Have you ever wondered how science gets from the laboratory into papers and textbooks, and then into the media? In a world awash in inaccurate or downright wrong information, what do we do to try to make sure what gets out there is as correct as we can make it? The process is not perfect, but it works.

You are a scientist, doing research in an area of science that fascinates you, and which you see as valuable. One day you make a discovery. Perhaps it looks as though it could be something entirely new, or perhaps an answer to a problem that has been around for some time. You don’t just announce it to the world. Imagine the consequences of a mistake, or something you had not thought of.

After checking and double checking your data, analysis and conclusions, you write up a report on the work, explaining why you did it, giving important background information, presenting your data and going through the analysis step by step. Then you present your conclusions, along with a discussion as to how you arrived at them. You end the paper with a list of the contributions by other scientists that were important in your paper.

You bounce this draft off your colleagues. If you made an error, it is best to hear that from friends. You might also go to a science conference and present your research, seeking feedback. Before finally formatting the paper you will have decided to which scientific journal you will submit it. After bouncing the draft off some friends and colleagues, you submit it, usually over the Internet, through the journal’s website.

After reading through your paper, looking for glaring errors, and making sure the paper meets the publication policy of that journal, the editor will pass copies of the paper to one, two or three scientists who are experts in your field of research. These anonymous “referees” check for mistakes or incompleteness in the work, and pass recommendations back to the journal, ranging from “It’s great”, “Publish after the following corrections”, to “Garbage”. These comments are passed to you, so that you can correct your work, make it properly complete or discard it. Assuming that you don’t do the latter, you pass the corrected paper back to the publisher. Sometimes these corrections take months. It might be accepted or sent off to more referees. It sounds pretty fierce, but this process is as much to protect you as to make sure only valid science gets published.

Referees don’t feel that they have done a good job unless they have found at least one problem. It could be that he or she will look until they find something really difficult to deal with. My recommendation is to leave one very minor point for the referee to find. Then honour is satisfied. We’re all human after all.

Once the paper is accepted you can pass “pre-prints” to friends and colleagues. Then soon after, your work is out there, in print, being read all over the world, and archived for posterity – congratulations!

Jupiter still dominates the southern sky during the night. Mars rises around midnight; Saturn, and Venus lie in the predawn sky. The Moon will be Full on the 2nd.

Ken Tapping is an astronomer with the National Research Council’s Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, and is based at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, Penticton, BC, V2A 6J9.

Tel (250) 493-2277, Fax (250) 493-7767

E-mail: ken.tapping@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca.