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"Writing & Publishing the Academic Article"

Wendy Belcher, UCLA (10/31/06). Workshop sponsored by the University of Virginia Teaching Resource Center

Note: These are my notes from the talk, which the presenter encouraged sharing; any errors are mine.

Please do not reproduce.

Introduction

(Workshop usually given as a 10-week course, at the end of which students send in their articles)

(Audience at this presentation: good spread, grad & faculty in biomedical engineering, anesthesia, philosophy, Spanish, environmental science, etc.)

Shocking fact: Only 25% US faculty members regularly writing & publishing (UCLA 2004 survey – same result found in 1999)

5 Keys to success

1. __A successful writer writes,__ makes it a habit (otherwise not-writing becomes a habit!), overcomes busyness (self-described busyness has been studied & doesn’t correlate w/productivity: it is just an excuse you develop).
2. __Make writing public & social:__ let go of romantic notion of the author in the garret. (The sciences have a headstart here.) Try writing group (maybe over a meal: send work out in advance). Consider coauthoring a piece. Agree to meet w/a friend to write (so you have to show up & get going) – can be online togetherness rather than physical if convenient. This especially helps develop a sense of the audience. Also, others can identify problems much more quickly than you can, which moves you forward faster. Finally, if you’re worried about bias & the quality of criticism you might get from your peers, this will also occur in the peer review process – need to learn how to deal with it! Sometimes people are uncomfortable w/sharing a work in process, and want to wait until the article is totally done -- but people will always have comments – so might as well get the feedback early, when it’s useful. Some people are concerned about having ideas stolen: but sharing actually helps prevent that – if many people have seen it & associated it w/you, more difficult to steal (contrast this with the situation where a professor knows only he/she has seen the graduate student’s work).
3. __Persist despite rejection.__ Can’t be avoided – a shared experience of great and terrible readers alike. One grad student study asked profs about negative experience w/peer review – got a 98% response rate, everyone said yes, including very famous Nobel-prize winners.
4. __Pursue your passions.__ This will keep you going.
5. __Make a plan for writing.__ Don’t wait for big blocks of time. This becomes a procrastination mill – waiting for weekend, break, summer, sabbatical, retirement, etc. Pulling an all-nighter is also not helpful to process or product. Try 15-minute test: commit to writing at least 15 min every day. Better if you can squeeze in more, but on days when you can’t, preserving at least the 15 min keeps the project on the front burner. (Actually doesn’t take too long to get in the groove if you’ve been working on it regularly.) Fine to use a 5 hr block, just don’t wait for them. In fact, even if you can always only do 15 min, you will eventually finish! Keeps your self-esteem going. Set realistic writing goals, and respect your rhythms to create a sustainable schedule. Try to anticipate obstacles in advance & find solutions (teaching: pay yourself first, write first during the day – b/c if you start w/teaching prep, you’ll never get to writing; can’t get started: do delayed gratification, hold off on something fun until after you write, or set a timer).

Myths about publishing

1. Only totally new, heavily theoretical work gets published. Actually, it’s only what you mostly read in classes. Most journal articles are actually fairly narrow.
2. Only articles w/lots of interesting ideas get published. Actually better to have a narrow focus: “being carefully organized around a single significant idea”.
3. Only entirely “original” ideas. Just needs to be new to the field. Also important that you “say something new about something old”: a single significant idea that is “demonstrably related to what has been written before.” Some possibilities: approach new data in an old way (providing a new expt to support work the advisor has set up) – be careful not to veer into a report (you only have the data, don’t link to ongoing concerns in field). Or, approach old evidence in a new way (secondary analysis): here, be careful to link to old – need data! – or becomes too abstract. (The first is a more typical grad student paper than the second.) Finally, pairing old evidence to old approach in a new combination (linking two fields in interdisciplinary research, etc.) (This is also a good grad student paper.)

