PUBLISHING IN A SCIENTIFIC ACADEMIC JOURNAL
This article, is intended for doctoral students and other young scholars.
Topics
Academics PhD Publishing
Research
Higher education
DBMS
Top tips from the editor
(With excerpts collected from renowned experts and famous publishers)
General Considerations
Writing for academic journals is always highly competitive, yet it is not a combat concourse nor is it bicker in the grounds of parliament.
There’s no simple or singular formula for getting published.
Editors’ expectations can vary both between and within subject areas.
Publishing an article is eventually an ‘endorsement by selected reviewers together with acceptance by illustrious editors’.
In other words, publishing an article would in fact be ‘inviting a distinguished community to adopt your distinguished proposals’,
It is a major achievement run in the sanctuary of science for the ultimate benefit of mankind.
Let us sail the rough seas of scientific publishing braving storms and evading sinking!
- Is there a correct way to structure a paper?
- How do you sum it up in a way that will capture the interest of reviewers?
- How should you respond to reviewer feedback?
- Should you always be vexed revising and resubmitting?
ZEAL ZEST AND ENTHUSIASM
- Base your work on robust data and use appropriate research methodologies.
- Provide a well-defined speculative insight, while promoting theoretical and practical implications about your work.
- Be very much concerned by the language, equally, to the arrangement of the work.
DECEPTION, DISSUASION AND SETBACK
If you believe that the effort and time you expended writing, editing, constructing and revising your article till you submitted it…. is worth of being published and with acclaims too; you still might become confronted by the fact of having your work sent back to you for reconsideration. Think of that as ‘a conditional acceptance’ on behalf of the reviewer; of course, under the one condition that you address the likely shortcomings that have led to that in the first place.
Therefore, do consider very much its modification by carefully re-visiting your manuscript at different instances and perhaps under different ambiances even if it requires reediting of a substantial deal of the work presented; because such ‘mood resetting’ may very well be the approach by which you shift yourself from being an unconditional self-enthusiast to becoming an unaffected confident self-critic.
ARTICLES
It is generally recognized that there are several sorts of research articles… such as short communications, theses, review papers etc.
Consequently, you might find it useful to follow these guidelines helping on preparing a full article (including a literature review), whether based on qualitative or quantitative methodology, from the perspective of the management, education, information sciences and perhaps also social disciplines.
Once you have carefully read several times your manuscript, and perhaps also received feedback from your colleagues, the next important step is to get a list of the most appropriate journals identifying which between them, suits the theme (aims and scope) of your article; all the while guaranteeing you meticulously follow the selected journal’s guidelines and ensuring your manuscript conforms to them. (style and format for figures, images tables and references).
Then, and only then, submit to the one journal of your choice.
CAVEAT EMPTOR
The cover letter, title and abstract are incredibly important components of a manuscript as they are the first elements a journal editor sees.
A good cover letter is NOT the abstract.
It outlines the main theme of the paper; argues the novelty, justifies the relevance of the manuscript to the target journal… in no more than half a page.
Peers and colleagues who read the article and provided feedback before the manuscript’s submission should be acknowledged in the cover letter.
REJECTION WHY?
Reasons are protean.
- The research objective alien to the aims and scopes of the target journal.
- The manuscript not structured and formatted as per journal layout.
- Scientifically humble or syntax erroneous, to such a point as to receive a desk rejection from the editor without even being sent out for peer review.
According to a statistic shared by Elsevier, between 30 percent and 50 percent of articles submitted to Elsevier journals are rejected before they even reach the peer-review stage, and one of the top reasons for rejection is poor language.
CLASSICAL APPROACH TO WRITE AN ARTICLE
The title should summarize the main theme of the article and reflect your contribution to the theory.
The abstract should be crafted carefully and encompass:
- The aim and scope of the study.
- The key problem addressed and the theory needed for answers.
- The method used.
- The data set.
- Key findings.
- Limitations.
- Implications for theory and practice.
You may want to seek the effort of a professional editing firm, to the effect.
