Welcome to
ACS Insider Tips
Tips and Tricks for Every Chemist
This secret page holds tons of advice and resources that not every chemist knows about—but now you do. As an ACS Insider, you’ll learn things you’ll wish someone had told you in grad school. Including how to:
Increase Your Odds of Acceptance
Connect with Your Peers
Advance Your Career
Find a Bigger Audience for Your Work
Personalize Your Cover Letter
If your cover letter says nothing more than “Dear Editor, I am submitting this paper to your journal,” you are putting your work at a disadvantage. Instead, take the time to address the Editor by name, describe the context of your work, and why it is significant and appropriate for the journal, taking that journal’s scope into account.
Brush Up on Your Style
The ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication covers all the essentials of scientific writing. Whether you’re submitting your first paper and need to learn everything or just need a refresher on a few points, the Guide is an essential tool to improving your papers and increasing your chances of being accepted in the journal of your choice.
Strengthen Your Title
Great titles are short and provoke curiosity. Long titles that strive for precision or try to stuff in multiple impressive-sounding keywords may come across as boring, or worse, insincere. Avoid over-used buzzwords, such as “Highly Efficient,” “Novel,” “Green,” “One-Pot Synthesis,” and “Facile.” While these terms may be tempting, they can backfire if they arouse suspicions in reviewers about whether your results really warrant these phrases. If you’re unsure about your title, come up with a few different versions and show them to your colleagues to see which they like best.
Discuss Impact
Consider ending your abstract with a sentence that summarizes the implications of your work. What is its impact? How could this research be applied? Write this summary with both the journal’s Editor and the general public in mind. This section is your chance to make the reader excited to learn more about your research.
Get Help with Your Writing
One way to improve your chances of publishing work in a prestigious journal is being able to explain clearly and persuasively what makes your work significant. But expressing complex scientific results can be a challenge. The editing services from ACS Authoring Services are designed to help your work shine by removing spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. They’ll correct any questionable word choices and smooth out awkward, unnatural sentences while making the paper sound more professional. The documents are edited by native English speakers who have subject matter expertise and advanced scientific education, so they’ll know what it takes to make your paper sound its best.
Don’t Just Report Findings; Tell a Story
Your paper shouldn’t just be a list of observations. You need to tell a story by providing analysis and in-depth insights that demonstrate why your work matters. Your scientific arguments and claims must be supported by the results, but the story must also be compelling and clearly explained in the abstract and conclusion of your paper.
Ensure Error-Free Formatting
Every journal has its own submission guidelines. Eliminate the time spent on tailoring your text and references with formatting services from ACS Authoring Services. The formatting team will make all the necessary adjustments to your page layout, font, and spacing, as well as formatting your citations and references, and any other formatting requirements your chosen journal might have.
Take Advantage of Review Ready Formatting
This initiative is intended to save authors time and effort when preparing manuscripts for submission, as well as help reviewers focus on the science contained within the submitted manuscript. While each journal will continue to have journal-specific scientific requirements, these standard formatting guidelines will ensure that manuscripts are ready for review upon receipt by the editorial office. Also, these new standards will help streamline the authoring process for transferring manuscripts to the most appropriate ACS journal.
Write in Your Native Language
If you’re uncertain about your English writing abilities or just prefer to explain your work in your native language, ACS Authoring Services can remove that barrier to publication with translation services. Authors writing in Chinese, Spanish, or Portuguese can have their work translated into publication-quality English by a team of professional scientific and technical translators with experience in both languages, as well as subject matter expertise in your field.
Visually Simple Figures Are Best
Do your reader a favor and make your figures large, simple, and easy to read. It’s better for your article to have many large, simple figures than a few highly complex ones. If you try to cram multiple images into one figure or pack in a lot of text, you risk confusing a reader, or worse, losing their interest.
Be Precise When Labeling Your Figures
Identify all your data points correctly. Define any symbols or acronyms used. Use symbols and legends, rather than colors to distinguish elements of your figures, since screen differences or even colorblindness could create confusion otherwise. Be exacting in your use of the terms “normalized,” “relative,” and “arbitrary.” Indicate whether any curves in your graphic actually fit the data or are presented as guides to the eye when connecting points.
Include Better Figures
Tables, graphs, and other figures are an essential part of how you communicate your research. But chemistry and graphic design are very different fields and require very different skills to excel. Figure services from ACS Author Services can take the pressure off. Let a team of figure experts help you create publication-quality graphics that comply with journal guidelines.
Use a San Serif Font for Your Figures
If you want to give your work a clean look, consider using a san serif font, such as Helvetica or Arial, for the text for your figures, which will make your paper easy to read, without being distracting.
