Write and Publish a Research Paper

Proof required

Submit: (1) an annotated reading list of 10+ papers establishing the literature gap, (2) your research question in one sentence, (3) a one-page methodology brief naming data source, sample selection criteria, and analysis plan, and (4) the URL of your OSF or PROSPERO pre-registration (required for empirical and systematic-review work; qualitative studies submit a reflexivity statement instead).

What gets checked

• Research question is specific and falsifiable — not 'How does X affect Y?' but 'Does a 12-week resistance training intervention reduce systolic blood pressure by ≥5 mmHg in sedentary adults aged 40–60?'
• Pre-registration URL resolves to a public or reviewer-accessible page showing this study's question, methodology, and submission date — for empirical and systematic work, a submission without it does not pass
• Methodology brief names a specific data source and sample criteria — 'qualitative study using interviews' is not a methodology; 'semi-structured interviews with 12 GPs in England, purposive sampling until thematic saturation' is

Common mistakes

• Reviewing the literature without finding a gap — produces a literature review, not a research question; the gap statement must name a specific question no recent paper has answered
• Choosing the methodology to match data already in hand rather than to answer the question you actually care about — pre-registration prevents this because it forces methodology commitment before data collection
• Skipping pre-registration on the grounds that the study is 'exploratory' — most empirical work benefits from pre-registration; the correct exception is true discovery-phase qualitative research, not a quantitative study where the hypothesis was formed after looking at the data

Resources

What a verifier looks for

• Open the OSF or PROSPERO pre-registration link in a private browser and confirm it resolves to a public page showing this specific study's question, methodology, and a submission date before your review — for empirical work, reject any submission without a working pre-registration link
• Run a quick Google Scholar search for the research question as stated — if 3+ recent papers answer it directly, the gap is not real and the milestone is not complete
• The methodology brief must name a specific data source and sample criteria; if you see 'I will conduct interviews' or 'I will analyse secondary data' with no further detail, the methodology brief is not complete
• For systematic reviews: confirm the PROSPERO record includes a search strategy (databases to be searched, date range, key search terms) — absence of a search strategy is a protocol-level gap

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Proof required

Submit: (1) the full draft (minimum 4,000 words for empirical work; minimum 2,500 for theoretical or review work), (2) the name of the journal, conference, or supervisor the draft was submitted to — with institutional affiliation if supervisor, (3) the submission confirmation, manuscript tracking number, or supervisor acknowledgment email showing receipt date.

What gets checked

• All IMRaD sections (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion) or their equivalent for your research type are present and substantive — a draft with placeholder sections does not pass
• Submission is to a venue with a stated review process — a named academic with institutional affiliation, a journal with a listed editorial board, or a conference with stated peer review; 'a mentor' or 'a colleague' without institutional credentials does not pass
• Submission confirmation shows the date — timestamp is the proof that the draft was submitted before any results or revisions were seen

Common mistakes

• Results-first writing — constructing the paper around what the data showed rather than what the pre-registered question asked, producing exactly the post-hoc rationalisation that pre-registration was meant to prevent; check your pre-registration from milestone 1 before writing the discussion
• Discussion section repeats the results in different words rather than interpreting them against prior literature — each finding in the discussion must cite at least one prior study it agrees with, contradicts, or extends
• Treating 'the draft exists' as the milestone rather than 'the draft was submitted for external review' — supervisors and journals can only give useful feedback on a submitted document, and the feedback is what this milestone tests

Resources

What a verifier looks for

• Request the full draft, not an excerpt or abstract — confirm that all major sections are present by checking the table of contents or section headings
• Submission confirmation must match this paper's title and this author's name — a different submission confirmation does not satisfy this milestone
• If the review is by a named supervisor: the supervisor must be named with an institutional affiliation (university, research institute, hospital) — 'a mentor in my field' without an institutional affiliation does not pass
• If the submission is to a conference: confirm the conference has a stated peer-review process and not just abstract acceptance — an abstract-only conference does not satisfy this milestone

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Proof required

Submit: (1) DOI or stable public URL of the published paper (must resolve in a browser without paywall), (2) the acceptance letter or editorial decision email, and (3) the full citation (author, title, venue, year). For pre-prints: submit the arXiv, bioRxiv, SSRN, or Zenodo DOI plus a journal submission confirmation or manuscript tracking number showing concurrent journal submission.

What gets checked

• DOI or URL resolves in a private browser to a page showing this paper's title, author, and abstract — a broken link or a link to a different paper does not pass
• Publication venue is listed in DOAJ, Scimago, PubMed, or is a named conference with documented peer review — for pre-prints, the concurrent journal submission must be to such a venue
• If peer review required revision: a revision-response letter (point-by-point responses to reviewer comments) is attached — acceptance without evidence of meaningful engagement with reviewer critique is a flag for predatory or rubber-stamp review

Common mistakes

• Publishing in a predatory journal to bypass peer review — the journal name is in the proof, and DOAJ and Beall's List take 30 seconds to check; never submit to a journal that solicited you by email without checking DOAJ first
• Treating 'minor revision accepted' as the final acceptance before the revised version is actually approved — the milestone is publication, not the initial conditional acceptance
• Submitting the final-accepted version rather than the published version — the proof is the citable published record (DOI or stable URL), not an email saying the paper was accepted

Resources

What a verifier looks for

• Open the DOI or URL in a private/incognito browser and confirm it resolves to a page showing this paper's title, author, and abstract — if the page requires a subscription to view the abstract, request the open-access author copy or Zenodo deposit link
• Search the journal name in DOAJ (doaj.org) — if absent, cross-reference with Scimago (scimagojr.com); do not approve publication in a journal on Beall's List (beallslist.net); predatory publication invalidates this milestone
• For pre-prints: the manuscript tracking number or submission confirmation must show submission to a real journal, not just the pre-print server — a pre-print alone without evidence of journal submission does not satisfy this milestone
• If peer review required revision: confirm that a revision-response letter or revised manuscript is included in the proof — if acceptance came without any revision request, note this and check whether the venue has a plausible peer-review process

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