Developing Your Publication Profile

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Developing Your Publication Profile

• John-Paul Wilson

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Todays session

• Why publish?
• Types of publication
• Planning for Publication
• Journal articles
• Finding and choosing a journal
• Writing the article
• Co-authoring
• The peer review process
• Books
• Finding a publisher
• Your book proposal
• Edited volumes

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Why Publish?

• Self satisfaction
• Feeds into teaching
• Way of reflecting on what you are doing
• Career progression
• Peer approval/recognition
• HEFCE Research Assessment (REF 2013)

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Types of publication

• Journal article
• Research article
• Review article
• Reflective piece
• Paper in conference proceedings
• Chapter in an edited volume
• Entries in encyclopaedias, dictionaries, etc
• Books
• Textbooks
• Core
• Modular
• Specialist texts
• General texts
• Collection of papers
• Encyclopaedias, dictionaries, etc

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Planning for publication

• Identify potential outputs at the beginning of a
  project
• Identify potential places to publish these
  outputs as early in the process as possible
• Identify conferences to test out your ideas

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Finding and choosing the right journal

• What are the key journals in your subject area?
• Journal listings e.g.
• Informa World http//www.informaworld.com
• Ingenta Connect http//www.ingentaconnect.com/
• Publishers websites e.g.
• Sage Journal http//online.sagepub.com/
• Taylor Francis http//www.tandf.co.uk/journals

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Finding and choosing the right journal

• How do you choose which journal to target?
• Fit with your research
• Prestige quality of the journal
• Likelihood of success

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The right fit?

• What are the journals aims and scope?
• Who are the editors?
• Does editorial comment tell you anything about
  the journals direction?
• What kind of articles are they publishing right
  now?
• Is there an emerging theme?
• Who is the journals audience?

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Prestige Quality

• Peer-reviewed
• Journal Impact Factors e.g.
• Thomson Scientific Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
• European Reference Index for the Humanities
  (ERIH)
• Listings in databases, citation sources
• What do you and your peers think of the journal?

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Likelihood of success

• What are the journals rejection rates?
• How does its peer-review system work?
• How long between submitting an article and it
  being published?

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What actually happens

• You may choose a journal but that doesnt mean
  that they will choose you!
• You should have in mind alternative journals to
  target if you dont succeed with your first
  choice.

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Writing the article

• What makes a good article?
• Quickly establishes its aims and objectives
• Up-to-date
• Engages with the key debates in the subject area
• Makes you think
• Doesnt make you work too hard to identify the
  central argument
• Easy and/or enjoyable to read

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Writing the article

• Remember your audience
• Experts or non-experts?
• Academics and/or professionals?
• General or specific?

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Some writing tips - words

• Use simple, familiar words e.g. use rather than
  utilise, end rather than terminate
• Avoid technical jargon as far as possible
• Avoid colloquialisms or buzz words whose
  meaning may be unclear within a year or two
• Dont use terms that will not be immediately
  understood outside your culture/country
  remember the international dimension

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Some writing tips numbers

• Always use numerals for units of measurement e.g.
  15cm
• Spell out numbers less than 10 if not associated
  with a unit of measurement, but write the numeral
  for numbers 10 or greater e.g. in group two there
  were 25 students.
• Try to avoid starting a sentence with a numeral

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Some writing tips sentences

• Use short simple sentences
• Avoid using complex, multi-clause sentences
• Use the active voice e.g. My research has
  demonstrated
• Avoid the passive voice e.g. It has been
  demonstrated by my research

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Some writing tips paragraphs

• Dont use very short (single sentence) paragraphs
• Dont use very long paragraphs
• One idea per paragraph
• Be consistent in style between paragraphs (and
  sentences)

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Some writing tips person tense

• 1PS vs. 1PP vs. 3PS (neuter)
• I have shown
• We have shown
• It has been shown
• Try to be consistent in your use of tense
• Use the past tense in a literature review

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Some other writing tips

• Remove redundant words
• especially the e.g. The facilitators
  interacted well with the workshop participants
• unnecessary adjectives
• avoid tautology e.g. dont use completely
  eliminate, different alternatives
• Dont use several words where one will do, e.g.
  use because rather than due to the fact of,
  if instead of in the event of
• Explain all abbreviations the first time you use
  them
• Be gender neutral

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Guidelines and instructions for authors

• Make sure that the submitted paper meets with the
  published style guidelines for the journal
• Make sure you have used the journals reference
  style
• Make sure you follow all submission procedures
  e.g. correct number of copies, cover sheet,
  asbtract

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Co-authoring

• How much should an author be expected to
  contribute to have their name on the publication?
• How is it determined whose name goes first and
  the order of other authors?
• When should these issues be discussed, especially
  with a supervisor?

