Publish or Perish?

[rachaelski]

Hi everyone, I am wondering if anyone here has experience with submitting articles to journals for publication, and if they have any advice for "how-to"? I want to be a professor, and the way I see it, it will entail me being a complete rock-star in all arenas.

[lifetimestudent]

Hi everyone, I am wondering if anyone here has experience with submitting articles to journals for publication, and if they have any advice for "how-to"? I want to be a professor, and the way I see it, it will entail me being a complete rock-star in all arenas.

To succeed you really do need to publish. I am not sure if you need to publish while in grad school. I am just starting but from what I have heard there are competing camps on this issue. I have spent some time trying to publish an article, it is a lot harder than you would think... I would check out www.publishnotperish.org which has a really great set of articles on publishing in journals.

[rachaelski]

Thanks! My field, education, I fear is even a bit more complete. Not only are there tons of academic journals, but there are also journals directed towards practicing teachers. Would submitting (and hopefully being published) in one type of journal result in judgements being made about me? Academics is hard.

[rising_star]

Thanks! My field, education, I fear is even a bit more complete. Not only are there tons of academic journals, but there are also journals directed towards practicing teachers. Would submitting (and hopefully being published) in one type of journal result in judgements being made about me? Academics is hard.

This is really a question that needs to be asked of your professors and not of an online forum. The nuances of something like this are very particular.

[Alette]

This is really a question that needs to be asked of your professors and not of an online forum. The nuances of something like this are very particular.

I absolutely agree with this. Beyond the nuances of publication in your field, it is probably a good idea to discuss publishing in general with your professors. You may have found after writing a seminar paper (which was probably assigned to be the length of a journal submission) that your professor suggested it has publication potential. If s/he offers to help you, take it!

Also keep in mind that the publication process can and does take a long, long time. It could easily be six months or more before you even hear back from the publisher. About two years is the average length of time between submission and publication.

You will also want to consider the pros and cons of peer-reviewed journals. These take longer to process your submission but are what counts on your cv. At least in my field, if you don't have at least one of these by the time you enter the job market, you're toast. Even if you do not get an acceptance letter, you will receive helpful notes from the top people in your field to help you improve the essay.

I would not recommend not publishing; there is no way that will look good. The life of an academic is difficult with classes, committees, and research/writing all demanding time, but get used to the pace now while you still have a relatively flexible schedule.

To me, publication in peer-reviewed journals is the icing on the cake for the work I love to do. The pressures of publish or perish are there, but my motivation for reworking past seminar papers and discussing their development at much length with professors is simply that this is what I love. There is nothing more exciting than finding and exploring a new angle on a work.

EDIT: Please, please, please make sure whatever you submit is relevant to that journal! Check out what they've published recently, in the past 2-3 volumes at least. Do your homework. Also, do not commit the sin of double submission - take it one essay, one journal at a time. There's no faster way to get on an editor's blacklist. (Well, unless you fall through with your peer-review duties!)

Edited August 17, 2010 by Alette

[rachaelski]

Thanks, this is all really helpful!

[rachaelski]

Last night I also started looking up people in my field--checking out their CVs. I was mostly looking at research conferences where they presented, to get a feel where people present, but it would make sense to see what journals they publish in as well.

[Riotbeard]

This is general advice. Take your time and don't try to get just anything published. With databases and all, it's a permanent record. Also try sending drafts to important profs in your subfield. I got really good feedback on my essay that I have been tweaking for two years now from a person I have never met.

[Eigen]

Definitely talk to your profs.

Also keep in mind that some of the different camps you may be hearing from are likely field and subfield dependent.

In the sciences, publications are much more expected and necessary than elsewhere. For example, in my research group we're required to have 5 first author pubs by the time we finish our PhD, but even other subfields in our department vary wildly, from some where 1 publication by graduation is excellent, and other where more than 10 is the norm.

