By Dr. David Field » An important technique to attract the attention of a publisher, but one which is rarely described, is to send in something so startling, original and surprising that your submission is not immediately placed in the reject tray. This originality and cause for interest, not to say astonishment, can take many forms.

For example the Monty Python approach may be adopted of enclosing a stuffed parrot with your submission. This cannot, I imagine, be done very often and is probably a one-off solution. Here I would like to suggest the use of a much more general method involving an unexpected stylistic ploy.

Let's assume that you are writing fiction. Instead of adopting the normal semi-poetic mode, by which I mean "The moon went slowly down in chastened loveliness: she departed like some sweet bride into her chamber, and long vein-like shadows crept up the sky through which the stars peeped shyly out. ...blah blah... quivering footsteps of the dawn came rushing across the new-born blue and shook the high stars from their places. ..etc.", you could adopt the strict factual style of scientific writing.

Having written rather too many scientific papers myself, I am expert enough to help you along in this. An example is best.

Recently I published an article on ezines called 'Getting Published'. I now want to re-write part of this in the scientific style. I reckon that it would make any editor sit up and think. First I put the original in quotation marks. Then I translate it into prose which is designed to startle an editor into reading on.

The original:

"I have a sure-fire way of getting your work seriously looked at by a publisher, the essential first step to getting into print. I discovered it only very recently. An American friend, another writer, sent it to me. He described it as follows."

New version:

1. Introduction.

It is a major objective of modern authors to find channels through which their work may be published (1). This process has long been the goal of workers in this field (2,3) but until recently very few effective methods have been available (4). Here we report a new method which shows considerable promise and stems from a report published very recently by one of the leading researchers in the field (5). The method is described in outline below. A more detailed paper will be submitted in due course, describing several additional experiments whose results are presently being analysed. The purpose of the present article is only to establish the basis of the new technique. [Note to the reader: the numbers in brackets are references to the work of others, to be placed at the very end of the article. I have not included these but a typical example would be reference 5 which reads Clausewitz C.V., Zangwill Z. A. & Orkney. I, Illiterata Acta, 23 (2008) 6411.].

The original article continues:

"It all started like this. It's Friday today but just on Wednesday I was walking my children to the big yellow school bus, herding them across the road, when I was nearly swept off my feet by a silver Mercedes which flew in front of my nose, jerked to a halt and disgorged five children. These children were all dressed up to the nines, three girls with pig-tails swinging, their backsides prim in designer jeans and two older boys, with quiffs that cost a hundred bucks at Sweeneys if they cost a dime."

New version:

2. Experimental Method and Results

It is well-known that traversing cities can be a difficult task (6) and it is natural that parents should take care that their children are not exposed to the dangers of modern traffic, even when careful town planning has been implemented (7,8). Thus a system of buses has been inaugurated (9), stemming from social programmes first implemented more than fifty years ago (10), by which offspring may be transported from point A to point B without danger. Point B is typically the school. Let us start however at point A. Point A is fundamental to a crucial phase of the new technique whereby contact is first made between the subject and the object. For the remainder of this paper, the subject, S, will be the individual seeking to find a publisher and the object, O, will be the publisher. The appendage, A, will denote the object which, by union of O and A, gave rise to A(i) (i =1-5), that is the five offspring of O and A. A(1) will henceforth be called C for reasons which will become clear below. At point A, contact between S and O was made through the appearance of a large vehicle (Mercedes (11), Model S500, colour silver, Year 2007, 4 wheel, one at each corner (12)) containing O, A %2B A(i) (i =1-5). [You may wish to include a diagram of the apparatus at this stage and describe it in a suitable caption. This is of course optional.]

Multiple person transport has been shown to be an effective means of reducing traffic congestion in cities and has been implemented and enforced in many areas to good effect both in the United States and in Europe (13, 14). The vehicle in question reflected this important trend in modern traffic control and contained, as indicated in part above, eight subjects in all, a driver (of no relevance to the present work), O, A, C and A(i)­ (i=2,5). A(i) (i=1- 5) (or C and A(i)­ (i=2,5)) were well-functioning examples of unions such as that of O and A, as shown by the clothes worn by A(i) (i=1- 5) (Pucci&Pie, Ogle, Shoose (15-17)) and arrangement of bodily hair (Sweeneys (18)).

I suggest that we break off for a moment and survey the wreckage. It is clear that a five hundred page novel will translate into a thousand page novel plus references, at this rate. Therefore the next step is to demonstrate how we can cut through the verbosity and translate the rest of the original article into scientific prose while making it much shorter.

The original at this point continued:

"'They're new,' whispered my older girl and eyed the jeans enviously, smoothing down hers with one hand. Whether she meant the girls or the jeans I wasn't sure. Then the mother got out of the car, very, very long, tanned legs first, a Bermuda tan. And Bermuda's a long way from where we live in Seattle. Maybe it was a Hawaii tan, but what the heck. etc. etc."

Now to summarise the remainder of the original article: after some more inconsequential babble, the scene turns to S's home where the elder daughter of S, S (1), divulges that O is a publisher. S and his two daughters S(i) (i=1,2) discover that S looks extraordinarily like the best-selling author, H, who is to visit O the next day. C (or A (1)), that's Crispin, the eldest son of the publisher, has asked S (1) to tea. S decides to impersonate H, makes it into the O mansion, hands over his, S's, work which O thinks is H's. (Are you with me?). That's how S gets an editor to look at his work, by impersonating the famous author H. End of story. A translation into scientific prose follows.

New version:

The essential next step in our new method depends on the relationship of S(1), using the same notation as for A and offspring A (i) but now applied to S, and C (or A(1)). A pairing relationship was established between S (1) and A(1) which became a gateway state for S to encounter O. A necessary adjunct, catalyzing the encounter of S and O and greatly reducing the barrier for their interaction, was the existence of a further individual, H. H is known to O by reputation and there already exist some properties, unnecessary to specify here, in common between them. S (i) (i=1,2) promulgate the importance of the similarity in outward aspect of S and H, allowing S to invoke the powerful technique of symbiotic parallel impersonation (19), known for example from the insect world among the so-called Glitter Bug larvae of the Nile Valley who use crocodile impersonation. The conjunction of S and O is then achieved via the above-mentioned relationship of S (1) and C (or A (1)) which gains S access to O. This enables the smooth passage of material from S to O, the objective of the method described.

3. Concluding Remarks.

The work reported here has established a new technique for the transference of material from S to O which might otherwise prove of insurmountable difficulty. The technique rests on the catalytic action of Si (i=1,2) and the involvement of C and H, both essential elements in the new method. We feel that while special circumstances may to some extent be necessary, the method outlined here is essentially a very general one which may apply outside the ambit of the publishing world mentioned here and have implications in many other spheres, such as nanotechnology, quantum computing and other areas where substantively useful techniques have proved elusive for many years.

Well, what do you think? Will editors, like the James Bond's drink, be shaken but not stirred? Or will they be truly impressed? If so, what with? At all events, in the publishing world, despair is not a word anyone wants to hear, but desperation, that is quite another matter.

• David Field is a professor of Astrophysics at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. He has published numerous articles in many Astronomy and Physics journals. His most recent novel, The Fairest Star, the third installment of his Friends and Enemies trilogy, has just been published. For more information, please visit www.davidfield.co.uk.