Writing and publishing academic journal articles – discussion session led by Nikki
In a nutshell
- One idea, land the contribution.
- Check that the contribution is a solid and original one.
- In figuring out your contribution, think about keywords and titles. These are really important.
*Search with your chosen keywords to make sure the results match the area you’re aiming for!*
Choosing the target journal.
You can have the article first, and find where to publish. Then revise accordingly. Or, have a target journal and then write the article to fit. First is probably better.
Guidance
Helpful ECR guide to getting published https://career-advice.jobs.ac.uk/career-development/research-careers/a-guide-to-publishing-for-early-career-researchers/
Jobs.ac.uk Research Publications planner (PDF) https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/staffdevelopment/documents/rs-hub/research-publications-planner.pdf
Use visual tables / charts to plan your outputs. Remember the ‘one idea, land the contribution’ mantra. Label the ‘idea’ for yourself , identify what portion of data you’re using for it, choose your target journal.
Then: Keep stuff moving through the pipeline. Something in prep, something under review, something in revision.
You should know about the important stuff that sits behind the fun research:
You need to know about open research and how sneaky academic publishing is.
In the VALID cases of publishing, payments to publishers go both ways: subscription payments (allowing people to read) and open access article processing charges (allowing people to publish)
https://library.ed.ac.uk/research-support/publish-research/open-access/publisher-discounts
In the BOGUS cases of publishing, you can accidentally undermine your own work (and name) if you publish in predatory, unscrupulous journals:
Things never to dismiss:
- The Aims and Scope of a journal matter
- The journal’s reporting instructions matter
- It can take a really long time
In the VALID cases, Editorial Board members and peer-reviewers are essentially volunteers. They are not remunerated for their time spent working on the journal by the publishers. They are doing what they do around the rest of the jobs/life. So be polite and be patient.