Work with Your Reviewers
Submitting a paper can be an emotional experience. If your paper comes back with suggestions from your reviewer, you may feel defensive. But instead of arguing with your reviewers, try to remember that they want what you want: To make your manuscript the best article it can be. Your reviewer is an expert in your field; their suggestions are going to make your paper better. Work with them, in the spirit of constructive dialogue, rather than rebuttal, to help improve your research.
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Make Your Title Count
No amount of outreach is a substitute for clear, concise writing. Papers with short titles attract more citations, not only because they’re easier to read, but because they tend to focus on what was learned, rather than what was done. By focusing your title (and the rest of your paper) on the key learnings from your research, you’re putting yourself in a better position to be cited.
Treat Your Abstract as a Gateway
If you want people to cite your work, they have to be able to appreciate its significance first. Your abstract should be clearly written and focus on what you’ve learned through your research. When writing an abstract, consider not just the editors of the journal you’re writing for, but also journalists and other non-scientists who might be able to help publicize your work, if they can see the value in it.
Publish Open Access
Did you know that 100% of ACS Publications journals publish open access research? In addition to the three journals that publish entirely open access content—JACS AU, ACS Central Science, and ACS Omega—authors can opt to get an ACS AuthorChoice open-access license for articles published in any ACS journal, opening their research up to the world. In addition to satisfying funding requirements, this can help you find new audiences in places like industry and government, which might not always have a subscription to the journal in which your work appears.
Share Your Story
If you can’t get a professional journalist to tell your story, consider doing it yourself. Writing for a non-journal publication can be a great way to enhance your reputation as a researcher and help introduce you and your work to new readers. Blogs like ACS Axial publish opinion pieces, behind-the-scenes looks at research, and insights into where a field of research is headed. Share your story on ACS Axial and introduce your work to a whole new audience.
Polish Your Pitch
Don’t assume that the written version of your work is the only way to get the word out about your research. Hone the 30-second explanation of your work for networking events, focusing on the impact and novelty of your work. Practice often and never get caught short when you’re asked about your research.
Do Your Own PR
It can be hard to talk up your own accomplishments, let alone suggest someone else write about them. But it’s not uncommon for researchers to build relationships with science journalists and pitch them stories based on original research. Don’t rely on your university’s public relations office to publicize your research. Take matters into your own hands.
Consider Using Video
If you’re trying to get journalists, funders, policymakers, or the general public to pay attention to your work, you may want to consider creating supplemental videos that offer another lens for your research. You can record a presentation on your work, answer potential questions, or provide a summary suitable for a non-technical audience. Additionally, some publications may offer the ability to post these videos on official channels.
Use Altmetric Scores to Join the Conversation
Every Article published in an ACS journal has an Altmetric Attention Score, which measures social media mention, links from traditional media, and more. You can use this information to reach out and join the conversations already happening around your work. By engaging with the conversation around your work, you can raise your profile and find new readers.
Apply for Lectureships
Winning awards early in your career can help introduce your work to new audiences. ACS Publications journals offer a variety of annual lectureships, including many that are specifically aimed at early career researchers.
Share Your Data
If you’re submitting a paper to The Journal of Organic Chemistry or Organic Letters, you can use the ACS Research Data Center, a free data packaging tool to assist authors in zipping their FID files, acquisition data, and processing parameters along with other appropriate FAIR metadata for submission. This tool will help in compliance with data-management plans and any funder requirements that data be made publicly available. The data will be citable and can be included in grant applications or updates to funders. Participating ACS journals identified with FAIR data will include a note in the PDF and HTML, indicating that FAIR data is available. Note: ACS Research Data Center will be available to authors of others journals later in 2020.
Share Your Supporting Information
You can support Open Science and increase your own profile by sharing your own Supporting Information and supplemental material via Figshare. These files will be assigned a DOI, which makes your article easily discoverable, allows your SI to be cited, and even supports requirements from various funding agencies. In addition to traditional graphics, Figshare can also make it easy to post and share video files, cif crystallographic files, and ACS Live Slides.
Ask About Read + Publish Agreements
If you’re an academic researcher and you don’t have the funds to make your research open access, there’s a chance your institution’s research library may be able to help. Some schools have a read-and-publish agreement with publishers like ACS Publications, which give institutions credits that researchers can use to cover the cost of publishing open access research with that publisher. Check with your school to see if they have such an agreement in place.
Publicize on Social Media
If you’re active on social media, you’re probably already adept at sharing your work on your channel of choice. If you’re not, consider starting at least a LinkedIn account you can use to share your professional accomplishments. But don’t stop there. Your lab, department, or organization may also have channels and may be willing to help you get the word out.
Get a Big Audience and a Free Membership
Publish a paper in the all open-access ACS Omega and get a one-year ACS membership for free, unlocking a host of new benefits.
