Hi everyone my name is Teresa Somerville and I work with hae American Journal experts and before we get going too far. I just want to confirm my audio again with everyone just to make sure that everyone is able to hear me if someone could type in the chat box on the side maybe perfect okay great. I just wanted to to confirm that once again before we got too far into the presentation and just wanted to first of all say. Thank you journals publishers, publishers of journals all so much for being here today. We really appreciate you journals publishers, publishers of journals you journals publishers, publishers of journals attending this and we’re excited about this webinar we’re excited to be able to share this information with you journals publishers, publishers of journals and I wanted to actually introduce our speaker Patrick Applegate. He is an academic editor at aje and he has a background in research and you journals publishers, publishers of journals know has been believed the first author on over 20 peer-reviewed papers and in Patrick has a great wealth of expertise and an experience that he’s going to be able to share with you journals publishers, publishers of journals all today as he talks about tips for publication success so I just wanted to share really quickly that there is a Q&A section like a chat box so feel free to put your questions in there and we’ll be able to respond to those um you journals publishers, publishers of journals know at the end of the presentation or it’s Patrick. You journals publishers, publishers of journals know is able to respond to those so feel free to put those in there and just let us know if you journals publishers, publishers of journals need anything else so thank you journals publishers, publishers of journals so much thanks. Patrick Thank You journals publishers, publishers of journals Theresa can. Can you journals publishers, publishers of journals hear me. Okay just nod you journals publishers, publishers of journals okay. All right great so. I’m guessing that you journals publishers, publishers of journals all can hear me so thanks Teresa for that very nice introduction. I’m really happy to be here so it’s morning in the United States. I think it’s just before bedtime in China and probably late in the working day in Europe. We really hope that this time works for as many people as possible but yes. I’m going to be talking for the next half hour or about 40 minutes about tips for publication success. We really hope that this will be as useful as possible to to you. There’s going to be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the talk so if you’ll hold on to your questions and or post them in the Q&A section we’ll respond to those as I finish going through the slides here if there’s anything that I don’t get to because we may run out of time before you journals publishers, publishers of journals all run out of questions.
Theresa will be providing an email address that you journals publishers, publishers of journals can send questions to where we can try to respond to you journals publishers, publishers of journals there so stay tuned until the end of the talk so that we can get to your questions or provide you journals publishers, publishers of journals with that information for where to go to get your other questions answered so I’m going to go ahead and start the slide. Show here you journals publishers, publishers of journals okay. So what are we going to be so yes the title of this talk is of course tips for publication success and my name is Patrick. Applegate and I’m with American journal experts as Teresa has said so what are we going to be talking about today. I want to start by telling you journals publishers, publishers of journals kind of what I’m going to be talking about. And as all of you journals publishers, publishers of journals know if you’re here you journals publishers, publishers of journals know that the number of papers that you journals publishers, publishers of journals publish has a strong influence on how well your career as a researcher goes the more you journals publishers, publishers of journals publish the easier. It’s going to be for you journals publishers, publishers of journals to find future positions and also to get grants and do other things that you journals publishers, publishers of journals as a researcher really want to do so. It’s important that you journals publishers, publishers of journals publish as fast as possible. The the challenge though is that publishing as it’s presently constructed takes a long time particularly when you journals publishers, publishers of journals compare the time required to publish a paper to how long you journals publishers, publishers of journals have in a PhD program or a postdoc or as an early career faculty member so there’s that close similarity and timescales there. That makes this really important that you journals publishers, publishers of journals be as efficient as possible in publishing your work so. I want to give you journals publishers, publishers of journals some hints today as to how you journals publishers, publishers of journals can publish as expeditiously as possible. And therefore increase your chances of having a good career in academia so. Who am I so as I said before my name is Patrick. Applegate I do have a PhD from Pennsylvania State University in the United States.
It’s a pretty big University. My degrees in geosciences but what. I’m going to be saying today. Applies to many different fields so I’m I’m really hopeful that this advice will be generally useful even if you journals publishers, publishers of journals don’t happen to be a geologist so I’ve spent a fair amount of time in academia. I was an instructor a researcher and a scientific program or after getting my degree now. I’m an academic at aje and I do have about 20 peer-reviewed papers on my CV. Those are a mixture of publications where. I was the first author and also publications where I was contributing to the paper but not but at the second or third or following author so that’s my background the company that I work for is American Journal experts. You’ll hear us say a je lot. A je at this point has been around for getting on 15 years and the primary thing that we do is to provide author services so some of you journals publishers, publishers of journals may have used our services where we will do. English editing language editing so you journals publishers, publishers of journals can send us papers that you journals publishers, publishers of journals would like to publish in an English language journal but you journals publishers, publishers of journals may not be perfectly confident in the English and we can clean that up and really get it ready for publication and a good English language outlet. We also do translation we help with figure design manuscript formatting. So if there’s a paper that you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to send to a particular journal and you journals publishers, publishers of journals don’t want to spend the time to put it into exactly that journals format we can do that for you. There’s also various other services that we have that are listed on this slide here so we’re not going to be recommending the use of any protective these services today nothing that I say requires the use of these paid services but it can be good to keep them in mind in case you journals publishers, publishers of journals need them at some point in the future so I want to start by saying just a few words about the overall context in which you journals publishers, publishers of journals might be publishing your papers. So a lot of papers get published every year about two million articles got published in 2016.
