How can I be heard? Tips to get your research published in academic journals

Postdoctoral fellow Maxi Miciak shares her tips to help you get your research published in academic journals.

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Postdoctoral fellow Maxi Miciak shares her tips to help you get your research published in academic journals.

Do you have any stories about navigating reviewers and editors for academic journals that you could share?

I have a story to share.

A high-ranking journal in my field was interested in publishing an article my co-authors and I had submitted. But, they asked me to add content that could significantly change the vision of the paper. I really wanted to publish in this journal because of its ranking in my field, so I tried to integrate the content they wanted. It wasn’t working, and I was getting very stressed out about it.

My supervisor, even though initially supportive of trying the revisions, saw that it wasn’t working and suggested we pull the paper and try another journal. He didn’t want me to have such a negative experience on my first submission, especially when there was good chance the journal wouldn’t end up accepting the manuscript. Ultimately, I couldn’t reconcile the journal’s requests with the intention of the paper, and I wasn’t willing to change direction for the journal. However, I am glad I didn’t brush off the journal’s suggestions, at least making an attempt to address their requests. It confirmed to me that I did have a strong vision and knew what I was talking about — and that their suggestions really were more about what they wanted to publish than what I wanted to publish. In the end, the manuscript was published in a journal that was a better fit.

Did you ever have a challenging situation with a review? What did you do about it?

Yes, just recently actually. Two of the three reviewers provided respectful and reasonable feedback, which my co-authors and I addressed to the satisfaction of both reviewers. The third reviewer was not so reasonable or respectful, repeating the same feedback and arguments in three different reviews, as well as making ad hominem comments about the knowledge of the research team.

During the review process, we believed we had been diligent and respectful with explaining our position on the points we felt we couldn’t change as well as willing to compromise on other feedback. However, over the course of the review process, it became obvious there was a significant divide between our perspectives on qualitative research. Finally, on the third resubmission we felt we had reached an impasse and communicated our concerns regarding the review process, the reviewer’s disrespectful approach, and the clear differences in methodological perspectives in a carefully crafted, although direct, letter to the editor. We told the editor we would not go through another round of reviews with this reviewer and requested the editor make the decision to accept or reject the manuscript. In the end, the editor made the decision to accept the manuscript.

Ultimately, there came a point where we had to set a boundary, not only with the reviewer, but also with the editor. As authors, we may not feel that we have agency to stand up for ourselves given the hypercompetitive publishing arena, but we do as long as we are willing to accept the response from the other side. We were prepared to walk away, even after 15 months of review. I am glad we didn’t have to.

Why is it important to get your research published?

There are different reasons for publishing, some of them obvious. First, as researchers, we should want to advance knowledge and disseminate that knowledge to people who need to know and apply it. Publishing is one way to do this.

Second, if you are hoping for a career in academia, publishing in peer-reviewed journals is one way we are evaluated by hiring or tenure committees, as well as by our peers. Besides the obvious reasons, there are other ‘softer’ reasons to publish.

Publishing is important because it means you are brave enough to put your ideas out to a larger audience, even though they may be critiqued harshly. Being critiqued is also another reason to publish. I try to maintain the attitude that no work is ever really complete, so when my work gets critiqued, it’s not a surprise. Writing helps refine your thinking, but publishing puts that extra pressure to critique your own ideas and thinking because you know reviewers will critique them.

Peer review can deepen your understanding of your own work because you are pushed to consider ideas you may not have wanted to consider, and then defend or revise the work accordingly.

What tips do you have for students, researchers, new faculty, etc. for getting their work published in academic journals?

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  1. Be open to publishing outside your discipline. First, it will increase the reach of your research. This is especially relevant given the drive to collaborate across disciplines to solve complex social problems. Second, sometimes other disciplines will be open to research and ideas that might be threatening in your own field.
  2. Contact the journal editor prior to going through a full submission. Send your abstract and ask if the manuscript would be of interest to the journal’s readership. I recently sent an abstract to an editor and received a reply stating that the journal would likely not be interested in publishing the manuscript because they had published on this topic in the past. This obviously saved me a lot of time and work, and gave me an indication of the overall scope and focus of the journal. In addition, contacting the editor helps to initiate a relationship, which can be helpful when communicating during a submission.
  3. Consider who needs to read your work versus always thinking of the most prestigious or highest impact journalswho needs to read your work versus always thinking of the most prestigious or highest impact journals. For example, you may know that clinicians are a target audience for your work, so publishing in an open access journal may be a better option even though it is not the highest ranking journal in your field.
  4. Consider the type of paper you are writing and what journals publish those types of papers. For example, if you are writing a theoretical paper, consider the types of journals that are more likely to publish that type of paper. This also goes for the topic you are writing about or the methodology you are using. For example, although most journals would now say they publish qualitative research, it is believed there is still a bias against qualitative research. There are some journals that seem more open to various types of methods and have word limits that are more qualitative-friendly.

Maxi Miciak — Postdoctoral Fellow, Alberta Innovates and Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine

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Maxi Miciak is a postdoctoral fellow at Alberta Innovates (Cy Frank Fellow in Impact Assessment) and the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Alberta. Much of her time is currently spent developing frameworks to evaluate research impact on informed decision making in health services and policy, as well as the scale and spread of research and innovation in the health system. Maxi’s research focuses on operationalizing patient-centered care by developing, implementing and evaluating care models that impact the patient-practitioner therapeutic relationship, including how health services and policies support this relationship. Her hidden talent is delivering a wicked rendition of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” at karaoke.

Originally published on October 4, 2017 by the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine on their LinkedIn page.Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine on their LinkedIn page.