words), clear (closely related ideas together, break up long sentences, facts first), concise (speicific and simple, avoid redundancy), "Tenses are fundamental" (Nature seems less tolerant towards poor english compared to ACS Pubs), with context.
- Nature journals remove all claims of novelty.
- Avoid 'celebrity endorsements' lol.
- Their editors can really edit a lot lel. Like a lot.
- Long term vision of nature synthesis (difference from nature sustainability):
1. Overlaps are present because 50 journals. No easy answer for this.

- How long on average taken by editor to reject the article:
- 1 to 4 hours. Because they will look at other people's work as well.
- 45 mins for the editors that are more experienced.
- They dont just look at abstract like some other journals.
- Time taken to find reviewers: depends on breadth and how specific is the field.