Is It Worth Teaching Biology Students the Basics of Scientometrics and the Instructions for the Design of Scientific Articles, and If So, Why?

Abstract

Over the past decades, the approaches to writing and formatting scientific articles, as well as to choosing editions by scientists for publishing the results of their research (both experimental and theoretical) have changed dramatically. Today, the majority of specialists pay much attention to formal ratings of scientific journals, since it is they that mainly determine how great the chances of the scientists published in them are to get grants for their research. And at the present stage, it is practically impossible to engage in not only applied, but also basic research without serious funding. In particular, this has become especially important for biologists and biomedical specialists working in a wide variety of fields, because they usually use expensive equipment, reagents, and experimental animals in their work. In this regard, any scientists working in the field of Life Sciences must be able to choose the appropriate journals for their publications on the basis of the scientometric indicators of the editions. No less important is the problem of formatting/designing scientific articles, because high ranked journals reject a significant percentage of manuscripts that do not meet the requirements not only after peer-reviewing but also before it (in the “rapid rejection” mode). We consider it necessary to introduce appropriate courses of lectures into the curricula of students of biological and biomedical specialties. A list of issues that are proposed to be touched in such lectures is considered, including the basics of scientometrics, work on lists of references, search for possible borrowings in manuscripts, requirements for illustrations, compliance with ethical standards, determining whether a scientific edition is a “predatory” one, peer-reviewing scientific articles, their correct structuring, etc.