 I'm Max Hegblom, Editor-in-Chief of FEMS Microbiology Ecology, and I'm here to talk about what makes a great paper. From my perspective as editor, as a reviewer, and also an author, I hope to provide some tips on preparing and submitting a research publication, how to prepare and organize your data, how to assemble the materials and put together your story, determining authorship, selecting the appropriate journal, as well as the writing and editing and submission process. Everything starts with your data, what have you discovered, what hypothesis have you tested, but you need to make it a story. Remember, your research is done only when it is published. So you need to determine what your paper would look like, why anybody will want to read it, what's the interest, the significant novelty, the hypothesis that you have tested. And can you identify the significant advance that has arisen from the research? Be objective, be critical, and focus your presentation and message. In the preparation, you need to of course determine which journal would be most appropriate. Examine what the editors are looking for, read the other guidelines, the journal scope and aims, and look at papers already published by the journal. Ask, ask an editor, but importantly, think about what you want to say, what is the story that you're going to tell. Collect your data, draft the key points, and then work on the figures and the tables to the abstract and the text. Remember to stay focused and seek critique, improve the language, edit and revise until it is perfect. As you start preparing your paper, read the manuscript instructions, what's the scope of the journal, the editorial process, the peer review process as well, and how to submit. And examine how to present your figures. These are really the core of your article. How do you get clarity in the data you're showing? Here are just some examples from recent papers in FEMS microbiology ecology. Again, the figures need to be clear, they need to be visually attractive. You want the reader to focus in on your data. And then write, edit, rewrite and repeat. If needed, use language editing services, for example, peer with which we have partnered with. And then let's look at the key components of the paper. The title is the first part that the reader will see. So it needs to be exciting, concise, catchy and attention grabbing. So look and think about different ways of catching the reader's attention. So that they will then also read the abstract, which is possibly the most important section of your paper. And it may be the only section read by most. Make it exciting, concise, catchy, attention grabbing. Use the words for keyword searching. Repeat key phrases as important. Then also, many journals such as FEMS microbiology ecology have a graphical abstract, basically a figure to catch the reader's attention. And this is also used in our table of contents combined with a short one sentence summary, but again, a figure that hopefully will catch the reader's attention and they will look in and read more. When they get to the introduction, they want to be introduced by the research area, why it is of interest and importance. Here you need to mention key facts and relevant published literature and provide important issues of background or technique. Put your work into context of previously published research. And what are the important gaps in our knowledge and how your work will fill them, hypothesize and explain how you will test the hypothesis and state the aims of the work clearly. So I see the introduction really having three key sections. A general introduction to the topic area. Then what we know about this topic, but also more importantly, what are the gaps in our knowledge. And then the third section of how this study will fill the knowledge gap. In your materials and methods, you need to describe the experimental design, key methods and equipment. And site previously published methods were possible, describe statistical analysis methods that are using. And then, when you get to the results, describe the data clearly. Remember, the reader will be less familiar with the material than you are. Think carefully about the use of tables and figures. The reader sent the data and describe statistical analysis and the replication of your study. Describe the data critically, objectively and dispassionately, and always remember the aims of the study. Focus and avoid, of course, jargon and slang in your presentation. To get to the discussion, you need to put the results in relation to the question you asked and address the aims of the study. Did the work fill a gap in our knowledge? Did the results provide evidence supporting or rejecting your hypothesis. Mention caveats and critically assess the results pitfalls and biases of your work and compare the results with those previously published. The implications of yourselves and the conclusions that you have drawn highlight the novelty of your findings. What's also important before you submit is determining authorship, who should be on the paper and why. Who should, of course, be restricted to those who have contributed substantially to the work in one or more of the following categories conceived or designed to study, perform the research, analyze data, contributed new methods or models, wrote the paper or edited the paper in substantial ways, and everybody who's an author needs to approve of the final version before submission. Then, before submission, go back to the journal policies, publication ethics, how you ensure that materials are available, and so on. And then you follow the process for online submission. And again, I don't have time to go through the editorial process in detail but basically after submitting your paper it goes to the editorial office for initial check, then to the chief editor who assigns it to an editor that will then assign it for external peer reviewers who provide feedback and then the editors makes a decision to either reject your article, revise it, or of course hopefully eventually accept your paper so it gets sent to the publisher for final proof check and then publication of your work. So as an author, it's important that you also learn how to deal with revision. Very seldom, even after all the work we've done is our article perfect, and there are still questions that arise and we need to address them. So be humble, be polite, be objective. Remember that the comments and the critique are intended to improve your manuscript. I assumed that the reviewers and the editor is stupid or wrong or biased. So don't take the comments personally. They are commenting on how the work was presented. Don't insult reviewers or the editor when you respond. And it really doesn't help either trying to guess who the reviewers are. Most importantly, clearly address all points made by the reviewers. Use track changes in your revised manuscript so that it's easy for the editor and potentially the reviewer to see how you have modified the work. And if needed, and justify challenge points that you disagree with, but make very clear why you challenge a point. Of course, you resubmit your revised and improved manuscript. Of course, as authors, we also need to deal with rejection. And we're disappointed, maybe mad, but here it's important. Don't do anything. Don't disgo over, but then go back. Be humble, be polite, be objective. Don't assume that the reviewers and the editor is stupid or wrong or biased. And again, don't take the comments personally. In your response, don't lash out and insult the reviewers or the editor. This is not going to help your case either. Again, if justified, you may challenge the point and correspond with the editor about it. But more importantly, make the corrections. Maybe you need to rework your manuscript quite greatly provide additional data and eventually then submit to another journal. But it's important again to realize how to deal both with rejection and with revision of your work, but most importantly in how you can improve overall on the work that you eventually publish. And of course, eventually you do get your paper published, and then it's time to celebrate, but then also think about how to promote your article. And then you do to make sure that other scientists will find it and read it. You can share the link on media platforms. Go to your professional or institutional website, present your work at a conferences and provide a reference to your published work, and so on. And of course, FEMS and Oxford University Press will also aid in the dissemination of the work. The accepted version of your manuscript is available online within a couple of days of acceptance. And once the manuscript is type set, it gets a unique DOI and shared with major databases, making the work searchable and citable. We're also working on different ways of promoting the work that we're publishing through social media through blogs and newsletters, editors choice articles curated collections, and also webinars. We also publish thematic issues where we bring together select papers in different topics in microbial ecology, such as environmental dimension of antibiotic assistance polar and alpine microbiology or the sponge microbiome. And there are more of these thematic issues in the works. Recently, we have started a series of webinars. These are our light events to allow you take part in scientific discussion, wherever you are. So again, think about how to prepare your work, how to write your article, submit it, but then, once it's published, how to ensure that you get readers for your work. And looking forward to talking more about this.