[balderdash]

To succeed you really do need to publish. I am not sure if you need to publish while in grad school. I am just starting but from what I have heard there are competing camps on this issue. I have spent some time trying to publish an article, it is a lot harder than you would think... I would check out www.publishnotperish.org which has a really great set of articles on publishing in journals.

Thanks for the resource, I clicked through the entire thing last night and found it pretty enlightening.

[UnlikelyGrad]

This is general advice. Take your time and don't try to get just anything published. With databases and all, it's a permanent record.

This.

If you want to get tenure, they're not just going to look at # of publications, but also things like citation numbers. Publishing 10 papers that are total crap (and therefore are never cited) is not as useful as publishing 2 that many people reference.

My advisor is VERY particular about what she publishes. However, her papers get cited many times, not just immediately but also for years afterwards. I have read recent (2010) papers that cite her work as far back as 1996...when she publishes something, people take note.

[UnlikelyGrad]

Definitely talk to your profs.

Also keep in mind that some of the different camps you may be hearing from are likely field and subfield dependent.

In the sciences, publications are much more expected and necessary than elsewhere. For example, in my research group we're required to have 5 first author pubs by the time we finish our PhD, but even other subfields in our department vary wildly, from some where 1 publication by graduation is excellent, and other where more than 10 is the norm.

Yeah, I feel sorry for the organic synthesis people who are expect to publish 2x/year. In my field, where a lot is fieldwork dependent, it's hard to get out 1 paper/year. Thus, my department only requires 3 for graduation.

[Eigen]

Yeah, it's a range. And then there are the organic "total synth" groups that can expect, if anything, one paper from their PhD.... Often, however, it takes several PhD students for the PI to get one full paper.

[Strangefox]

Also keep in mind that the publication process can and does take a long, long time. It could easily be six months or more before you even hear back from the publisher. About two years is the average length of time between submission and publication.

I've heard about that and I have been wondering why it is so. Two years is a lot! Can somebody explain to me why it takes so long? And I assume it is field dependent?

[qbtacoma]

I've heard about that and I have been wondering why it is so. Two years is a lot! Can somebody explain to me why it takes so long? And I assume it is field dependent?

Generally, your work is first read by an/the editor of the journal, who has to sort through dozens of entries at any given time. The editor decides whether to outright reject a paper, to send it back with suggestions to resubmit, or to send it to outside experts in that subfield (anywhere between two to five outside readers). Those readers comment on the paper, which can take a while for them to do, and send it back to the editor, who will screen the comments (Female Science Professor talked a bit about how some readers make inappropriate comments - sexist things, etc.). Then you get to see the comments, revise and resubmit. The editor makes sure you do all the little things to conform with the journal's format and such.

Am I missing anything?

Oh, and everyone who does this - the editor, the reviewers, you - all do full-time work as professors too. Editing a journal is considered one of the service positions that tenured profs have to do along with sitting on committees and other things like that.

Edited July 23, 2011 by qbtacoma

[Strangefox]

Generally, your work is first read by an/the editor of the journal, who has to sort through dozens of entries at any given time. The editor decides whether to outright reject a paper, to send it back with suggestions to resubmit, or to send it to outside experts in that subfield (anywhere between two to five outside readers). Those readers comment on the paper, which can take a while for them to do, and send it back to the editor, who will screen the comments (Female Science Professor talked a bit about how some readers make inappropriate comments - sexist things, etc.). Then you get to see the comments, revise and resubmit. The editor makes sure you do all the little things to conform with the journal's format and such.

Am I missing anything?

Oh, and everyone who does this - the editor, the reviewers, you - all do full-time work as professors too. Editing a journal is considered one of the service positions that tenured profs have to do along with sitting on committees and other things like that.

Thank you very much for the reply!

