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Author tips

Welcome to our Author Tips page - and congratulations on the publication of your article!

We are committed to promoting your research to a wide-reaching audience - but did you know there are also some simple steps you can take to extend the reach and impact of your paper?

How and why scholars are using social media and research-sharing networks

Ways to get started

Share your work with your social networks

Alert your followers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social networking sites by announcing your published work along with a link to your article. To encourage sharing - use hashtags relevant to your subject and tag co-authors or department colleagues who may also want to share your paper.

  • Looking for more ideas? Read our tips for using social media to promote your research.

Update your professional profile

Highlight your professional accomplishments and areas of expertise by adding article details and links to your LinkedIn and/or department profile.

You should also consider creating a profile on Loop, a networking service for researchers, and linking it your paper.

Utilize research-sharing platforms

Join an academic research-sharing and networking site such as ResearchGate, Mendeley, Academia.edu, CiteULike, or Loop - or add your article link to your existing profile.

Create a Google Scholar profile - or review and enhance your existing one

In addition to facilitating saved searches and setting alerts, creating a Google Scholar profile will allow you to track citations to your publications, and have them appear in Google Scholar search results for your name. The publication of a new article is a good time to create a profile, or to review your existing one for accuracy and ensure your paper is added correctly. 

If you are setting up a new profile, you will be automatically prompted to search for, and add, articles to your profile. To add an article to an existing profile, select "Add" from the drop-down menu in the top green bar on the main profile page, and either search for articles to add, or select "Add article manually". To ensure your name appears in search results for your paper you can opt to make your profile public using the drop-down menu at the top of the main profile page.

Highlight key and topical points in a blog post

Blogging can be a useful tool to explain or expand on your research for a more general audience. If you maintain a personal blog or contribute to a blog in your field (or would like to), consider writing a blog post related to your article.

A few things to keep in mind when blogging: 

  • To make your post more discoverable, think about the words or phrases your readers would search for to find content related to your topic, and incorporate these keywords in your post. With that said, your main goal is to create engaging content, so don't overload on keywords if they don't fit naturally into your writing.
  • Take some time to create a compelling title or headline - think of these as calls-to-action to drive people to read your post. Titles should summarize the content of your post but also entice people to read on. Make sure to incorporate one of your most important target keywords or phrases.
  • Don't forget to promote your blog post(s) through your social networks. You'll be providing interesting content to your followers and colleagues, and increasing your potential readership. 

YouTube

Video content is increasingly popular for sharing information and ideas. You may wish to create a short video summarizing the scope and key findings of your paper, or provide further background on your research and methods.

Make your research outputs shareable and discoverable

You may choose to deposit your article's research data to community-recognized repositories where possible, or to general-science repositories if no community resource is available. By making your research data available you can help promote your published research, raise your profile by making your research more discoverable, and further encourage citations. 

General science repositories, such as figshare and the Dryad Digital Repository, handle a variety of data and may be appropriate for storage of associated analyses, or experimental-control data, as a supplement to the primary data record. 

Register for a unique ORCID author identifier

ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher. Once you have registered, you can add your article information to your profile.