And what you’ll notice on this slide right here. There’s time on the x-axis so you’ve got 2006 over here on the left you’ve got 2016 over here on the right and then the y-axis you journals publishers, publishers of journals have the number of publications from 0 up to 2 million there and these green and blue and red polygons indicate the number of publications from different countries. The red is China the blue is the United States and then green is the world as a whole and what you journals publishers, publishers of journals can see here. Is that the margin between the red for the United States and the blue for China is narrowing pretty quickly and in fact 2017. China published the most scientific papers of any country in the world so that’s an exciting development and one that certainly matters for us here at aje we we handle a lot of papers from from China and there’s a lot of papers being published every year as you journals publishers, publishers of journals mean as I mentioned just a second ago all right the yearly totals over two million so it you’re in good company in publishing in the scientific literature. There are a lot of other people out there who are trying to do this. And so your goal you journals publishers, publishers of journals have many goals as someone in academia you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to mentor other scientists. You journals publishers, publishers of journals want to teach you journals publishers, publishers of journals need to read the existing research you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to review what’s been done. Do scientific investigations present at conferences but the key metric is still publishing. It’s the ability to get your work out there where other people are going to see it and then so that they have the opportunity to take in what you’ve done and build on it so that’s still the primary goal of a career in academia so what I want to do is to talk to you journals publishers, publishers of journals about this publication process and also what this means for you journals publishers, publishers of journals in terms of your career outcomes and then what parts of this process you journals publishers, publishers of journals have the opportunity to affect so this graphic right here is a very nice graphic from a report that’s available on our website by our own Jeff Gregston and Ben mu Drac and so this tells you journals publishers, publishers of journals about what the publication process looks like.
I want to start all the way over on the right-hand side with this red box right here. This is really telling us. About what kind of career outcomes. You’re going for as a scientist or someone who’s trying to publish in the literature you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to advance your career and increase the global body of knowledge. Why would you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to do this. Well you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to do it because the more publications you journals publishers, publishers of journals have the longer your track record is the easier it will be for you journals publishers, publishers of journals to get funding to support additional work are the easier it is for you journals publishers, publishers of journals to get jobs and tenure and the more your colleagues will want to work with you journals publishers, publishers of journals so it’s important that you journals publishers, publishers of journals publish as much as possible. These are the steps over here on the. Left these this new red box indicates the steps in this process that you journals publishers, publishers of journals have control over so you. Won’t you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to present your research effectively through the use of text and figures and you journals publishers, publishers of journals need to evaluate the work and and determine where you’re going to send it and these are both really important in terms of both the impact of your publication. Clearly the better written a Pete paper is the more of an impact it’s likely to have and also as we all know some journals are really really top-tier and others or perhaps less important so an appropriate presentation style and then sending it to an appropriate journal will help you journals publishers, publishers of journals maximize the impact of any given publication but what. I want to point out here. Are these steps right here and these steps can really take a long time. Depending on how experienced you journals publishers, publishers of journals are with the publication process and a certain amount of luck the steps where you journals publishers, publishers of journals submit something to a journal and then eventually get it selected for publication. There can take anywhere from six months to a couple of years and I know this start from direct experience it can take a while to get things published. Let’s look at that those stages in the process a little more directly. This graphic is also from that report that I was telling you journals publishers, publishers of journals about that’s linked at the bottom of this slide right here so you’re over there on the Left you journals publishers, publishers of journals this is a somewhat complicated graphic but if you’ll notice over there on the left is a gray bar that indicates all the things that an author does as part of the publication process so you journals publishers, publishers of journals of course perform your research you journals publishers, publishers of journals write a manuscript and you journals publishers, publishers of journals send it to the journal and then the journal editor and the reviewer do things with your paper to help you journals publishers, publishers of journals to improve it essentially to send it through the peer review process and then hopefully eventually choose it for publication.
I mentioned that this process can take a while. If you journals publishers, publishers of journals send it to a journal and the author the editor decides it’s appropriate for the journal it gets sent to a reviewer and they like it and you journals publishers, publishers of journals have to make only minor revisions before it eventually gets accepted. That’s likely to take you journals publishers, publishers of journals about six months but there are a couple of pain points in this process. The pain points come in where either the journal editor decides that a paper is inappropriate for a given journal or you journals publishers, publishers of journals have to go through multiple rounds of review so you journals publishers, publishers of journals make changes to the article. Based on what a reviewer says but then the editor decides to send it back to the reviewers and they’re still not quite happy so then you journals publishers, publishers of journals have to fix it some more and so if you journals publishers, publishers of journals go through either of these routes in the publication process you journals publishers, publishers of journals may have to send your paper to multiple different journals where each time you’ll have to format the paper for that given journal again and send it to a new journal where you’ll have to communicate with the reviewers multiple times. This can really increase the amount of time that it takes for your paper to get published and that’s an issue in terms of your career outcomes so. I just wanted to show you journals publishers, publishers of journals this table right here again from that nice report and the particular paper the particular column in this graphic that I want to show to. You journals publishers, publishers of journals is the submitted to accepted column. So it’s the third from the left the third from the right on this table right here and all these values are given in days and so this is the average time.
