Keyword selection is the second Sudan Journal of Medical Sciences (SJMS) short guidance piece on the international academic standards. As a Section Editor at SJMS, I am honored to be invited to write in this series. In future, I can see SJMS leading the way to improving the publishing standards in Sudan's medical field. And with the current practice and unique services that SJMS provides for their readers and authors, it marks its step to be one of the best regional journals in the discipline.
The Importance of Keywords
As authors, we aspire to share our work among the readers in our field and get appropriately cited. Here comes the volume for the authors' keywords. The first journey for each manuscript begins with a literature review in which the indexing databases such as Scopus and PubMed are searched for any present work related to our ideas. This ends by the citation of most of those works in our reference list. It is curial to select your keywords so that it acts as a promoter for your work among your colleagues. Apart from being used by the indexing service to classify your work, keywords for the publisher and the editorial board serve as a guidance for choosing the referee for your article and your paper's subject.
How to choose your keyword?
To publish means to be known. I believe each article's minor part deserves the same input as a significant section.