Based on my direct personal experience as an author, referee, editor, and PhD thesis supervisor, I present in this paper some advice and guidelines on writing scientific papers. This article copes with the preparation of manuscripts, with the handling of copyrights and permissions to reproduce, with communicating with editors and referees, and with avoiding common errors. More than two dozen FAQs are dealt with, among others: who should be coauthor, what is honorary authorship, how to settle the order of author names, may the list of authors change during the review process, who submits the manuscript to the Editor, must one wait for coauthors’ consent to submit, when to submit a manuscript to astro-ph, how to communicate with the referee, with whom to share a referee report, can students be referee, how to cite and quote a straying paper, how to cope with writer’s block, should others be allowed to completely rewrite a manuscript, how to review a paper, how to revise a multi-author paper, when to ask for another referee, why do Editors edit, and why do referees review?

This paper discusses facets of visual communication by way of images, graphs, diagrams and tabular material. Design types and elements of graphical images are presented, along with advice on how to create graphs, and on how to read graphical illustrations. This is done in astronomical context, using case studies and historical examples of good and bad graphics.

Design types of graphs (scatter and vector plots, histograms, pie charts, ternary diagrams and three-dimensional surface graphs) are explicated, as well as the major components of graphical images (axes, legends, textual parts, etc.).

The basic features of computer graphics (image resolution, vector images, bitmaps, graphical file formats and file conversions) are explained, as well as concepts of color models and of color spaces (with emphasis on aspects of readability of color graphics by viewers suffering from color-vision deficiencies).

Special attention is given to the verity of graphical content, and to misrepresentations and errors in graphics and associated basic statistics. Dangers of dot joining and curve fitting are discussed, with emphasis on the perception of linearity, the issue of nonsense correlations, and the handling of outliers. Finally, the distinction between data, fits and models is illustrated.

The main theme of this paper is truthful communication of scientific results. Therefore, concepts of truth, error, quality and value are elaborated.

The following bibliometric parameters are explained: the journal impact factor, the journal cited half-life, and the journal immediacy index, as well as paper counts, citation rates, citation index and the Hirsch index. These bibliometric indices and indicators are illustrated with examples derived from bibliometric analyses of the astronomical literature.

Scientific misconduct in the broadest sense is discussed by category: researcher misconduct, author misconduct, referee and grant-reviewer misconduct. But also publisher misconduct, editorial misconduct and mismanagement, and research supervisor misbehavior are dealt with. The overall signatures of scientific misconduct are focused on, as well as the causes and the cures. This is followed by a Section devoted to whistleblowing.

The biases of bibliometric indices, and the use and abuse of bibliometrics are illustrated. Moreover, suggestions for remediating the present defective system of bibliometric measurement and evaluation are worked out. Finally, the hopes and concerns of our students – either expressed during or after the lectures, or through subsequent private contacts – are passed on.