According to our data between when a paper was submitted and when it was eventually accepted at a given journal and you journals publishers, publishers of journals can see that these numbers cluster right around 180 to 190 days. And that’s kind of six months which is where that six month figure is coming from now. I think that this doesn’t take into account cases where a paper has to be sent to multiple journals and that’s the pain point number one that I was referring to on that last slide so just to sum up the talk so far you journals publishers, publishers of journals know in the best case publishing paper that you’ve already written is going to take about six months if you journals publishers, publishers of journals run into one of the pain points that I mentioned where you journals publishers, publishers of journals have multiple rounds of review or where your paper gets rejected and you journals publishers, publishers of journals have to send it to another journal. It’s going to take longer and this can’t a this is really a long time compared to your lifetime in various positions that you’re going to hold so a Pedic PhD student ship is sort of three to five years of which maybe two to three years our productive research. Time after you’re done taking classes a postdoctoral position is one to three years. Depending and an assistant professorship is five to seven years so if it takes you journals publishers, publishers of journals six months to publish a paper that’s a long time compared to the time scale of these different positions so if you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to maximize the number of papers on your CV. You journals publishers, publishers of journals need to publish as quickly as possible and you’re going to have to make some smart decisions in order to to make this happen so. I want to go back to this graphic about the publication process and you journals publishers, publishers of journals and I want to focus in on these left two bubbles over here the steps that you journals publishers, publishers of journals have direct control over where you’re presenting your research in the best way possible and also trying to determine where to send it so your goals in order to make these steps go as well as possible are to write a manuscript.
That’s going to pass review easily. So you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to think as you’re writing your paper and even as you’re doing your research about what the best way to present is going to be and also you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to send your manuscript to a journal that’s likely to publish your work. So some journals are more appropriate than others for a given paper and you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to make some smart decisions in terms of deciding where you’re going to send your paper once it’s written so you journals publishers, publishers of journals might think well. I just need to do my research and then I can send it to a journal but it really. You journals publishers, publishers of journals really want to start thinking about how you’re going to write your manuscript while you’re still doing your research so this is something that. I have quite direct experience with where as we were doing a piece of research that I eventually published. I knew that we weren’t using what was considered the state of the art technique in order to address the particular problem. And so what we did here was to add some experiments so we did a group of experiments with with the techniques that we normally use which are not the state of the art and then we added some experiments we had the resources to do some limited experiments with techniques that were closer to the state of the art and that really helped confirm the results from the main technique we were using and eventually to get the paper published. So why do I bring this up. Why should you journals publishers, publishers of journals care about my experience. Well because what this reflects is that as you’re doing the research you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to think about what your reviewers might be likely to say what techniques are the people who might be reviewing your paper using do you. Are you journals publishers, publishers of journals using the same techniques. Do you journals publishers, publishers of journals think that they’re going to think that the techniques that you’re using or appropriate. I mean and if the answer is no you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to keep that in mind and try to address that through your study design. There’s often computer simulations that you journals publishers, publishers of journals can do to try. And increase the pallet ability of your study to reviewers so make it more likely that they’re gonna like what you’re doing.
You journals publishers, publishers of journals can add some back of the envelope calculations to support your work but think about this as you’re starting to plan your research what are the reviewers likely to say about the techniques you’re using can you journals publishers, publishers of journals add anything that’s going to make them more likely to think that your paper is acceptable for publication where you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to send it and the other thing that you journals publishers, publishers of journals need to do early in this process is decide where you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to submit this is really important um the a number one piece of advice that I can give you. The most important piece of advice is to ask your colleagues so if you journals publishers, publishers of journals talk to people in your department in your field maybe at conferences where they send their work so you journals publishers, publishers of journals probably know people who are doing things that are broadly similar to what you journals publishers, publishers of journals do and I somewhere they send their papers. Where have they had good experiences. Where have people not been so nice to them. Um and you’ll definitely want to take that into considerations when you’re deciding where to send your own papers uh there are lots of different types of journals out there. I want to go through a couple of dichotomies here. So binary opposite payers and talk about what each of these pairs might mean for where you journals publishers, publishers of journals might want to send your own papers. So of course there’s top-tier journals everybody’s heard of nature in science and then there are what are called disciplinary journals. Which are more for a niche audience. People who are probably working directly in areas that are closely aligned. With what you’re doing then there are subscription-based journals versus open access journals and then there are of course real journals versus predatory journals. And you’re clearly going to want to publish in a real journal and not a fake one. So to review these types of journals the top-tier journals have high impact factors so if you journals publishers, publishers of journals can publish in them lots of people are going to see and be interested in your work.
They usually offer rapid review. So if they’re if they decide that they’re interested in what you’re doing you’re likely to get a decision relatively quickly. If they’re not interested you’ll find out fast however if you journals publishers, publishers of journals submit to one of these journals it’s quite likely that you’re going to get rejected. They they take a small percentage of the papers that are sent to them every year. And just by just as a question of probability if you journals publishers, publishers of journals send something there. It’s quite likely that you’ll get a rejection on the other hand if you journals publishers, publishers of journals send something to a disciplinary Journal these journals typically have lower impact factors than the top-tier journals and they often feature slower review. However if you journals publishers, publishers of journals make a good choice in terms of where you’re sending your paper it’s more likely that your paper will be accepted at one of these journals. So subscription-based versus open access. Many journals particularly the traditional journals are subscription-based which means that the authors pay lower publication costs and the people who pay for the maintaining the databases of these papers are primarily library systems and then individual users. So what this means for you. Is that after you’ve published your paper many users who want to read it will find that they encounter. What’s called a paywall. Where when they try to read your article that means that they’ll run into a situation where the website is asking them to pay for some money. Pay the pace of money so that they can read your work on the other hand. If you journals publishers, publishers of journals publish your work in an open access journal what that means is that you journals publishers, publishers of journals will probably pay a bit more money upfront. In order to publish your work in one of these journals however once you’ve done that your work is freely available to anyone. In the world with an internet connection so open access journals are often favored. Some countries funding agencies really prefer that you journals publishers, publishers of journals use open access journals. I really think that open access journals are great if there are good ones in your field so really think about that option.
