1 Strategies for getting your research article RA published internationally

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1 Strategies for getting your research article
(RA) published internationally

• Allan Lauder
• Pelatihan Sehari Penulisan Artikel Ilmiah untuk
  Jurnal Internasional
• DRPM-UI
• July 2008

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Concepts covered

• Overview the context of publishing
• Why write for publication?
• Academic publishing (in English) and the
  Non-native Speaker (NNS) writer
• Journal rankings Impact Factor (IF)
• Targeting the right journal General strategies
• Widening the net Searching for journals
• Guidelines for authors on journal/publisher
  websites

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1 OverviewThe context of publishing
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Understanding the context of academic publishing

• The academic journal its function, content,
  purpose as a vehicle for the goals of members of
  the academic community
• Choosing the right journal Journal rankings and
  types
• The publication process Peer reviewed versus
  editorial selection
• The research article (RA) Purpose, history
• Rhetorical conventions for writing research
  articles Genre and information structure
• Expectations held by editors about content,
  structure, style of articles, rules for
  contributors

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Context for academic publishing

• The scientific community
• individual and groups with common interest in
  specific fields of study
• principle activities are research, teaching and
  educational management
• sharing ideas through a variety of academic genres

genre a category of spoken or written text,
characterized by similarities in purpose, form,
style, or subject matter.
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Genres

• A working definition of genre in linguistics
• a set of text types or class of communicative
  events
• with a shared set of communicative purposes
• Genres will often have everyday names, e.g.
• conversation, press briefing, sermon, lecture,
  service encounter, doctor-patient interview,
  business meeting
• Descriptions of genres may make mention of
• consideration of the audience
• constraints on allowable contributions

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Some academic genres of communication
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Research process genres the Research Article
(RA)

• A common purpose for all these genres
• to share, publicize or promote the work done by
  researchers.
• RAs occupy a central place among them.

Swales (1990177)
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The Research Article (RA)

• A systematic written report, presenting results
  of a study or research, to a specific audience
• A written contribution to the development of a
  field of study, for analysis, review, and
  critical comment by members of the community

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History of the research article

• The first scientific periodical The
  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
  1665
• writing style epistolary
• unfounded claims and speculations dominated
• Robert Boyle (1627-91)
• promoted experimental philosophy
• writing style facts speak for themselves
• Changing views of research
• an intentional investigation ? a test of
  theory, proof of or evidence for a claim
• Writing style evolved ? impersonal, detached

epistolary adjective relating to or denoting the
writing of letters or literary works in the form
of letters an epistolary novel.
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Textual development

• Article length 7000 words (1893 to 1900) ? 5000
  words (1940) ? 10,000 (1980 to present)
• Organization not originally divided into
  sections sections appeared post 1950
• Number of references originally, about 10
  current trend is for more
• Syntactic and lexical variation no change,
  average 25 words per sentence subjects of main
  clauses shift to abstract
• Graphic material apparatus drawings ? more
  tables and graphs

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The RAs role in the scientific community today

• The RAs key role today
• Huge increase in the volume of publishing and
  number of journals
• Redrafting or serial submission is used to force
  ones way into print
• Researchers are highly motivated to make their
  work available to the wider research community
• Publication is the major route to tenure,
  promotion, research grants and so on (Ziman, 1968)

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2 Why write for publication?
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Why bother?

• You may have to put in hours, weeks, months or
  even years of time and energy if you want to get
  into print
• In Indonesia, this has always meant unpaid work
  and it means time not used for work that does
  increase your income.
• Love, fame and fortune may not be enough, given
  the realities of the academic situation in
  Indonesia
• So, why should anyone be motivated?

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Personal and intellectual reasons

• Ambition to be widely recognized for your
  research.
• To say something new.
• To get useful editorial advice when rejected.
• To get offers to present conference papers.
• So readers will contact you to offer feedback,
  make a suggestion or ask a question.
• To clarify your own ideas.
• To gain confidence from being in print.

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Reasons related to employment The publish or
perish imperative

• An important reason is going to be simply because
  you have to
• In the west, your career wont advance if you
  dont publish
• This is because universities compete and up to
  50 of the score for their rankings comes from
  the research published by their academic staff
• This is now being written into UI life

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Research-based education at UI increases in
proportion to lecturing
Realization
Implementation
Preparation
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Publish or perish

• Today, UI is restructuring to become a world
  class research university
• If you are on the research track, you will have
  to publish
• To receive promotion and financial rewards
  publish or to perish.
• To support the universitys recognition and
  funding.

