Preparing Articles on Photocatalysis—Beyond the Illusions, Misconceptions, and Speculation

Abstract

A growing number of papers on research subjects relating to photocatalysis have and will continue to be submitted and published in scientific journals. Some of these, published or still under review, include illusions and misconceptions that may, from a scientific point of view, adversely affect the writing of academic papers and hamper the development of scientific and technological research in this field. In the present article, the author would like to point out the problems that researchers in photocatalysis encounter when writing articles. In fact, one of the most serious concerns regarding the abstracts contained in most scientific papers is that they often include misleading speculation(s) which are not based on sound scientific evidence yet may be interpreted as truth. A fair number of readers, especially busy ones, may read only the titles and abstracts without serious consideration or analysis of the discussions. Reviewers and editors need to consider such problems, as might be expected, however, the reader community also needs to be instructed of such aspects in order to gain a more correct understanding of what is and is not acceptable. This article aims to present an analysis of such inherent problems in hopes of improving the quality of the research work and scientific papers in this field.