And then there’s this dichotomy between real journals versus predatory journals. Ah clearly you journals publishers, publishers of journals don’t want to publish. In a predatory journal those are in some sense fake journals that are out there to take money from unsuspecting researchers often junior people. Uh you journals publishers, publishers of journals really only want to submit to journals that have published solid papers in your field. You journals publishers, publishers of journals have a good sense of where the papers that you journals publishers, publishers of journals read are being published fine places that are publishing solid papers in your area. Try to send your work there. If you journals publishers, publishers of journals get an e-mailed invitation to submit to a journal. Be very suspicious of it. I can’t think of a time when I’ve received an email invitation to submit to a real journal. Yeah just as with all things that come into your email. Inbox use an appropriate level of skepticism. If you journals publishers, publishers of journals receive like an invitation like that. I want to show to you. A nice analysis that bears on choosing an appropriate journal. That might be of interest to you journals publishers, publishers of journals so this is published by some previous colleagues of mine tony wong and others and in an open access journal called. PLoS ONE so you journals publishers, publishers of journals can find this pretty easily on the internet that was published in 2017. And so this figure is telling us about how many citations that it which is a proxy for the impact of a paper we should expect to receive depending on what kind of journal we submit a paper to first. So on the x-axis you’ve got the number of times the paper is going to be cited over a 3-year window corresponding to the length of a PhD program or hour-long postdoc and then on the y-axis you’ve got the the length of the review time between when you journals publishers, publishers of journals submit to the first journal and when the paper is eventually accepted and that’s in days and you’ll notice that that y-axis ranges from zero meaning you journals publishers, publishers of journals know the review time doesn’t take any time at all all the way up to almost a year in the review process and we want that number to be as small as possible whereas we want the expected citations to be as high as possible and I’ve picked out a couple of categories on this so this analysis that they did is a simulation study that’s done for ecology journals but I want to point out a couple of considerations that I think apply more broadly so the yellow dots there are telling us about a non-selective disciplinary journal.
In other words a journal with a low impact factor that not all that many people read mostly by people in a particular area and on the other hand over on the right. You’ll see a very selectively. Journal where you journals publishers, publishers of journals know if you journals publishers, publishers of journals submit to that journal it’s highly likely that you’ll get rejected. And then you’ll have to send it someplace else and the trade-off here is that the yellow dots indicate a low number of expected citations but a short review time. Because you journals publishers, publishers of journals are going probably aren’t going to get rejected and have to send it to a different journal whereas the the small green dots over there in the upper right hand corner are telling us about a case where you’re probably going to get a lot of citations on an individual paper. The problem is you journals publishers, publishers of journals may have to send your paper to multiple journals before it eventually gets accepted and then here in the middle we’ve got a major open access journal which in this case happens to be +1 and because this the curve defined by the dots on this plot isn’t a straight line you’ll notice that submitting to +1 may be a good strategy according to this analysis because you’re still getting a good number of citations but the review time is still under a hundred days. It’s comparable to the review time that you journals publishers, publishers of journals would get. If you journals publishers, publishers of journals submitted to that non-selective disciplinary journal represented by the yellow dots in the lower left-hand corner so takeaway from this analysis is that major open access journals are often a good option because they feature both pretty short review times and also pretty good exposure for your work depending on the field that you’re working in and you journals publishers, publishers of journals can avoid some of these pain points where you’re going to have where you journals publishers, publishers of journals get rejected and then have to send it to a new journal so.
I think that many of you journals publishers, publishers of journals are probably here for advice on writing your manuscript so now we’ll get into that part the best piece of advice that I can give you journals publishers, publishers of journals here is that every journal is going to have a guide for authors on their webpage so as soon as you’ve picked an appropriate journal go to that web page find the guide for authors maybe print it out as a PDF and start highlighting the important parts. You’re going to want to read that document very carefully. It can save you journals publishers, publishers of journals a lot of pain and suffering if you journals publishers, publishers of journals follow the joy requirements as opposed to if you journals publishers, publishers of journals don’t you’re gonna want to pay special attention to requirements like what the different sections of the manuscript should be called what file format you journals publishers, publishers of journals should use for the figures and then what reference format the journal expects you journals publishers, publishers of journals to use so science and nature both used are very different reference formats both from one another and for most disciplinary journals. So pay attention to all of that as you journals publishers, publishers of journals start to write now in general you’ll want to write your abstract last but it can be a good exercise so many of us find that when we sit down to write a paper. It’s hard to get started because the abstract is short it can be a good place to start and I want to encourage you journals publishers, publishers of journals as you journals publishers, publishers of journals do this to look up what’s called the nature abstract template so even if you’re not submitting the nature following this template is usually a really good way to write an abstract and indeed for conference abstracts so if you journals publishers, publishers of journals search the web for nature summary paragraph PDF. You’ll get the document that I’ve got on the Left. I’ve grayed out all this text here because it’s not really important for what we’re talking about but instead look at the colored text over there on the left and so this is very a very specific way of writing an abstract that works just about all the time.
