{"id":91669,"date":"2020-05-15T14:26:19","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T14:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/webofsciencegroup\/?p=45065"},"modified":"2025-08-07T15:24:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T15:24:24","slug":"three-tips-to-save-hundreds-of-hours-writing-research-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/academia-government\/blog\/three-tips-to-save-hundreds-of-hours-writing-research-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"Three tips to save hundreds of hours writing research papers"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog about writing research papers is part of our Research Smarter series. This series is dedicated to helping you get familiar with your research field. Wath our on-demand webinar, ‘Tips to save hundreds of hours writing research papers’<\/a> and<\/em> read the related blog posts<\/a> in our series.<\/em><\/p>\n

A well-referenced manuscript is central to sound, robust research. The problem is that organizing, adding and formatting your bibliographic information can take a lot of time, which is a scarce resource for academics.<\/p>\n

Academia isn’t a 9 to 5 job. According to recent surveys by Nature<\/a><\/em> and Times Higher Education<\/a>, around 40% of academics work more than 60 hours a week, and a lot of their actual research takes place at the weekend. Undergraduate students and PhD candidates are also known to feel the burden of long hours, often in response to intense expectation<\/a> from the wider academic system.<\/p>\n

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With academic life so stretched, it\u2019s critical that researchers learn the best and fastest way to speed up the writing process. Otherwise, hundreds of valuable research hours are at risk.<\/p>\n

This might sound like an exaggeration, but it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

Over three million articles<\/a> are published annually, and this number is accelerating by 4% a year. This growing body of work is evident in citations, too. There was an average of 47 cited references across all articles and reviews in the Web of Science Core Collection\u2122 in 2019, up from 35 in 2009.<\/p>\n

\"10-year<\/p>\n

If you add the time it takes to find, organize and add citations, you\u2019re looking at an incredible amount of work \u2013 even more so when you include reformatting references after a rejection.<\/p>\n

Your paper was rejected. Now what?<\/h5>\n

Submitting your paper to a new journal is already time-consuming work. Reformatting your references to suit is even more so.<\/p>\n

The global manuscript rejection rate<\/a> is 45% and so rejections are a common occurrence in the publishing process. An editor of PLoS Biology<\/em> once confirmed that its rejection rate<\/a> sits around 90%, which he likens to prestigious journals such as Science<\/em>, Cell <\/em>and Nature<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Reformatting a reference to match a journal\u2019s preferences may only take five seconds per citation, but that accumulates fast. It quickly becomes time and energy that researchers can\u2019t afford to spare in today\u2019s high-pressure environment.<\/p>\n

Luckily, that\u2019s where the reference management software, EndNote\u2122, comes in.<\/p>\n

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Three tips to save time when writing research<\/h3>\n

We\u2019ve written numerous blogs about how academics can research smarter<\/a>, and here, we\u2019ll cover three tips to help you stay organized and efficient during the writing stage with EndNote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

EndNote not only frees you from the tedious work of manually collecting and curating your research materials and formatting bibliographies, but it also gives you greater ease and control in coordinating with your colleagues.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy production levels have literally skyrocketed after using EndNote. It has been so beneficial to my academic career.\u201d<\/p>\n