Consider All Your Options
Because chemists begin their careers as students at academic institutions and are mentored by academics, it can feel natural to pursue a career in the same sector. But less than 10% of chemistry graduate students end up in academia. Careers in industry, government, education, media, and even entrepreneurship can be just as rewarding. Before you begin your job search, ask yourself what you most enjoy about chemistry and look for work that focuses on that, no matter what sector in which you’re applying for a job.
Get a Nudge in the Right Direction
ACS Career Navigator™ can help you explore career options, find networking opportunities, get job-seeking advice, access unique tools, and more. Whether you’re looking for some essential information or want some one-on-one time with a professional career counselor, this is a great place to begin the next phase of your career journey. There are even online classes and live events to help boost your success.
Get Started Early
Begin networking before you begin your job search in earnest. It may take some time for your contacts to turn up a potential job prospect, so don’t wait until the last minute. If you’re applying for academic roles, start on your research proposal early and show it to mentors before applying so that they can help you hone your pitch. If you’re still in school, it may be worth talking with recruiters from organizations that interest you, even if you’re not ready to apply, just to get a sense of what you’ll need to do to get your application in top form.
Make a Plan
ChemIDP is a tool for creating your own personalized individual development plan. You’ll assess your skills, find ways to improve your technical and professional abilities, discover options, set goals, and then track your accomplishments. This tool helps you get your career on track and reach your goals.
Don’t Neglect Your Soft Skills
Employers don’t just need technically proficient skills; they’re also looking for workers who have strong interpersonal skills as well. Writing, public speaking, leadership, and other social skills can all help set you apart from the pack when you’re looking for work. Having a history of mentoring younger students, for example, can help demonstrate your leadership potential. Make sure to highlight all your skills when you’re looking for work.
Figure Out What You’re Worth
Not sure if that job offer is a good one? ACS members have access to the ACS Salary Calculator, a tool that helps you determine the median salary for a career choice using inflation-adjusted data. If you’re not a member, then check out the results of the ACS Salary Survey.
Create External Records of Your Work
Maybe your colleagues know you’re brilliant, but unless you’re developing a reputation for yourself outside of your current place of employment, you may find yourself at a disadvantage if you ever want or need to switch jobs. Publishing papers, giving lectures, securing patents, and otherwise creating awareness of your work that extends outside your current employer can only help you in the long run.
Take a High-Quality Headshot
Make sure that you have at least one photo you can use to represent yourself professionally on lab websites and professional social media accounts. If you have access to a high-quality smartphone, you may not even need a professional photographer. Get a friend to help you take pictures. Try to take your headshot in indirect light, against a pleasing background that is just slightly out of focus. Take your picture from a slightly higher angle and tilt your head a little to the side. Most people don’t look their best while staring straight into the camera.
Keep Your Network Alive
Everyone knows networking is important but making a contact at a conference is only part of that process. You also have to nurture old relationships. Former colleagues can be an excellent source of leads, but they’re much more likely to let you know about an opening or stick their neck out and recommend you if you’ve kept in touch over the years. Don’t wait until you need something from an old colleague; do the work to keep those relationships fresh.
Take Stock of All Your Skills
You may not be able to find a job that perfectly matches your technical expertise. But you might be able to find other jobs that you could fit in other ways. Having familiarity with bringing research to an application level, having experience collaborating across a large team, knowing an industry well, language skills, data skills, and even soft skills can all help set you apart when you’re applying for a role that might otherwise be out of your reach.
Don’t Stop Learning
It can be hard to believe you still need education after completing a Ph.D. or even a postdoc fellowship, but keeping up with chemistry is a lifetime enterprise. Taking a refresher course on a skill you haven’t used in a while or a new discipline related to a job you’re applying for can help accelerate your career. ACS offers more than 100 professional development courses in a variety of formats organized around eight clusters: analytical, biological/medicinal, computers/statistics/ engineering, general, organic/physical, polymers, professional development, and regulatory/ environmental.
Paradoxically, you may have an easier time finding a job if you start your search before you need one. If you know you’ll be graduating in a year or otherwise have a sense that you’re going to need a job in the not too distant future, start looking now. A 'soft test' job search can teach you a lot about the application process and help you learn to present yourself as a better job candidate. That way, when you need to find a job, you’ll be ready to apply with the best of them.
Find Your Dream Job
Don’t let your dream job slip by. The best way to stay connected with current openings in academia, industry, and more is to sign up for C&EN Jobs. The site lets you filter jobs by location or one of dozens of specializations. You can apply to many jobs directly through the site, and easily tailor your resume to each job you apply for, so you’re sure to stand out. It also offers career advice from the experts at C&EN.
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Stay Informed
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50 free articles from ACS Publications journals per year 25 free SciFinder® activities through the CAS® (Chemical Abstracts Service) A subscription to Chemical & Engineering News Special members-only rates for subscribing to the Journal of Chemical Education and the Journal of Natural Products Discounts of up to 40% on print books from ACS Books