So you journals publishers, publishers of journals start with a couple of sentence providing a basic introduction to what you’re going to be talking about that anybody could understand any scientist then. You journals publishers, publishers of journals provide two to three sentences of more detailed background that are comprehensible the sentences scientists and areas related here. So you’re narrowing in here on your topic and so I’m not going to run through all of the parts of this here but if you journals publishers, publishers of journals follow this it’s it’s a great way to get started and writing your paper because your paper and in particularly the introduction are going to need to follow a structure. That’s not unlike this so start by writing consider starting by reading your abstract and following this template. So once you’ve done that you journals publishers, publishers of journals can write your introduction in general you’re going to want to assume that nobody has read your abstract. So don’t figure that that they already know what’s in the abstract you’re going to want to start essentially all over and you’re gonna want to explain the problems that your research addresses and also what the recent advances in this area of bent so everybody knows. I’m sure about writing literature reviews in general. The literature review part of your paper is going to go into the introduction and then at the end in the last paragraph in general you’re gonna want to define the goals of your study just so to say what you’re doing to address the problems of your field and then to provide a brief outline of your paper and so then you journals publishers, publishers of journals can start working on the materials and methods section for many junior researchers. This is the easiest part of a paper to write. Because you journals publishers, publishers of journals know all the things that you journals publishers, publishers of journals did in order to arrive at your research results uh. I want to jump to the last point on this slide here. It’s often a temptation when you’re just starting out to describe your methods chronologically so to say first. I did this then I did that then. I tried this and finally it worked in general reviewers and editors do not like that format so stay away from it instead.
What you’re going to want to do is to choose the methods that eventually did give you journals publishers, publishers of journals successful results that you journals publishers, publishers of journals are are now going to be describing in your paper and focus on that method if you journals publishers, publishers of journals used other methods. That’s great you journals publishers, publishers of journals can describe them in short subsections of the methods paper of the methods section but definitely don’t spend very much time on them if you journals publishers, publishers of journals don’t have to particularly if they’re common methods that are described elsewhere. Ah also be aware that the methods section probably should not dominate the paper. So if you journals publishers, publishers of journals get done writing your paper and you journals publishers, publishers of journals find that the methods or 75% of the paper that’s a signal that you journals publishers, publishers of journals need to expand the literature review and perhaps the results and discussion sections which we’re going to be talking about now so if the if the methods section is really long if it’s most of the paper that’s a suggestion that you journals publishers, publishers of journals need to think more about work that other people have done in this area and discuss it in the paper and also to talk more about the implications of your work. So now there’s the results section which I often find to be the hardest part of a paper to write because it’s very short and it can be hard to separate the results from the remainder of the paper the discussion and the conclusions. What you’re really trying to do here is to present the results of your analyses with minimal interpretation so to the degree that you journals publishers, publishers of journals can you journals publishers, publishers of journals just want to say how one thing changes with another just describing your fingers even without saying what this means for the particular problem that you’re trying to address in the context of your study in other words someone who disagrees with your interpretations of your data should be able to look at this section and not have any problems with it because you’re just describing the results of your work and then we get to the discussion and the conclusion. Sometimes these are two different sections. Sometimes they’re combined into one again.
Check that guide for authors and see what your what the Journal says about this in general if this is combined we’re going to assume that these are combined you’re going to want to put the most important results in the first paragraph and that’s because we as human beings tend to remember what we’re told first and what we’re told last the best and it turns out that the things that come first are easier easier to remember than the things that come last so this graphic here is from Wikipedia. You journals publishers, publishers of journals can go look it up and it’s talking about something called the serial position effect whereas if you journals publishers, publishers of journals give somebody a sequence of numbers to remember which number which of the numbers in the sequence are they most likely to remember well the first numbers and maybe the last numbers and usually the bits in the middle. They’re not going to remember. So put the important stuff in the beginning and then at the end of your discussion and conclusion section so one place where people will sometimes get tripped up in writing the discussion and conclusions. Section is if the conclusions that you journals publishers, publishers of journals attempt to draw from your research are too broad so if you journals publishers, publishers of journals claim to have solved all the problems of your field on the on the basis of a few analyses people may not like that. Ah you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to stick to the degree that you journals publishers, publishers of journals can to what you journals publishers, publishers of journals can directly show based on your data particularly in the discussion. However it’s okay to speculate wider to in a broader sense about what your results might mean for the field as a whole if you journals publishers, publishers of journals are clear that they represent speculation and that’s and that other people could disagree with with these particular conclusions so keep that in mind. It’s okay to speculate but be sure to label it a speculation other things try to stick close to the to the particular results that you journals publishers, publishers of journals have in your study and also keep in mind again that your work is going to be evaluated by probably at least three scientists so who are going to make a decision about whether or not your work is publishable so consider what they might have to say about your conclusions as you’re writing these sections so.
