2. Developing a strategic publishing and presentation plan

To me, being strategic about publishing means being prepared in every step of the process.

• Identify the potential publication venue.
  As mentioned earlier, it is important to develop a list of key journals in one’s field of research. To consider what journals to include, here are a few ideas discussed in the Webinar titled “SIG III: Getting Published in Reputable International Journals and Other Publications”: which journals do you consider prestigious; which are highly cited in your specialization; where do your senior colleagues present and publish; and what is the journal’s impact factor. Once you narrow down a few choices, for each journal: read the table of contents of the journal where you want to submit – at least a year’s worth (who and what they’re publishing, there may be a special issues); check to see if your key terms are indexed by the journal and check to see where the journal is indexed; and check the background of the editor and the editorial board. When the list is complete, you may choose one journal from it as a target venue for each manuscript you start working on.
• Prepare the manuscript.
  A research project, especially a complex one, may produce more than one publication. As we complete the project, we need to think about how to carve out the different pieces and turn them into multiple publications. Then, we can set a timeline for writing the manuscripts one by one. Writing is often the most difficult part in the process. It takes time, discipline and persistence. The aforementioned Webinar had a few suggestions on honing one’s writing skills: avoid jargon, define major terms and concepts, use terms consistently, ask trusted colleagues for feedback, consider hiring a proof reader, read about writing, e.g., Virginia Tufte (Artful Sentences), Gopen & Swan (The science of scientific writing), practice writing, keep a journal (or a blog), and take advantage of the writing support provided by one’s institution.
• The publication decision.
  There are usually four decisions – accept as is, minor revision, major revision, and rejection. The first two are practically good news, so we will just talk about how to deal with the latter two. Major revision can be a mixed bag. Sometimes the editor can decide whether to accept your revision, and sometimes the revised manuscript has to go out for another round of peer review. As for the reviewers’ comments, we may not agree with all of them, or be able to address all of them. When deciding whether to continue with the revision or withdraw the submission, we need to consider how well we can address the reviewers’ comments in the revision, and whether it’s worth the time and effort. If we do decide on revising, we need to document how each point in the reviewers’ comments was addressed – if we couldn’t fully address a particular point, it’s necessary to provide a detailed explanation. Such a document is often required when resubmitting the revised manuscript. If the publication decision is rejection, we can still recycle the manuscript and find another venue to submit it. Handling major revision and rejection can be frustrating – the key is not to take it personally and develop a thick skin for criticism.

I will be joining our Gateway PhD Program’s residency in the upcoming ASIS&T annual conference in Montreal, and I have been asked to talk to the doctoral students about publishing. I’d like to use this blog post to clear my thoughts and figure out what I’m going to say. I was given a couple of specific topics that need to be covered, which is helpful and I can organize my thoughts around them.

1. Selecting publication and presentation venues

There are usually two kinds of research journals – scholarly and professional. Both publish peer reviewed articles, written by and for people who have experience or expertise in a particular field, and both are respected for the research and information they provide about the topics they cover. The difference lies in the community of author and readers – for scholarly journals, author and readers are scholars and academic researchers, and their articles mostly serve the purpose of theoretical, methodological and knowledge advancement in a specific domain. Therefore, scholarly journals can be quite demanding when it comes to the rigor of a study’s research design. Professional journals focus more on the practical implications of research – how the published research can inform actual practice. Authors of professional journals are usually practitioners, who conduct research to address actual problems they encounter at work and publish about it.

Whether choosing a scholarly journal or a professional journal as the potential venue for publication, it’s important to have a clear idea of what our research is about and who we want to share this research with.  It would be helpful to establish a list of four or five core journals that often cover our research areas and become familiar with their style and requirements (reviewing past issues would help). Before we start writing up our research, we can scan the list quickly and decide which journal we’d like to submit it to, and then complete the manuscript according that journal’s guidelines.

Conference is another venue where we can disseminate our research – there are also scholarly conferences and professional conferences, and the difference is similar to what’s discussed above. For conference presentations, some conferences require submissions of full papers that go through the peer review process, and some only require a proposal or an abstract to be viewed by a committee instead of peer reviewers. In some fields, conference proceedings have the same status as journal publications, while in some others, presenting at conferences is not valued as much as publishing in journals.  Despite all the differences, conference is a great venue to have interactions with people who share our research interests and can offer us feedback on expanding/refining/improving our own research. Again, it’s important to identify one or two key conferences that welcome the types of research we do, and become familiar with their submission deadlines and requirements.

(to be continued)