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Funding for publication of research at UI

• The good news is that if you do get published,
  you get paid now
• Cash payment to researchers who get their work
  published
• Three classes are distinguished
• Top IF journals 7.5 million Rp
• Other international journals

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3 Difficulties Faced by the Non-native Speaker
(NNS) Writer

• What makes it harder for NNSs to get their
  articles accepted

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The global role of English

• The importance of publishing for individual
  careers
• The majority of the worlds scholarly work is
  published in English
• The medium of communication is important because
  the decision to use a particular language conveys
  an advantage on some and a disadvantage on others
  (Swales 1990 106)
• Native speaker (NS) scholars have an advantage
  over non native speakers (NNSs)

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The language barrier

• The language learning burden
• Learning a language to a high level of
  proficiency takes time
• NNS researchers need time out from academic
  career to acquire and maintain adequate levels of
  English proficiency
• Rejection rates in journals
• Highest in the Arts and Humanities 80-95
• Non-standard English become the first factor for
  papers to be rejected

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Language-related problems for getting published

• Problems related to English
• An example of NNS writers - Scandinavian
  psychologists
• depression over foreign language shortcomings
• publishing on psychology in Swedish is futile
• the language barrier was their central problem
• staying in US/England more beneficial than grant
• desire to get native speakers to understand their
  problems

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The problem of an obscure affiliation

• There is a bias against submissions from obscure
  places
• Research is more likely to be rejected if
  submitted from an obscure or dubious affiliation
  rather than one that carries prestige or high
  credibility (i.e. Harvard)
• Research by Peters and Ceci (1982) resubmitted
  already published research to 12 psychology
  journals using obscure affiliations (i.e. The
  Tri-Valley Institute for Human Growth)
• 3 recognized as already published, 1 accepted, 8
  rejected
• Refereeing policy blind or non-blind
• A third-world look and technology (i.e. typed,
  grey recycled paper that wouldnt photocopy)

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Problems with resources and support

• Working in off-network or isolated research
  environments (developing countries)
• Limited library resources
• Libraries only carry the leading journals, so
  researchers are unaware of journals that might
  publish them
• Limited access to language support
• Native speaker editors
• Advice on rhetorical conventions of the genre

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Example Report by UK Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC)

• Increasing pressure to publish in English
• Institutional system of rewards, impacts
• departments and individual scholars
• salary, career or professional advancement
• opportunities for conducting future research

(ESRC) RES-000-22-0098 - Professional academic
writing in a global context
http//www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/P
lain_English_Summaries/knowledge_communication_lea
rning/communication_information/index451.aspx?Comp
onentId9361SourcePageId11762
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Writing for a number of distinct communities

• Writing for English language journals is the most
  rewarding financially and/or in
  reputation-building terms, but
• Scholars actively seek other "communities" and
  write in local or third languages.

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Scholars' practices when writing for publication
in English

• Most scholars draft in English, rather than
  writing in another language and having texts
  translated
• Drafting in English is more time-consuming
• Lack of language support services.
• Poor library resources and financial support
• Authors resort to "literacy brokers" who
  influence text production in various ways.

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Publishing within networks of colleagues and
literacy brokers

• Scholars' academic publishing outputs are
  generated in a complex network of activity rather
  than in isolation.
• Networks involve colleagues and research
  collaborators at local, regional and
  international levels.
• In transition from local to English-media
  research publication some individuals researchers
  involve "literacy brokers" in text production
• translators, proofreaders, friends,
  English-speaking academic colleagues, English
  language specialists, editors and journal
  reviewers.
• "Literacy brokers" play various roles and
  influence text production in different ways
• from influencing content to language guidance.

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Other articles Seeking acceptance in an
English-only research world

• Diane D. Belcher. 2007. Journal of Second
  Language Writing, Vol. 16 (1) 1-22
• Examined
• a sample of submission history documents for
  accepted and rejected manuscripts submitted to an
  applied linguistics journal
• Findings suggest that
• authorial persistence, willingness to continue
  revising and resubmitting when faced with
  extensive critical commentary from reviewers, can
  result in publication

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4 Journal Rankings Impact Factor and Journal
prestige

• How are journals ranked and what are the top
  ranked journals in your field?

