A good image or figure can go a long way in effectively communicating your results and explaining them through your manuscript. Fortunately, we have several tools that can help us effectively prepare or improvise them. Here we give you a summary of the top tools that can be used to create images and figures for scientific research publications. You can also access detailed information on some of these tools here.

Plan S is an exciting development for the research community. So what exactly is Plan S?

The key goal of Plan S is that, by 2020, publications from research funded by public grants must be published in open access journals or platforms.  Plan S also has ten principles. These cover factors such as copyright, funding and timelines. (more…)

Many first-time authors use the research conducted as part of their PhD or even Master’s thesis as a basis for a journal article. While that’s a logical step, the requirements for a thesis differ from those of a paper in a peer reviewed academic journal in very significant ways. Ensuring that you are familiar with these can prove the difference between acceptance and rejection… (more…)

African languages will have a formal role in the scientific research community with the launch of a repository that encourages and accepts research in indigenous languages including Swahili, Akan, Zulu, Igbo and more.

AfricArXiv is an online platform that publishes preprints submitted exclusively from African scientists or those whose research is relevant to the continent. It is the latest to join a small, but growing roster of science publications trying to make sure African scientists don’t get left out of research publishing cycles. Preprints are drafts or complete articles that have not been peer-reviewed. They are especially useful because it allows scientists to receive quick and early feedback on projects they are working on. (more…)