As a part of our partnership with AnswerThis, I’ve recorded a short guide how I use this tool to understand specific area of research better. It’ll go live tomorrow, but I thought I’d give you early access - hope it helps! P.S. what do you think of using AI for research?

Next week I will be hosting Ryan from AnswerThis who will show you how you can best use this tool to ethically use AI in your research. I’ll be sharing more later this week as we’re still discussing the content. Will you be there?

I'll be sharing details of the next training later this week. Based on your inputs, it'll focus on how to make sure your work is novel & original and, thus, easy to publish. To make it relevant, let me know what do you struggle with in this regards. I'll make sure to cover it in the training.

I got an email at 2:30 AM. "Dear Researcher, submit to our Scopus indexed journal." I deleted it this morning. Here's how I knew it was a trap: 1. The reply address was Gmail. Not a publisher domain. Not a journal domain. Gmail. Anyone can create one. 2. The greeting said "Dear Researcher." Not my name. Not my field. Not my work. 3. The "February issue" email arrived in late February. No real peer review happens in 48 hours. 4. And every journal listed? Drug delivery. Agriculture. Law. Nothing close to my research. These emails don't want your science. They want your submission fee. So before I submit anywhere, I run this check: → Verify indexing inside the database — not in their email → Check if the journal was discontinued → Look for real editorial board names and affiliations → Confirm peer review has an honest timeline → Make sure the scope matches my actual work If even one answer is "I'm not sure" — I don't submit. Your research took months or even years to produce. Don't let an email from predatory journal decide where it lives. P.S. Think. Check. Submit is a free checklist. Use it before every submission. It takes 10 minutes and protects your entire career.

Nobody will tell you this: As a reviewer, I reject papers in Q1 journals more often than I’d like. Not because I’m harsh. Because high quality paper is less about “interesting” and more about proof. Most reject votes happen for the same reasons: - The contribution isn’t one clear, testable sentence - The methods don’t support the headline claim (scope/validation mismatch) - Benchmarking is unfair (weak baselines, mismatched conditions, cherry-picked comparisons) - “Novelty” is cosmetic (new label, minor tweak, same mechanism) - Uncertainty is ignored (no sensitivity/error analysis; no robustness checks) - Key assumptions are hidden or under-justified - The logic is hard to audit (writing obscures what was actually done) How to make reviewers want to say yes: - State your contribution in one line: “We show X because Y, validated by Z” - Compare against state of the art under matched conditions, same metrics, explain exclusions - Present assumptions early and quantify the top 3 sensitivities - Separate results from interpretation; label speculation as speculation - Make reproduction possible (data/code, or enough detail to replicate the workflow) Remember, reviewers don’t reject effort. We reject unsupported certainty.