Writing for your peers: journal articles

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Writing for your peers journal articles

• Kristina Boone,
• Professor and Head

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Why write journal articles?

• Administrators like it
• Demonstrates expertise
• Peer review maintains high standard
• Professional development
• Makes you think differently
• BIG REASONS Adds to the body of scholarship
  improves practice public obligation

We are scholars. We work in higher education.
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Why difficult to write?

• Unfamiliar format
• Information is new and complex

Clarity and conciseness are critical
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Structure of Article

• Title concise, provides insight
• Abstract mini-paper
• IMRAD
• Introduction
• Method
• Result
• Discussion
• References all cited in article

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IMRAD Recipe

• Introduction (aka intro, review of lit,
  background)
• Context, problem statement, related studies,
  research question/hypothesis
• Illustrates the gap in the previous work that
  your work addresses
• Methods (aka materials and methods)
• What you did and how you did it
• Results (sometimes grouped with discussion)
• What you found

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IMRAD Recipe

• Discussion (sometimes implications,
  recommendations, etc)
• What all this means
• Puts work in context of other studies
• Explains realistic impact of findings
• Answers the so what question
• Recommends future research
• Hardest section to write most common problems

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Hot Buttons for Editors and Reviewers (JOE)

• Content
• Contribution
• Audience
• Methods
• Rigor
• Usefulness

• Readabilty
• Interesting
• Comprehension/ Understandable
• Development/ Sequencing
• Mechanics

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Process

• Write it up/identify journal (call editor?)
• Follow journal guidelines
• Submit it
• Wait
• Wait
• Get reviews back
• Have a beer and calm down
• Revise
• Resubmit, complete approvals
• Wait
• Celebrate publication!

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What are your article ideas?