I want to come back to this graphic right here. There’s a very important step in this process. That’s not include often not included in discussions of how to publish. That has to do with what you journals publishers, publishers of journals do. When you journals publishers, publishers of journals get comments from a reviewer this is this is so important in trying to avoid going through either rejection from a journal or else going through multiple rounds of review. And that’s how you journals publishers, publishers of journals deal with the comments that you journals publishers, publishers of journals get from reviewers ah so many of you journals publishers, publishers of journals have probably been through this process and you journals publishers, publishers of journals know that reviewers can be wrong so even though reviewers are chosen because they’re experts in your field they’re volunteers they’re doing this for free. Most of the time they may have very limited time to review your paper. They may simply misunderstand or not be familiar with your particular methods and so it. It’s common in my experience that you’ll get back reviews where some are all. The comments are off-base. They just they don’t make sense in the context of what you’re trying to do you journals publishers, publishers of journals have to deal with them constructively anyway and in doing this you’re going to grow as a person and also as a researcher. This is going to teach you journals publishers, publishers of journals things. That’s going to make you journals publishers, publishers of journals a better person and researcher the most important thing. I can tell you journals publishers, publishers of journals here is to stay positive even if you’re frustrated by the comments and in writing your responses I really want to encourage you journals publishers, publishers of journals to think about this. That if the reviewer uh didn’t get what you journals publishers, publishers of journals were saying or in other words said something said something. That doesn’t seem helpful. It likely means that or it’s best. If you journals publishers, publishers of journals assume that the paper was on that you journals publishers, publishers of journals wrote was unclear in some way and that you journals publishers, publishers of journals should make some kind of adjustment so that both the reviewers and also future readers will better understand the message that you’re trying to convey take this as an opportunity to improve the presentation of your manuscript so in particular.
There’s an art of making a minimal acceptable change so even if you journals publishers, publishers of journals think the reviewers wrong there’s very often some small change that you journals publishers, publishers of journals can make to wording or to the structure of the manuscript that will broadly assess their concerns again even though they may be totally wrong about what what they’re saying so keep these points in mind as your respond to reviewer comments so. I want to. We’re coming to the end of our time here. I’m glad to see that we’re pretty good in terms of time. I want to remind you journals publishers, publishers of journals that publishing is a slow process compared to your longevity as a researcher so as a PhD student as an early career scientist or as a postdoc it’s really slow. You journals publishers, publishers of journals need to do this as fast as possible to maximize your career outcomes the best way you journals publishers, publishers of journals can do. This is when as soon as you journals publishers, publishers of journals start doing your research. And then as you’re writing your paper think about what intelligent people in your field are going to say about your work and try to structure what you’re doing to best meet what they might say you’re definitely going to want to select your target. Journal carefully on the basis of some of the things that we talked about so open access versus traditional top-tier versus disciplinary and definitely stay away from predatory journals and when you journals publishers, publishers of journals get your reviewer comments stay positive as far as you journals publishers, publishers of journals possibly can because there’s a lot to be learned from that process. I want to point out that we have a lot of great resources on our website in terms of how best to write papers so I want to encourage you journals publishers, publishers of journals to visit our author Resource Center at our KJ e.com. So here’s a few screenshots from a couple of different articles that we have up there why choosing a journal early in the research process is important obviously very relevant to what we’ve been talking about today how to identify questionable journals predatory journals and then understanding submission and publication fees so. I’d also like to say that we’re going to have more of these webinars in the near term so again if you journals publishers, publishers of journals liked this webinar keep an eye out for more emails about this.
Theresa has more information about these webinars but here are the times for those upcoming events so Theresa I. I think I’m done talking for right now. I think we can go to Question and Answer. Would you journals publishers, publishers of journals like to say a few words as we get into that process. Sure thank you journals publishers, publishers of journals so much. Patrick for this helpful information and this was really great. Thank you journals publishers, publishers of journals so much for sharing your experience and the experience of your colleagues. I think that um you journals publishers, publishers of journals know it’s it’s really great for us to you. Know be able to learn from that so thank you journals publishers, publishers of journals again and and thank you journals publishers, publishers of journals all so much. I’ve been able to respond to you journals publishers, publishers of journals guys you journals publishers, publishers of journals know on the QA and then I see that we have some questions in the side chat bar so first of all I just want to say thank you journals publishers, publishers of journals to you journals publishers, publishers of journals all for being engaged. You journals publishers, publishers of journals know this just really makes the webinar even better just to just to hear from you journals publishers, publishers of journals guys and so yeah so we can can jump into the question and answer session so there are two different ways. If you journals publishers, publishers of journals guys are interested in submitting a question we do have the main chat box on my screen. It’s on the the far right and then we also have there’s a QA section then I see that many of you journals publishers, publishers of journals have been able to use and so on Patrick I was going to say if it works for you. I can can read some of those or actually if you journals publishers, publishers of journals prefer I can kind of let you journals publishers, publishers of journals go through maybe pick a few that you journals publishers, publishers of journals would prefer to answer and we can jump in and I can say a few words again at the end so well. Let’s do this since you’re here. Why don’t you journals publishers, publishers of journals read the questions. I think that that might be best in particular if anybody’s joining us by phone and can’t can’t see so so let’s do it that way okay. I think I think that sounds really great. So let me go to right now. We have in our chat box on the side. I’m scrolling up and so the first question on that I will read out as it says you journals publishers, publishers of journals know what which what would should someone do if their paper or when their paper is rejected.
