Writing an academic paper for publication

Some people write the paper first and then look for a 'home' for it, but since everything in your article – content, focus, structure, style – will be shaped for a specific journal, save yourself time by deciding on your target journal and work out how to write in a way that suits that a writing strategy means making sure you have both external drivers – such as scoring points in research assessment or climbing the promotion ladder – and internal drivers – which means working out why writing for academic journals matters to you. Since the time between submission and publication can be up to two years (though in some fields it's much less) you need to be clear about your motivation. Analyse writing in journals in your a couple of journals in your field that you will target now or soon. Can you define the different types of paper, different structures and decide which one will work best in your paper? Select two types of paper: one that's the type of paper you can use as a model for yours, and one that you can cite in your paper, thereby joining the research conversation that is ongoing in that journal. Do an outline and just type of writer are you: do you always do an outline before you write, or do you just dive in and start writing? Both outlining and just writing are useful, and it is therefore a good idea to use both.

Writing a paper for publication

This involves deciding about content that you want to include, so it may take time, and feedback would help at this you sit down to write, what exactly are you doing:using writing to develop your ideas or writing to document your work? Define your writing task by thinking about verbs – they define purpose: to summarise, overview, critique, define, introduce, conclude etc. Get feedback from start to at the earliest stages, discuss your idea for a paper with four or five people, get feedback on your draft abstract. Set specific writing goals and your writing goals specific means defining the content, verb and word length for the section. This means not having a writing goal like, 'i plan to have this article written by the end of the year' but 'my next writing goal is to summarise and critique twelve articles for the literature review section in 800 words on tuesday between 9am and 10. Some people see this as too mechanical for academic writing, but it is a way of forcing yourself to make decisions about content, sequence and proportion for your most people see writing as a solitary activity, communal writing – writing with others who are writing – can help to develop confidence, fluency and focus. Doing your academic writing in groups or at writing retreats are ways of working on your own writing, but – if you unplug from email, internet and all other devices – also developing the concentration needed for regular, high-level academic some point – ideally at regular intervals – you can get a lot more done if you just focus on writing.

Most people do several things at once, but this won't always work for regular journal article writing. At some point, it pays to privilege writing over all other tasks, for a defined period, such as 90 minutes, which is long enough to get something done on your paper, but not so long that it's impossible to find the time. Do a warm up before you you are deciding what you want to write about, an initial warm up that works is to write for five minutes, in sentences, in answer to the question: 'what writing for publication have you done [or the closest thing to it], and what do you want to do in the long, medium and short term? You have started writing your article, use a variation on this question as a warm up – what writing for this project have you done, and what do you want to do in the long, medium and short term? Top tip: end each session of writing with a 'writing instruction' for yourself to use in your next session, for example, 'on monday from 9 to 10am, i will draft the conclusion section in 500 words'. If your article was rejected, it is still useful to analyse feedback, work out why and revise it for somewhere feedback will help you improve your paper and, perhaps, your journal article writing, but sometimes it may seem overheated, personalised or even vindictive. It may be easier to develop them in discussion with others who are writing for journals.

And there are health risks in sitting for long periods, so try not to sit writing for more than an hour at a time. Remind yourself that writing for academic journals is what you want to do – that your writing will make a difference in some points are taken from the 3rd edition of writing for academic murray is professor in education and director of research at the university of the west of scotland – follow it on twitter @ content is brought to you by guardian professional. Browse guardian jobs for thousands of the latest academic, administrative and research education sional development. To negotiate the many hurdles that stand between a draft paper and raph: clint hughes/ more sharing education ay 3 january 2015 02. But there are some challenges that will confront all academic writers regardless of their discipline. Focus on a story that progresses logically, rather than some time before even writing your paper to think about the logic of the presentation. When writing, focus on a story that progresses logically, rather than the chronological order of the experiments that you did.

