although the author is a medial scientist and his proposal is basically for the publication of natural science paper, there are still common points for the writing of a scientific paper. His major point is sound and valid: the standard for a science is the possiblity to reproduce the results, if the natural science depends on the clear description of the experiments, the social science counts on the description of the methods used and the data source.
Title: for the use of index in databse, thus delete all the unecessary words such as THE, OF, A, etc.
Abstract: scope of research, methods and materials, results, conclusion, all in one paragraph
Introduction: an extended version of abstract. Attract the attention, literature review if necesary.
Materials and methods: I need to check out how to write this section if it is about social science. For the moment it concerns the data source, description of secondary hand information, and conduction of field work.
Result: descriptive analysis of the data collected.
Discussion and conclusion: analytic analysis, generalization, new contribution to exisiting theories, limits and future orientation.
More interesting part of the book is to understand certain writing protocles from the point of view of a journal editor: REDUCE PRINT COST. Footnotes are concentrated at the end of article, tables and graphs only inserted when inevitabel and designed to fit the space.
The review and publishing process: Submission-Editor-Peer review-Editor decision (reject, modification, accept)-Modification-Managing editor-Proof read-Publication.
Language and presentation suggestion is well known already.