10 Most Common Reasons for Rejection

(and how to avoid them)

1. __Focus:__ if article too narrow or too broad (language: “too esoteric”, “too technical”, etc.). To avoid:
1. Contextualize – make sure your introduction sets it up properly. (Indicate that your narrow issue is relevant to a wider audience – helpful to discuss with others to figure out how it's relevant!).
2. Aim at a broad audience (don’t write for someone who knows more than you do – write for someone who knows less! A very smart reader who hasn’t read lately on the topic.) Editors want something that someone outside your tiny specialty can read.
3. Give examples/evidence.
4. Check length – make sure it is the appropriate length for the journal.
5. Pick the appropriate journal!
2. __Off Topic:__ haven’t chosen journal carefully. Important b/c can send to only 1 journal at a time. But, consider sending email to editors asking if they’re interested (as journalists do: they don’t even write an article until they’ve established interest). Don’t send more than 1 paragraph, no attachments, etc. Usually, they’ll write back & say sounds fine, occasionally will be able to give heads-up to lack of interest (& save you time!).
3. __Not Scholarly enough.__ Good news is that editors see this as correctable. To avoid:
1. Meticulous documention – double-check bibliography. (They’ll check there as a convenient litmus test to see if you’re sloppy.)
2. Cite the relevant literature. (link new to old). This does not mean inserting multiple book reviews into your article: rather, group & summarize authors by ideas (frame as a debate).
3. Reference debates in the field. Also focuses how your article fits into /contributes to the field.
4. Use discipline-related expertise. Some writing styles, etc. are specific to the field. Need to read widely in your discipline & talk to people in your discipline. This is why it’s difficult to publish outside your discipline.
4. __Too Defensive.__ It reads like a classroom paper – a performance. To avoid:
1. Extensive quotations. If you’re doing an analysis of a primary text, can have a little bit of quotes, but the trend is to have fewer and fewer (more paraphrasing, short quotations embedded within a sentence, etc.)
2. Citing the famous just because they’re famous. A not very apt quote from Thoreau, etc. If you quote them, must either be very obscure or extremely apt. No name dropping!
3. Excessive documentation. Don’t want to cite everything you read. Keep bibliography tight.
4. Extensive discussion of past work. Need to communicate to broad audience, but briefly!
5. __Not Original.__ One of the most common reasons given (perhaps not the actual reason, but an easy one to give).
1. Read in your field. This way you’ll know what’s already been discussed, where the debate is.
2. Be sure to focus on the new. Should not let half the paper rehash others’ ideas (brief introduction).
3. Make sure to articulate what is original. Again, don’t assume a smarter reader – make it clear what the paper contributes. Don’t bury your thoughts in a broad discussion of general ideas. If your field doesn’t permit much use of the word “I”, use it here!
6. __Poor Structure.__ May say “poorly presented” or “poorly organized”. American journals now have a very narrow idea of what an article looks like – no room for digressions. Want lots of signposting (subheadings, transitions, etc.).
1. Announce your structure. Subheadings, summary paragraphs, etc.
2. Stick to your point. It has to stand alone & be organized around a single ideas.
3. Delete the redundant/irrelevant when revising draft. Very helpful to ask other people for this info.
4. Subordinate the concrete. Don’t let the data overtake the paper, keep organized by theory.
5. Relinquish your findings. Consider abandoning the mystery format. Keeps reader confused as you withhold information. “Your reader should be curious not about what the main point is, but rather how you got to that point” (respects the reader more, doesn’t keep them passively waiting, let them follow the evidence with you).
7. __Not Significant__ This is a little different from “not original”. May be phrased as “of little merit”, etc. So what? Need to make reader care about findings – articulate the significance. Helpful to discuss with others. Can often be done by…
1. Announcing a gap in the literature.
2. Connect to a major real-world problem. (May feel a little cynical to make the leap, but graduate students usually benefit from making more aggressive arguments than they’d tend to).
3. Cite a scientist who has called for the research.
8. __Theoretically or Methodologically Flawed.__ This is pretty much the end for your article. Editors do not see these problems are correctible – but, they may be wrong! (Famous faculty have had seminal work first rejected for theoretical reasons). Probably will need to move to another journal.May say “poor conceptual design”, “insufficient data”, etc.
1. Get peer reviews before submission.
2. If you have an alternative methodology, defend it! Take pre-emptive action if you know some people will have problems with it,
9. __Sloppy.__ Sloppily presented papers make editors suspicious. Copy-edit!
10. __No Argument.__ State your thesis clearly and early. This may not be mentioned as a reason, but is the solution to many of the problems listed above. This is difficult for most writers, and difficult to teach. “An argument is a discourse intended to persuade.” Can only “persuade someone by engaging their doubts, and providing evidence to overcome those doubts.” It is a conversation, a debate – need to focus on the audience & the discussion, for which evidence must be marshaled. Test for whether something is an argument: can someone who hears it coherently agree or disagree. It should be the single, significant idea that drives your paper.