The revision process requires two major documents:
- 1.The revised manuscript highlighting all the modifications made following the recommendations received from the reviewers.
- 2.A letter listing the authors’ responses acknowledging his commitment to the concerns of the reviewers and editors.
Conclusion
Given the ever-increasing number of manuscripts submitted for publication, the process of preparing a manuscript well enough to have it accepted by a journal… can be daunting.
High- impact journals accept less than 10 percent of the articles submitted to them, although the acceptance ratio for special issues or special topics sections is normally over 40 percent.
The “writing stage”
1) Focus on a story that progresses logically, rather than chronologically.
2) Don’t try to write and edit at the same time.
3) Don’t bury your argument like a needle in a haystack.
4) Ask a colleague to check your work.
5) Get published by writing a review or a response.
6) Don’t forget about international readers.
7) Don’t try to cram your PhD thesis into a 6,000-word paper.
“Submitting your work”
8) Pick the right journal: your article must be within the broad scope of the journal that you are submitting to.
9) Always follow the correct submissions procedures…take time 10-20 minute to read, understand and thoroughly adopt the reviewers’ instructions, and then implement it.
10) Don’t repeat your abstract in the cover letter. The cover letter is a place for a bigger picture outline, plus any other information that you would like the reader to have.
11) The lack of context:
After peer review, it is this lack of context or lack of clarity about why the research has been carried out, that is the common reason for rejection of your article.
Make sure that it is clear where your research sits within the wider scholarly landscape, and which gaps in knowledge it is addressing.
12) Don’t over-state your methodology.
Be clear - early on - about the nature and scope of your data collection. The same goes for the use of theory. If a theoretical insight is useful to your analysis, use it consistently throughout your argument and text.
“Dealing with feedback”
13) Respond directly (and calmly) to reviewers’ comments.
When resubmitting a paper following revisions, include a detailed document summarizing all the changes suggested by the reviewers, and how you have changed your manuscript in light of them. Stick to the facts, and don’t rant. Don’t respond to reviewer feedback as soon as you get it. Read it, think about it for several days, discuss it with others, and then draft a response.
14) Revise and resubmit: don’t give up after getting through all the major hurdles.
You’d be surprised how many authors who receive the standard “revise and resubmit” letter, never actually do so.
But it is worth doing - some authors who get asked to do major revisions persevere and end up getting their work published, yet others, who had far less to do, never resubmit.
It seems senseless to get through the major hurdles of writing the article, getting it past the editors and back from peer review only to then give up.
15) It is acceptable to challenge reviewers, with good justification
It is acceptable to decline a reviewer’s suggestion to change a component of your article if you have a good justification, or can (respectfully) argue why the reviewer is wrong. A rational explanation will be accepted by editors, especially if it is clear you have considered all the feedback received and accepted some of it. The basic idea is to, scientifically interact not to go into improper conflicts. Nothing personal. Strictly professional.
16) Think about how quickly you want to see your paper published
¨ Some journals rank more highly than others and so your risk of rejection is going to be greater.
¨ People need to think about whether or not they need to see their work published quickly - because certain journals will take longer.
¨ Some journals, like ours, also do advance access so once the article is accepted it appears on the journal website.
¨ This is important if you are preparing for a job interview and need to show that you are publishable.
17) Remember: when you read published papers you only see the finished article. So, it must be up to that standard.
USEFUL PLATFORMS
- Elsevier Connect – “Five secrets to surviving (and thriving in) a PhD program”
- Knight and Steinbach (2008). Sun and Linton (2014).
- Hierons (2016) and Craig (2010) offer useful discussions on the subject of “desk rejections.”
- Dr. Angel Borja “11 steps to structuring a science paper editors will take seriously.”
- ORCID
- SCOPUS and H index
- Thomson Reuters
- Research Gate
- Science Direct
Applications like the spelling and grammar checker in Microsoft Word or Grammarly, are certainly worth applying to your article, but the benefits of proper editing are undeniable.