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APA Ethical Principles

• 8.12 Publication Credit
• Psychologists take responsibility and credit,
  including authorship credit, only for work they
  have actually performed or to which they have
  substantially contributed.
• Principal authorship and other publication
  credits accurately reflect the relative
  scientific or professional contributions of the
  individuals involved, regardless of their
  relative status. Mere possession of an
  institutional position, such as department chair,
  does not justify authorship credit. Minor
  contributions to the research or to the writing
  for publications are acknowledged appropriately,
  such as in footnotes or in an introductory
  statement.
• Except under exceptional circumstances, a student
  is listed as principal author on any
  multiple-authored article that is substantially
  based on the student's doctoral dissertation.
  Faculty advisors discuss publication credit with
  students as early as feasible and throughout the
  research and publication process as appropriate.

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Scientific or professional contributions

• Formulating the problem or hypothesis
• Structuring the experimental design
• Organising and conducting statistical analysis
• Interpreting the results
• Writing a significant portion of the paper

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International Committee of Medical Journal Editors

• Authorship credit should be based on
• substantial contributions to conception and
  design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and
  interpretation of data
• drafting the article or revising it critically
  for important intellectual content and
• final approval of the version to be published.

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Universitys guidelines on good research conduct

• 3.6 Acknowledging the role of collaborators and
  other participants
• The issue of authorship is an important aspect
  of good research practice and, in the context of
  the growth of multiple authorship in recent
  years, the University expects anyone listed as an
  author of a research output to accept personal
  responsibility for ensuring that they are
  familiar with the contents of the output. The
  contributions of formal collaborators and all
  others who directly assist or indirectly support
  the research must be properly acknowledged. This
  applies to any circumstances in which statements
  about the research are made, including provision
  of information about the nature and process of
  the research and in publishing the outcome.
  Failure to acknowledge the contributions of
  others is regarded as unprofessional conduct.
  Conversely, collaborators and other contributors
  carry their share of the responsibility for the
  research and its outcome. Authors are also
  responsible for ensuring that they agree with the
  way in which their contribution to any research
  output is presented. Where appropriate, the
  support of funding bodies should be acknowledged
  in publications. 

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Peer Review

• Anonymous (blind) peer review
• Normally 2 reviewers
• Identity of the reviewers is concealed
• Identity of the author(s) is known
• Double-blind peer review
• Normally 2 reviewers
• Identity of the reviewers is concealed
• Identity of the author(s) is concealed
• Open review
• Normally a panel of reviewers
• Identity of reviewers is made known
• Reviewers acknowledged explicitly in published
  papers

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Feedback

• Editor will make decision based on reviewers
  reports as follows
• Accept the paper as it is
• Revise request revisions to be made to the
  paper. If the revisions are made satisfactorily
  the paper will be accepted
• Reject but invite resubmission of the paper once
  substantial changes have been made
• Reject the paper with no opportunity to make
  revisions

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Common reasons for rejection

• The paper does not fit with the journals aims
  and objectives
• The paper does not conform to the journals
  guidelines
• The papers style is confusing, ambiguous and
  vague
• The paper lacks originality
• The paper does not engage with current literature
  
• The paper is unethical and breaches
  confidentiality
• The paper makes claims that are unsubstantiated
  by the data
• The paper lacks sufficient academic rigour

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Revisions

• Complete the revisions as quickly as possible and
  certainly within any suggested timescale
• Discuss all revisions with any co-authors
• You may disagree with some of the suggested
  revisions if you do write a detailed explanation
  with supporting evidence as to why you think the
  revisions are not required (but be prepared for
  rejection!)

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Finding a publisher for a book

• Who are the major publishers in your subject
  area?
• Do they publish the type of book you want to
  write?
• How do you go about getting a book contract?

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Writing a book proposal

• Aims and rationale
• Chapter headings with synopsis of each chapter
• Length and date of delivery
• What is your target market?
• What is the competition

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Evaluation of proposal

• Evaluation by commissioning editor(s)
• Evaluation by independent referees
• Editorial Board Meeting
• Contract, Desk editorial and Publication

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Edited volumes

• Written around a theme
• Custom written
• Based on conference or seminar series
• Some publishers will agree to publish conference
  papers, in principal, in advance of event
• Some publishers will only publish papers written
  specifically for the volume