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

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.

According to the IAU membership database, Commission 25 currently has 230 members from 40 countries. The Commission's membership represents 2.4% of the total IAU membership of 9658.