How to Submit
Journal articles
I am a
post-doctoral researcher who helps run the group research. Every week we spent
half an hour of our group meetings to discuss important topics for young
scholars. Last fall I want to provide articles on how to submit a journal article - a format that is intrinsically linked to professional success and the
pleasure of being an academic. I have read many books on writing for academics,
such as author Howard Becker for Social Scientists, Thinking Like Your Editor,
and How to Write Many (just to name a few). However, nothing that directly
addresses how to avoid pitfalls submit a journal article for publication. So I
wrote one of my students, who turn out to be the story in front of you.
Here I will guide
you how to submit a journal article. This process involves choosing the
journal, prepare submissions, evaluate the review, revise the paper (crossed),
and published the article after it appeared. This guide is biased towards
communication - my discipline - but would apply to others as well.
Danger and Excitement
Journal Articles
Academics rarely
write just for the sake of writing. The idea of "life of the mind"
is a convenient metaphor that rarely reflects reality. We usually write for a
specific purpose. Maybe we want to write a work of opinion editorials for
newspapers, books monographs or journal articles. Each of these formats and
audiences require different considerations. Op-ed for the work you have to
connect your work to a public audience in a way that is accessible. A book
might unfold over several years and require writing book proposals, writing a
very specific genre. But nothing is more compelling than most academics journal
article.
There are several
reasons why a journal article is the most important literary genre in the
academic world. In most disciplines, the success traced through journal
articles. Recently a friend told me about how his department to evaluate their
work term. Chair collect spreadsheet of each article and the factors the impact
of each journal - a figure which illustrates just how influential the journal.
Total dictate the likelihood of receiving tenure and thus, remain on the job.
Examples of stressful shows how an academic career journal article determine
success or failure. But writing a journal article can and should also be fun!
For many
academics, journal articles are interesting format for their scholarship. They
let them work on challenging questions and conduct a public conversation with
peers. Write a journal article also helps us explore new topics and field
disciplines. I am an interdisciplinary undergraduate and regularly publish in
journals outside of my own discipline, communication. Academics rarely
satisfied with what they did last year. There is always another idea on a
street corner! To be honest, somewhat addictive to conduct research. This is
the interesting part, and sometimes frustrating, academic life.
Although I can
not predict the chances of your article, I can tell you that the manuscript
will not be accepted if you are not submitting it! It starts with selecting the
journals.
choosing Journal
The first step is
to determine what is the best journal for publication. Journal you choose
determines how you write the article. For example, many journals exclusively
accept articles empirical and requires methodology described clearly, while
others embrace the critical approach and culture in which a methodology less
strictly enforced. Other journals allow more experimental format. Science,
Technology & Society involved accept delivery formats such as essay review,
critical engagement, and "trace," in addition to the standard
research article. This will save you time if you decide journal before you even
start writing!
If you are new to
the discipline you, you probably do not know what the most important journals.
It is hard to track, because there are always new journals that appear and old
ones disappear if there is not enough interest. How do you know about
high-quality journals? All kind of place! You may hear about them from fellow
students or professors. Perhaps you see the journal appear in the Google
scholar search for the topic of your research. Once you begin to find journals,
journals monitor it. An easy way to achieve this is to maintain a spreadsheet.
My stuff is simple Google spreadsheet with columns for title, category (eg,
communication, political science, STS), impact factors, rankings, open access
(yes / no), and comments.
How should you
evaluate a journal? There is no easy answer because there are a lot of factors.
Impact factors and rankings are the most obvious. Factor is the impact of the
statistics: how many times each article in a journal has been cited each year.
The ranking is more a rough guide rather than numbers that determine how
important a journal for your discipline. Interdisciplinary journal often
receive ratings for a variety of disciplines. For example, American Behavioral
Scientist has evolved from its origins in psychology. As a result, today is
ranked 76/121 in clinical psychology, and 30/96 in interdisciplinary social
sciences. While these and other statistics have been criticized, as shown in
the example of my friend tenure review, they remain a way of evaluating the
potential for promotion agency.
You may be
interested in other journals aspect missing from the statistics. things that
fit with the theme; a good sign you publish in journals that right is you cite
journals have been published! Perhaps the review board has members that you
suspect to be sympathetic to the journal you write, or there is a special
problem in this journal that will be very suitable. Some academics prioritize
open access publishing. Being open access means that, at least, people can
access articles for free - although it also often means that they do not charge
for publication. Science is built to take advantage of and criticize the work
of others.
But beware, some
unscrupulous journals touting the status of "open access" while
outwit their statistics so they seem to have a high reputation, only to extract
exorbitant fees from the writer. Librarian Jeffrey Beall keep a list of the
open access journal that "predator". If you live in the academic
world long enough, you will start receiving a daily dose of spam emails from
unscrupulous publisher and can recognize it. If you're not sure, check the list
of Beall and evaluation of their editorial boards - do you see people you know
and respect? If in doubt, ask a trusted professor!
All of these
factors - the impact, relevance and open access - should be part of your
decision to publish the journal. Then there is the pragmatic factors, such as
how quickly you want your article out. When I first started at the academy, my
friend stressed the importance of publishing in journals that have a
quick turnaround time. Websites like Journal Reviewer lets you understand how
fast you can expect your paper through peer review. If you look at timely
topics - such as the spread of misinformation in the presidential election of
2016 - you might want to complete your job quickly. To this day, work in progress. He also made the papers and transcripts of his
lectures available to the public at no charge. These journals are often cut
barriers to prohibit the dissemination of scholarship outside academia.
Publishing early and often part of the recipe for success as a leading public
intellectual, which makes it a research institute director and founder of Data
& Society.
Prepare and
Submit Paper
Once you find an
appropriate journal, start writing articles using their formatting
requirements. Reformat articles for different journals can easily spend your
free time! You will find the requirements of journal publishing on their
website under the link titled as "information for the author" or
"submission guidelines." There you will find information such as the
number of words and the style preferred article. Journal accepts articles
written in a specific style such as APA or Harvard. Some even insist a slight
variation on an established style.
Keep track of
reference will may hinder your writing. One way to track the reference is to
use appropriate writing tools. Citation management software such as Endnote
Zotero and very important to keep your sanity. They also allow you to use
formatting template to automatically generate in-text citations and references
section. This will produce results if you ship to a different journal later
because you do not need to reference the hand format!