Information Services

Tips for Authors

Ensure your research reaches the widest possible global audience, is eligible for submission in research assessment exercises, and fulfils funder requirements.

Here are nine tips for academic authors to tune up their research profile:

 

1. Make your work Open Access Open Access (OA) papers benefit from wider readership and higher citations. Also some research funders require you to make your research open. To be eligible for submission to the next REF you need to deposit your manuscript into our institutional repository (PURE) immediately upon acceptance.   
2. Use your name consistently Decide how you would like your name to appear in publications and then stick to the same format which will make it easier for your work to be identified and correctly attributed to you.
3. Use an ORCID identifier ORCID is a digital identifier which uniquely identifes authors.  If you have an ORCID ID then you can use it in grant applications and research publications to distinguish yourself from authors with similar names.
4. Institutional affiliation Always include the phrase “University of Edinburgh” somewhere in the author affiliation section of any research publication. Doing this will ensure that citations relating to your publications will be correctly attributed in various bibliometric databases.  
5. Acknowledge your funder In the acknowledgements section of your paper include the funder(s) and grant number(s).  It should take the form of a sentence with the funding agency written out in full, followed by the grant number in square brackets.

6. Research Data

You should include a statement in your publication detailing the location and accessibility of underlying research data. This is a requirement for certain research funders.
7. Cite the DOI and OA links When you are sharing your research, include the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) in tweets, blog posts, press releases etc., as this will help to ensure that usage of the article is tracked using services such as Altmetric.com. If you have an OA link then include that as well.
8. Claim your digital space Services such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate can be useful tools in helping to promote your research. We advise authors to ensure that publications are first deposited in PURE to meet research-funder requirements, and then use OA links in these external services.
9. Register for royalties

You may be entitled to payment when someone copies or uses your work. It is worth registering for PLR and ALCS payments if possible.

Links

How to deposit your authors accepted manuscript in PURE 

Claiming your ORCID and how to use it

Acknowledging your research funder in publications

Claiming your digital space and innovations in Scholarly Communication

Registering for royalties