The Currency of Science

I know I just talked about grants being where you get the money to do research. And that is true! But underlying it all is papers. Scientists have to write papers, convince other scientists that the work is important and interesting, and get these papers published in (hopefully) high-quality, international journals.

That's how scientists get the credibility
to get the grants.

And it's meant to be the way that current science gets out there into the greater world. The really good papers or the ones that just about anyone would be interested in will be translated from scientific-journal-speak into everyday-non-scientist-speak. (Which is pretty much what we're doing here). Whether or not the method works is a topic for another day. Because at the minimum other scientists read these papers and use the results to formulate follow-on research questions and to back up (or not, as it may be) their own ideas on the subject.

That's how science works (most of the time). We plan out our research, we conduct our research, we analyse the results using lots of mathematical and statistical tools (which we may or may not enjoy), we write papers that detail:

• Where the research question fits in the broad scale of the world (and previous research)
• What makes the study new and exciting
• How the study advances science - via a new method, new results, or new ideas
• How scientists should move forward in the field, given the results of this study.

and then we try to get our paper into the highest-quality journal that we can. Because, honestly, more people are likely to see results published in Nature or Science than the Koala Journal of Ipswich. And, the better the journal, the more credibility the scientist gets. And, therefore, the more research funding.

Just one more tip on How to Succeed at Science.

Written by Amanda Niehaus, PhD