If you reach your daily target (mine is 500 words) put any other ideas down as bullet points and stop writing; then use those bullet points to make a start the next you are writing and can’t think of the right word (eg for elephant) don’t worry - write (big animal long nose) and move on - come back later and get the correct term. Don’t bury your argument like a needle in a someone asked you on the bus to quickly explain your paper, could you do so in clear, everyday language? This clear argument should appear in your abstract and in the very first paragraph (even the first line) of your paper. Oh, and make sure your argument runs all the way through the different sections of the paper and ties together the theory and empirical macaulay, editorial board, journal of latin american studies. Ask a colleague to check your of the problems that journal editors face is badly written papers. Get published by writing a review or a g reviews is a good way to get published - especially for people who are in the early stages of their career. It’s a chance to practice at writing a piece for publication, and get a free copy of a book that you want.

We publish more reviews than papers so we’re constantly looking for journals, including ours, publish replies to papers that have been published in the same journal. Editors quite like to publish replies to previous papers because it stimulates nagasawa, co-editor and review editor of the european journal for philosophy of religion, philosophy of religion editor of philosophy compass. More experienced writers will write two or three papers from one project, using a specific aspect of their research as a mclaughlin, editor in chief, social work education - the international journal. Don’t repeat your abstract in the cover letterwe look to the cover letter for an indication from you about what you think is most interesting and significant about the paper, and why you think it is a good fit for the journal. There is no need to repeat the abstract or go through the content of the paper in detail – we will read the paper itself to find out what it says. Respond directly (and calmly) to reviewer resubmitting a paper following revisions, include a detailed document summarising all the changes suggested by the reviewers, and how you have changed your manuscript in light of them. It seems silly to get through the major hurdles of writing the article, getting it past the editors and back from peer review only to then give macaulay, editorial board, journal of latin american studies.

Think about how quickly you want to see your paper journals rank more highly than others and so your risk of rejection is going to be greater. Remember: when you read published papers you only see the finished hing in top journals is a challenge for everyone, but it may seem easier for other people. When you read published papers you see the finished article, not the first draft, nor the first revise and resubmit, nor any of the intermediate versions – and you never see the powell, managing editor of the information systems the guardian university awards 2015 and join the higher education network for more comment, analysis and job opportunities, direct to your inbox. Tips for publishing your first academic hing an article in an academic journal can be a frustrating process that demands a substantial commitment of time and hard work. Nevertheless, establishing a record of publication is essential if you intend to pursue a career as an academic or scientific five suggestions will help you turn the odds in your favor and make the publishing process less an appropriate may be tempting to submit your article to one of the top journals in your field: after all, these are the journals that you and your peers are most familiar with and the ones that you will see referenced over-and-over again in the literature you remember, the top professional journals are exceedingly competitive. The types of academic projects that get published in such journals are generally groundbreaking studies of great significance, many of which rely on the scholarship of multiple authors. Not to mention the decades of experience and the publication records of the you’re strategic in selecting a journal to target, you will greatly increase the odds of publishing your first who are still completing degrees should consider submitting an article to a student oriented journal such as student pulse (the council on undergraduate research also publishes a good list of student oriented publications).

Student journals are a good place to begin your publication record while at the same time improving your understanding of the publication process and receiving feedback on your choosing a journal, you want to keep in mind two factors: review times and policies on multiple submissions. Meanwhile, most journals do not accept an article for review that is simultaneously being reviewed by another a result, the journal you target is particularly important because it’s not practical to submit your work to many publications. If you aren’t interested in waiting 6-months or longer to hear back from several journals (one after the other), start out by targeting a publication that’s more likely to give your article the green light. To get your work published, you need to say something new without saying something that calls your credibility into sful academic articles do two things: they position themselves within existing scholarship (often in a ‘literature review’ section, although strategic authors don’t always label it as such) and they subsequently build on existing knowledge. To be attractive to an academic publisher, your work needs to strike a balance between saying something new and at the same time remaining grounded in the existing pool of knowledge. Remember, your argument doesn’t have to be revolutionary to be new or interesting, it just needs to be original enough to make a contribution to what’s already out your work need to have a serious editing and revision process if you intend to publish your work, one that goes beyond the quick skim you might give a paper before passing it in for a class. Start by doing something very old fashioned: fire up the printer and grab a you edit your own work, you need to give yourself plenty of time between when you actually do your writing and when you do your editing.