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Different classes of journals

• Journals are classed according to their impact
  factor rating, whether international, regional,
  or local.
• Getting published in a prestigious journal may
  take up to two years from submission to getting
  into print as the review process is so severe.
• Once one has been published in a good journal, it
  is easier to do so again

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Journal Impact Factor (IF)

• a measure of the citations to science and social
  science journals
• developed by ISI (Thomson Scientific)
• may be used as indicator of the importance of a
  journal to its field.
• Calculating IF
• calculated based on a three-year period.
• an approximation of the average number of
  citations in a year, given to those papers in a
  journal that were published during the two
  preceding years.

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• For example, the 2003 impact factor for a journal
  would be calculated as follows
• A the number of times articles published in
  2001-2 were cited in indexed journals during 2003
  
• B the number of "citable items" (usually
  articles, reviews, proceedings or notes not
  editorials and letters-to-the-Editor) published
  in 2001-2
• 2003 impact factor A/B

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Pros and cons of ISIs Impact Factor rating

• Favorable properties of the Impact Factor
• ISI's wide international coverage
• Results are widely (though not freely) available
  to use and understand
• It is an objective measure
• It has a wider acceptance than any of the
  alternatives
• The alternative of rating by reputation or
  prestige is slow to change and not objective

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• Faults of ISI's Impact Factor
• Inadequate international coverage
• The failure to include many high quality journals
  in the applied aspects of some subjects
• The number of citations is not a direct measure
  of journal quality or scientific merit of papers
  in it
• The temporal window for citation is too short
  (c.f. classic articles still cited)

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• Factor can be skewed if author cites himself a
  lot (not a reflection of impact on other authors)
• Citation behaviour in different disciplines is
  not strictly equivalent (e.g. number of
  researchers, the average number of authors on
  each paper)
• Citations counts measure popularity, not prestige
• Better to assess the quality of the content of
  individual articles, not the reputation of the
  journal

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Other measures of impact PageRank algorithm

• gives citations from high impact factor journals
  greater weight recursive impact factor
• resembles the PageRank algorithm of the Google
  search engine
• journals score highest when they are often cited
  but rarely cite other journals

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Top 10 journals (2003) Impact Factor
PageRank compared
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Science Gateway High Impact Factor Journals

• http//www.sciencegateway.org/rank/index.html

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Journals ranked by Impact Applied Linguistics

• The above table compares the citation impact of
  journals in a given field as measured over three
  different time spans.

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5 Identifying the Right Journal

• General strategies for choosing the right
  journal(s) to publish in

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Choosing a journal Aiming high

• Identify the premiere (highest IF) journals
• Check out your chances of getting published in
  high impact factor, high prestige journals
• Check directories in the university
• Ask respected colleagues
• Conduct a citation search for where top authors
  first published
• Survey the type of articles, conditions for
  submission

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Otherwise

• Identify second tier journals or more specialized
  journals and submit there too
• Conduct an online search in journal databases
  (e.g. ProQuest)
• Get expert advice from librarians, colleagues
• Identify journals from citations in articles
• Study copies of your prospective journals (web
  site, database, hard copy)
• Identify the scope of key issues covered in each
  journal
• Understand the journals editorial policy and
  review system

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Improving your chances

• Pay attention to current thinking in research
  method in your field get up to date on your
  issue of interest
• Trace the evolution of thinking to identify a
  niche
• Get into the minds of your audience
• Submit to more than one journal at a time (if
  allowed)
• Use resubmission to force acceptance, revising
  work that has been rejected

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Summary of key points
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Review

• Overview the context of publishing
• Function of the research article in the global
  academic community
• Why write for publication?
• Personal career advancement
• Academic publishing (in English) and the
  Non-native Speaker (NNS) writer
• The global role of English
• Systems and strategies for enabling NNSs chances

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• Journal rankings Impact Factor (IF)
• Targeting the right journal General strategies
• Searching for journals
• High IF first, then widen the net
• Understand your journal
• Guidelines for authors on journal/publisher
  websites
• Make sure you understand the scope of the journal
• Match your topic to the audience
• Get/keep up to date