[IRdreams]

It also takes a while on average because reject is a distinct if not the most likely outcome for your first submission. At least in my field, they get 1000s of submissions for about 35-50 spots in top journals in a year. Revise and resubmit is the lucky response. Often, you can only send it to one journal at a time and their process is very time intensive. This is why my adviser has advocated a pyramid strategy for publishing. He suggests trying in a top tier journal that is the best fit. If rejected, one then tries at a discipline level journal. Maybe apply to one more of these, but if rejected again, one tries at a topical journal which are generally the least prestigious in my field.

[eco_env]

Publishing isn't everything. I know someone who got a postdoc with one publication where he was a middle author, and got an assistant professor position at a liberal arts college with 3 more publications as a first author- he published his grad school work while doing his postdoc. Teaching experience was more important for this position.

[Eigen]

On the "time to publication" thing: Most of the higher tier (and more desirable) journals seem to have acceptance rates of 10-20% or so, depending on the field. Therefore, as mentioned, it's often necessary to write, submit... Then get a rejection, do more experimental work/re-write, resubmit... And repeat the process.

Additionally, it's often common for things in my field to remain as "accepted" articles for 5-6 mos, while the journal waits for the best time to get them out- they usually get published online earlier, but the journals try to group papers by theme, so they wait for the ideal time to publish the article.

[Strangefox]

One more question. When you guys say resubmit - you mean to a different journal, right? You never submit an atricle to the same journal, if rejected?

[rising_star]

You can get a R&R, which means "revise and resubmit". In that case, you would be resubmitting to the same journal.

[Eigen]

Or even sometimes without an official revise and resubmit.

Usually (in my field) a "revise and resubmit" implies that if you revise as has been suggested, it will be accepted.

But if the reviewers have consistent comments about some areas that need to be touched up, it's possible to revise according to the comments (or run a few more experiments) and resubmit to the same journal.

Or, you could go with what you have and submit to a lower tier journal.

At least that's how it's worked in my experience.

[runonsentence]

Publishing isn't everything. I know someone who got a postdoc with one publication where he was a middle author, and got an assistant professor position at a liberal arts college with 3 more publications as a first author- he published his grad school work while doing his postdoc. Teaching experience was more important for this position.

It would be foolhardy to avoid publishing altogether, but you're right in that different institutions will be looking for different levels of publishing activity.

Tenure requirements at R1s and other research-focused institutions are often looking for a book and several articles, from someone in my field. At a liberal-arts 4-year college like I attended as an undergrad, they'd look for fewer publications but more service and teaching at a tenure review.

[Eigen]

On the teaching requirement bit: Our program is lower ranked, at what would be considered a private SLAC, with high research aspirations- definitely not R1.

When I asked about recent faculty hires in our department, they said that they didn't even ask about teaching experience of the applicants, that it wasn't a deciding factor at all.

Just something to think about.

[IRdreams]

One other thing about R+R that my DGS said: apparently not all R+Rs are created equal. When you get your memo from the editor explaining the R+R, you should carefully read it for the tone. If it looks like they are strongly encouraging you to revise and resubmit (they may even use "We at the Journal of _________ strongly encourage you to resubmit..") than you like have something like a 75% chance of it being accepted if you make the necessary changes. If however, the memo merely mentions that resubmitting is a possibility I've been told that this more like a 25% chance acceptance if you make the changes.

Also, I've seen research though I don't feel like going citation hunting that notes that while top journals have an acceptance rate of 10-20% the actual rate for acceptance of scholars in different stages of their academic careers is obviously very different. One of the ones I read noted that in my field that Senior faculty were successful 75% in publishing an article, Juniors something around 50 and grad students were substantially lower (10-25%). This finding shouldn't be surprising as hopefully we learn something about playing the game as we move up the career ladder, but it is probably helpful to remember when you get your first reject. It's not you; it just that grad students get this result much more often as we're all learning. Sometimes I find reminding myself that rejection is the modal response useful. I also remember reading a great article on how to deal with rejection in PS which is a journal APSA puts out on giving advice to polisci peeps.

http://www.politicalscience.uncc.edu/gbweeks/Facing%20Failure.pdf