When we’re writing, we have a lot of ideas swirling around in our heads; all these ideas allow us to make logical jumps in our writing that, while they might make sense to us at the time, end up confusing others (or perhaps, even ourselves when we’re not in the same head space). Are a two things you can look for in your editing process that, when addressed, will markedly improve the quality of your paper:Fix confusing passages: when it comes to your writing style, simpler is better. This point should be emphasized:“brilliant writing is simple writing, a relevant idea delivered clearly and directly. As you edit your paper, be your own worst nightmare: read critically and ask yourself, “does this make sense? Particularly in non-scientific writing, overuse of the passive voice can lead to writing that is unnecessarily verbose, indirect, and lacking in specificity. If you address your use of the passive voice, you are likely to improve your writing in two ways: first, eliminating the passive voice will simplify your writing (see above); and second, changing passive constructions to active constructions may force you to be more specific or to add additional example, consider this simple passive sentence: “the bill was signed into law. There are some situations where use of the passive voice is ok, in the vast majority of cases you will improve the clarity of your writing by using the active l, your editing process should make up a significant portion of the work you do until you reach a final version of your paper.

The result will be a much stronger nce nces are your source of credibility in an academic paper. It goes without saying that if you want your work to be seriously considered by any publisher, you need to rely almost exclusively on academic references (forget wikipedia and other stand-alone websites). This is a quick way to discover the most important articles (according to the academic community) on a particular topic. Referencing these articles within your own work will show reviewers that you have a good understanding of the articles from the journal to which you are submitting : the reviewers who consider your work are likely regular readers of the journal they’re reviewing for (and that you’re targeting for publication). With so many submissions, reviewers are always looking for ‘easy outs,’ or straightforward criteria for turning down a paper before they even start reading it. If you focus on a balanced approach throughout your paper, it will be more difficult for a reviewer to brush your work off from the the end, your success will be determined by how hard you’re willing to work and by how compelling your argument g published is not the result of genius: it’s the result of a strategic and proactive publication strategy coupled with a willingness to revise and revise : academia tips, academic careers, academic publishing, getting entry was wednesday, september 10th, 2014 at 7:37 pm and is filed under mastering academia, surviving grad can follow any responses to this entry through the rss 2. Out my other ay, may 22, to publish an article in an academic journal: avoid rookie you are reading this, i likely don’t need to tell you about the importance of publishing scholarly articles to get an academic position or, if you have one, to secure tenure or promotion.

Am writing this post because i have reviewed an insane amount of articles over the past few months, and have noticed that many of these articles should never have been sent out for review, because they were missing key authors of these articles thus waited three months for someone to tell them that they do not have a clear argument, that there is no literature review, or that they need to describe their ethnographic methods. I am thus writing this post both to make sure that i practice what i preach, and to offer some examples from my own writing that might be useful as you prepare your own questions to ask of all, before you send an empirical social science article out for review, ask yourself these questions:What is your research question? You send a piece off, make sure that a) you can answer these questions; and b) that anyone that reads your paper also can answer these questions. Introduction should contain a brief summary of the literature with which you will engage, a research question that derives from that literature, and a brief explanation of how you will answer that example, i am writing an article that engages with two distinct bodies of literature: scholarship on race and incarceration and scholarship on immigrant incorporation. This paper brings the literature on immigrant incorporation into conversation with the literature on mass incarceration through a consideration of these two research questions:How has mass deportation affected the incorporation trajectories of black male immigrants? I discuss how long the ethnographic research lasted (9 months); how many interviews (83); and the case selection – why i interviewed deportees in jamaica and the dominican republic, and why most of my interviewees are is the meat of your paper – where your original contribution lies. The main trick here is to make sure that you deploy your data to answer your research my paper, i am trying to show that black male immigrants who were on a path to mainstream assimilation, who engaged in selective acculturation, and who experienced downward assimilation all met a similar fate – they ended up arrested, incarcerated, and deported.

Thus, i divide my discussion of data and methods into those three qualitative papers fail to analyze their data. To twittershare to facebookshare to ptember 30, 2016 at 1:10 amthanksreplydeleteunknownoctober 7, 2016 at 11:50 ammy reserach is about the black characters in faulkner's novels absalom absalom and the sound and the eletejohn markoctober 19, 2016 at 4:40 amthe publishing of articles in academic journal is not as easy as abc.