What should you journals publishers, publishers of journals do when your papers reject it well so. I’m smiling a little bit because this is something I have a lot of experience with so I just want to say I mean. Of course you journals publishers, publishers of journals know this but it isn’t the end of the world you journals publishers, publishers of journals can still have a very successful career. I know many people who have had very successful scientific careers and had many things rejected the number one thing that I can tell you. If you journals publishers, publishers of journals get a paper if you journals publishers, publishers of journals have a paper rejected is turn it around and resubmit it send it someplace else maybe move too. Journal with a lower impact factor maybe send it to PLoS ONE but it definitely send it out again. Don’t don’t get discouraged and and put it in your desk drawer and forget about it because that’s not a good way to be productive as a researcher. Ah so definitely take advantage of the comments that you’ve received so you journals publishers, publishers of journals may have received comments from reviewers or from the editor as part of the rejection. I’ll try to address those comments before now sending the paper to a different journal for sure they may. They’ll they’ll have other comments for you journals publishers, publishers of journals at the new journal but in addressing those comments from the journal that you journals publishers, publishers of journals got rejected from you journals publishers, publishers of journals will make your paper stronger and increase the impact that your work is going to have when it eventually is published. So don’t give up adjust your manuscript send it somewhere else as fast as you journals publishers, publishers of journals can perfect perfect yeah. That’s that’s really great. Thank you journals publishers, publishers of journals for that so another question that we have that has come in says. I sometimes find it difficult to write. Abstract within an abstract within a short format maybe 250 words. Is it good to write a medium-sized abstract or a short abstract. Is it good to write a medium abstract or a short abstract. I would say that depends a lot on the venue so most journals and certainly conferences will have word limits so you journals publishers, publishers of journals can’t make it longer than a certain limit. I think that what I would recommend so we’ve talked about the nature template so go find that we can back up to that but so you journals publishers, publishers of journals know go.
Google nature summary paragraph PDF. Make sure you journals publishers, publishers of journals take a look at that. I think it’s super useful. It can be good to write something in long form and then cut it down so that I find is very often another strategy that can be used in writing papers. So if you journals publishers, publishers of journals know you’re going to be sending to nature or science or something like that write it out and I’ll try writing it out in a long form first and figure out what you journals publishers, publishers of journals can cut from that in order to meet the word the word count limit of the particular venue where you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to send it that way. You journals publishers, publishers of journals can be sure that you’ve gotten all your important thoughts out on paper so and and that works also for abstracts for conferences and also for journals write it out in long form. Cut it down. So we have another one this one is about reviewers and so this person asks if I think the reviewer is very harsh and very wrong with their comments is it appropriate to to kind of fight or kind of push back against him/her or just try to reason with the reviewer to tell them that they’re wrong you journals publishers, publishers of journals know what suggestions might you journals publishers, publishers of journals have on you journals publishers, publishers of journals know on that approach. If if they view the reviewer is being wrong with their comments. Yeah what do you journals publishers, publishers of journals do if the reviewer is wrong. I would say that I’ve received comments that I thought were mistaken in a majority of the reviews that I’ve received so I think that the first piece of advice that I would offer is take a step back and consider that a misunderstanding. On the part of the reviewer is an opportunity for you journals publishers, publishers of journals to improve the clarity of your manuscript so think about any change you journals publishers, publishers of journals can make to the manuscript that you journals publishers, publishers of journals can say you journals publishers, publishers of journals know we made this change. It’s got we. We thanked the reviewer for their comment. Clearly we weren’t clear about this. We’ve adjusted the manuscript in this small way to try and make it clearer for future readers of the manuscript. In general a direct approach saying that the reviewer is wrong is not going to be productive.
You journals publishers, publishers of journals can certainly say for these reasons. We think that the reviewer is mistaken however we’ve adjusted the manuscript in order to make it clearer. That’s the format that. I would recommend we. We disagree for these reasons however we recognize that the manuscript may not have been clear. We’ve changed it in this way in order to improve its clarity for future. Readers that formula works 90% of the time if a reviewer is needlessly harsh you journals publishers, publishers of journals can sometimes appeal to the editor. But that’s true. I’ve I’ve rarely seen that strategy work. In general journal editors are extremely busy people and don’t have time to revisit manuscripts after their reviewers of rendered a decision so I would say that. Not saying that the reviewer is wrong as your primary strategy. Don’t do that as your primary strategy. Just stick with you journals publishers, publishers of journals know offering a reason why you journals publishers, publishers of journals did what you journals publishers, publishers of journals did. And then here’s how we’ve adjusted the manuscript to make it clear just add a little bit to that if I can have an article talked about and it is an article about how to respond to reviewers and you journals publishers, publishers of journals know so and it actually has some on sample tags. So you journals publishers, publishers of journals know if you journals publishers, publishers of journals think that you journals publishers, publishers of journals would find even just that kind of hands-on resource helpful then then feel free to go on our author resource center on AJ e-comm and and look for that you journals publishers, publishers of journals can just search for it by typing in reviewer for that article. Thank you journals publishers, publishers of journals for that response. That’s that’s really good. There’s a really good strategies. Patrick another question is is it appropriate to briefly mention the results of the study in the introduction at the end to provide the readers with a broad idea of the results obtained. Are there any rules in this regard. That’s a good question. I’ve certainly done that. Are there any. I’m not aware of rules. So you journals publishers, publishers of journals might not do that. In a case where you journals publishers, publishers of journals had a strict word count limit and you journals publishers, publishers of journals just couldn’t fit it in in general. I would say it’s a good practice however some reviewers don’t like it so I have done.
