Publications

[tspier2]

Any thoughts on publishing in working papers during the first year of a Ph.D. program?

[fuzzylogician]

Sure, as long as it doesn't prevent you from submitting a better worked out version of the same work to a peer-reviewed journal. Contributing to a working papers or proceedings can be a good way to motivate yourself to get something written, which is nice, and it's a good way to get your CV going. But working papers and proceedings are not considered too prestigious* so if you have something decent, the end goal should be the best peer-reviewed venue that would take it. 

 

* With caveats, some can be pretty good, but still a peer-reviewed venue is almost always better.

[tspier2]

Sure, as long as it doesn't prevent you from submitting a better worked out version of the same work to a peer-reviewed journal. Contributing to a working papers or proceedings can be a good way to motivate yourself to get something written, which is nice, and it's a good way to get your CV going. But working papers and proceedings are not considered too prestigious* so if you have something decent, the end goal should be the best peer-reviewed venue that would take it. 

 

* With caveats, some can be pretty good, but still a peer-reviewed venue is almost always better.

 

Sorry for such a late reply on this topic. Seeing as you're also in linguistics, how many publications -- in your experience -- are expected at different stages of the graduate-level education? I'm in my first year right now and worry about publications pretty regularly, viz. wondering if I'm dropping the ball. Nevertheless, I've been told that it's recommended that each individual have one peer-reviewed publication by the completion of the dissertation. Does this hold true for you?

[fuzzylogician]

I've heard this said too. I'm on the job market now so have never served on a hiring committee but judging based on who is getting on shortlists and getting jobs these days, that seems fairly accurate. I can't think of anyone who's gotten a job without at least one accepted (in press, if not published) publication. More often than not, people also have some postdoc/assistant prof experience, and the publishing record that goes with that. Beyond publications, it makes a huge difference when you apply before you have your dissertation. Things look much better once you actually have your degree in hand.

 

To get one publication out by the beginning of your fifth year (assuming a 5-year program, and going on the job market in your 5th year, with mostly October/November deadlines), you probably need to submit a first draft at least by the beginning of your fourth year. The reviewing process can be lengthy, but varies wildly between journals. This would be something to consult with your advisors about, so you choose a venue that is both appropriate and relatively fast. Assuming a 3-month wait for each round of reviews, and a quick 2-week turnover between revisions, and at least one round of revise and resubmit (which happens almost without exception these days), at the very minimum you are looking at ~7 months from submission to acceptance. If that happens, you are very lucky. Likelier you need to double that, so about a year, or a little over that, from submission to acceptance, assuming that all goes well. The first papers take the longest to write, so this would be a project that you will have been working on for a while, possibly one of your qualifying papers from 2nd or 3rd year, which you work into a journal submission. It's doable, but not every advisor is good about encouraging their students to do this, so it's good that you are aware of this. 

 

Rule of thumb for me (which took a while to arrive at): every half decent project I have should end up in a journal. Maybe not all of them at top journals, but don't leave proceedings papers hanging. It's not that much work to take those and turn them into a full-length submission.* 

 

Before getting to this stage, it helped me to present my work at large conferences. It's good for networking and for getting proceedings papers out. The nice thing about proceedings papers is that you can write whatever you want, and they can serve as a good basis to work off of. They also give you a timeline for completion and a nice frame. Some proceedings are quite prestigious, so it's not bad to have. At some point, though, you want to stop traveling and just submit to a journal.**

 

If you're a first year, I don't think you need to worry about conferences just yet. I know some people who start that early, but I think it's fine to start in your second year. My first batch of conferences happened in the spring of second year, so ones with submission deadlines around December-January, with projects from the summer after first year and the fall of second year. If you only start in the summer of second year or in your third year, that's fine too, in my opinion. You really want to be out there by your fourth year and beginning of fifth year, because that's when you go on the job market and need to be visible. 

 

... I got a little rambly. Does that help? Any other questions? 

 

 

* The first time one of my advisors told me this, I thought he was crazy ("well you're a genius but we can't all be like that!") but no.. now I think it makes a lot of sense.

** Same advisor, same reaction. It's so annoying how they are always right

[jslaw]

Many thanks! It definitely helped ME! I should pull this thread out every now and then to stay focused.