Clearly communicating the timeline of your research to the reader is extremely important, and depends on your using the proper verb tense in writing your manuscripts. Verb tense indicates whether the action of a sentence occurred in the past, present, or future, and helps to organize the flow of your writing and outline the sequence of events to emphasize your point.

Clear writing enhances the reader's understanding of the importance of your reported findings. Once published, your article becomes a permanent record of your ideas, hypotheses, and thought processes, allowing others to build on your ideas for future investigation, which is the backbone of scientific exploration. English is the lingua franca for science communications, but knowing how to communicate in English is not the same as knowing how to communicate in scientific English. Even the most accomplished scientists for whom English is their native language may struggle to write in clear and concise scientific English.

Your goal of publishing your research is at hand. You've carefully selected the journal for submitting your work (if you haven't selected your journal yet, see The Guide to Choosing the Best Science Journal for Publishing Your Research), you've prepared and formatted your manuscript for the journal, and you are excited at the idea of being published.

When it comes to social media use by scientists, some scientists are avid users, some dip their toe in occasionally, and some scientists are simply on the sidelines with various reasons why they don't use social media. Many of those reasons are outdated or inadequate in today's digital age.

"The scientific discourse is moving online," says Paul Groth (@pgroth) - Assistant Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, VU University, Amsterdam  

Let's look at some of the reasons why many scientists are engaging in social media (especially Twitter), the benefits of participating, and the preferred platforms of avid users.

Scientific research publishing is a turbulent topic with the advent of Open Access (OA) journals. As with any dramatic shift, opponents and proponents are both quite vocal regarding the benefits of OA versus paywall journal publishing. As paywall subscription journals are attempting to adjust to the rise of OA, you may wonder which route is best.