I can think of one case in which I did that or reviewer insisted that I take it out so I would say if you’d like to if you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to do that by all means good. I think you journals publishers, publishers of journals know it probably increases the clarity of manuscripts for your readers. If your reviewer complains and asks you journals publishers, publishers of journals to take it out just just do it take it out. Don’t don’t argue with them. That’s really great. I have another question on this person that they did an experiment four years ago but they could not write a manuscript and publish it. Due to some health issues they want to know can they send it now or is it too late. Is there a time limit. They said that they work in the field of microbiology so I’m sorry to hear that you journals publishers, publishers of journals were having health issues and I hope you’re back up to full strength now depending on the particular analyses that we were doing where you journals publishers, publishers of journals want to send it and the nature of your field so I’m a geologist. Not a microbiologist. I think that yes there. There probably is a home for your work if you journals publishers, publishers of journals feel that your research addresses a useful question and I’m sure that it does and that the data would be of interest to other people working in your field then there’s no time limit you journals publishers, publishers of journals can certainly send it to a journal now if the particular question that you journals publishers, publishers of journals were originally trying to address is not a hot area anymore you journals publishers, publishers of journals might want to be. You journals publishers, publishers of journals might want to moderate your expectations about where you’re going to send this. So science or nature might not be the best venues depending however meta-analyses based on old data get published constantly and can be very very impactful so one other way to think about this is. Is there some way that you journals publishers, publishers of journals can combine the work that you journals publishers, publishers of journals did with the results of studies that have been published more recently and say this is how this is this all fits together and how my work contributes to the overall picture if you journals publishers, publishers of journals can do something like that. I think it’s quite likely that you journals publishers, publishers of journals could publish your older experiments in a higher impact than you.
I hope that helps and good luck. Another question is one person they still find it difficult to have separate sections for the results and discussion without repeating themselves and some journals require these sections to be separated. Do you journals publishers, publishers of journals have any tips on that in particular yeah. I mean one way that you journals publishers, publishers of journals can do this. So there’s data and then there are interpretations the results section is about your data and it’s about simply describing your results in text form whereas the discussion and conclusions are about the interpretations that you journals publishers, publishers of journals put on your data and what they mean for the particular problem that you journals publishers, publishers of journals were attempting to direct to address in the first place. There’s a couple strategies you journals publishers, publishers of journals can use here. You journals publishers, publishers of journals can write it all out as a single sentence and then take a highlighter and mark all the parts that you journals publishers, publishers of journals think are interpretation in other words where somebody could reasonably disagree with what you’re saying with what you’re saying about your results move all the stuff that’s interpretation to the discussion and conclusions take the stuff that is you journals publishers, publishers of journals know that where you’re talking directly about the data so X increases with Y stuff like that stuff that you journals publishers, publishers of journals can get directly from the figures or from the tables put that in the results someone else had a question about any tips or best practices for resolving disputes among co-authors. That’s a tricky issue. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to offer great wisdom on this particular point because this is this can be a big struggle because publications are of course important for lots of people. They’re important for all authors on a paper. They’re important for the junior people who are doing the work and writing about it and they’re important for the senior people who want to continue to get grants and if you journals publishers, publishers of journals look at that article by tony wong and others that i was mentioning. Here’s a figure from there. They talked about some of the conflicts that you journals publishers, publishers of journals may experience between authors of different levels on the same paper so one thing.
I would suggest is take a look at at this paper here. Wong at al 2017 in PLoS ONE to see how see some strategies that they’ve discussed on the basis of an analysis for how to resolve these questions. I would say that you journals publishers, publishers of journals know the best you journals publishers, publishers of journals can do is to keep in mind that everybody is trying to get to the same place that is publishing the paper and try to maintain professionality and collegiality in dealing with your colleagues that you journals publishers, publishers of journals may disagree with. It can be really tough when you’re dealing with somebody who’s very senior to you journals publishers, publishers of journals and in those cases you journals publishers, publishers of journals may want to either defer to minimize conflict with somebody who has higher standing or you journals publishers, publishers of journals may want to argue and say you journals publishers, publishers of journals know. I really think we need to publish this faster or in this other. Venue particularly in journal choice. I think that if you’re the first author on the paper that is a good time to argue and say no I think we should send it here. Instead in terms of the structure of a manuscript often senior people will have a better idea than junior people about how to write something so in that case. I would listen to the senior person awesome. Thank you journals publishers, publishers of journals um. I think if it works for you journals publishers, publishers of journals Patrick will do one more question. And and so so. This question says how much portion of the text can be repeated in our own next paper with an extended / improved performance. That’s a good question so. I’m going to offer an off-the-cuff answer here but I’m not a hundred percent confident in my response so we have actually a way for you journals publishers, publishers of journals to submit questions to us that we can potentially answer afterwards and Theresa. That was communications. Could you journals publishers, publishers of journals tell them what that email addresses. Sure sure and I’m actually going to type it in our chat box on the right hand side but it is communications at aje comm and so. Yeah if you journals publishers, publishers of journals have additional questions that we didn’t get to you journals publishers, publishers of journals know and even this even this particular question if you’ll you’ll follow up and send the email we can just double check and verify and you journals publishers, publishers of journals know just the best way to answer that and we’ll be able to respond to you journals publishers, publishers of journals there so I would say that in general it’s not a good idea to simply copy and paste text from one paper to another even though it’s there both your papers generally that’s considered self plagiarism.
So how could you journals publishers, publishers of journals avoid that. You journals publishers, publishers of journals can always set the original paper aside and rewrite it from memory. It’s likely to be at least a little different. You journals publishers, publishers of journals can outline what you journals publishers, publishers of journals want the new paper to say and write it from the outline without looking at the old paper you journals publishers, publishers of journals can try to think of a different way of structuring. Your argument which can be a useful mental exercise so. I mean I I haven’t been in this situation specifically and I’m sorry that I can’t give you journals publishers, publishers of journals a more reasoned answer for it but I would discourage you journals publishers, publishers of journals from from reusing your text and I would say that writing a new outline and working from that maybe restructuring your argument is are going to be good ways of addressing the situation that you’re in.
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