Showing posts with label
Higher Education Teaching and Learning group.
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Showing posts with label
Higher Education Teaching and Learning group.
Show all posts
2ND BLOG FROM TAIWAN:The final blog in this series on journal publishing comes to you from Taichung, Taiwan, home of Chung Shan Medical University. Traveling outside of the U.S. to another country and culture always puts my life into perspective. This trip has been no different than my previous trips. This experience has been incredible and the people I have met on this journey have been so gracious. It is with the deepest humility as a professional, that I present this blog.
TOP 3 TIPS
This blog series and the comments in the discussions on the LinkedIn Higher Education Teaching & Learning group have been larded with advice, tips, and insights. I wish I had known all of this when I started publishing.
To end this series, I thought I’d list the 3 most valuable tips I could offer to improve your success in journal publishing:
1. DO YOUR JOURNAL HOMEWORK: Study the journals thoroughly for what they publish, writing style, readership, theory or practice, and special issues past and future to which you might contribute. Write your article for a specific journal in the pub style they require. Don’t shotgun your article to any random journal in hopes that it will hit the target.
2. REQUEST COLLEAGUES FOR PRE-SUBMISSION REVIEWS: Send your manuscript to trusted experts on your topic who can provide input on everything about your manuscript before submitting to a journal. They can greatly improve the accuracy of the content, style of writing, and quality of writing that can markedly improve your chances of success, plus suggest appropriate journals.
3. PERSEVERE: Never give up no matter how stinging the editor’s or reviewers’ comments may be. After you get off your knees, bounce right back and hit every criticism in your revision or cover letter. KEEP MOVING FORWARD and have several manuscripts in review and in progress at all times.
POSTMORTUM
I’ve learned sooo much from reviewers’ comments over my 35 years of writing articles for journals. I can’t do it alone. Further, a regular diet of editors’ and reviewers’ comments can sustain a spirit of humility throughout your writing career, plus it may even result in a few worthwhile contributions to the published literature.
BEST WISHES IN ALL OF YOUR PUBLISHING EFFORTS!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
ADDENDUM TO PRE-SUBMISSION BLOG:
In my zeal to focus on colleagues to review a manuscript, I forgot to mention a traditional strategy most of us used throughout our pub career, probably beginning in grad school: PLAGIARISM! Oops! Wrong strategy. I meant: PRESENT THE PAPER AT A CONFERENCE. Linda McPhee mentioned this in one of her blog comments yesterday.
A conference presentation can furnish 2 sets of reviews:
1. When you submit a proposal to your conference committee, you can obtain reviews from 3 anonymous reviewers in a blind-review process, and
2. If it is accepted and presented, at the conclusion of your presentation session in a paper or symposium format, 1 or 2 discussants will critique all of the papers. Although this critique is not as detailed as a written review, it will usually hit the main points, both positive and negative. Sometimes, the discussant will give you a copy of his or her comments; if not, request them.
What valuable feedback this step provides before you submit to your fave journal. Thank you, Linda. (NOTE: Please continue to read the comments on the Higher Education Teaching and Learning group of LinkedIn. They’re too numerous to repeat here.)
QUESTION: Should you make the minor or major revisions?
ANSWER: Yup. Take Nike’s advice: “Just Do It!” Despite the bruised ego, it is worth the effort to revise. You can whip out the “minor revisions” lickety split. You already have conditional acceptance.
However, many professors do not make the “major revisions” because they become very discouraged. Fight that urge to give up if the editor gives you the opportunity to revise and resubmit. Your career in academia could hang in the balance. No pressure to revise, huh?
WHAT’S YOUR QUITING QUOTIENT?
What’s your “Quiting Quotient” or QQ? What does it take in the form of reviewers’ comments to bring you to your knees? Certainly, after pouring your mind, heart, and soul into a major work, whether it’s a research article, review, essay, or another work of significance to you, the comments you receive can be painful. However, you need to raise your QQ, get up from your knees, and KEEP MOVING FORWARD. We’ve all been there and we’re still writing, submitting, getting rejected, revising, resubmitting, and revising; along that path we’re receiving acceptance e-mails for our contributions.
Does revision improve your chances of publication? What do you do if the editor asks for more changes and another revision? Those issues will be addressed in my next blog.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
UP CLOSE & PERSONAL: Here’s some intel on my perspective for writing these blogs. I’ve published nearly 150 articles in 80 different journals in education, psychology, medicine, nursing, and public health with probably 95% of the decisions requiring some type of revision. The number of rejections per submission usually far exceeds my expectations. I’ve been rejected by the best. On the other side of the editorial process, I have served on several editorial boards of psychometric and medical journals and as a reviewer for 16 other journals. In the academic arena, rejection becomes a natural part of the job. Promotion at research universities, in particular, hinges, in part, on your publication productivity.
COMMENTS YOU SHOULD READ: If you are on LinkedIn professional network, you should join the Higher Education Teaching and Learning Group. It’s the largest group of its kind, plus you can contribute to discussions and learn from them. Why mention that here? I needed filler. Kidding.
Recently I listed a previous blog title on that group discussion and received some excellent, very thoughtful and insightful comments from experienced writers and editors, including Deborah Lafky, Linda McPhee, Michael Coolsen, Tamar Almor, Rob Kleine, and David Brock. Please read those instructive comments if you write for journals. BTW Also, join LinkedIn if you haven’t. It’s for professional networking, not social communication.
CAN PRE-SUBMISSION FEEDBACK IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF JOURNAL ACCEPTANCE?
MAYBE! So why do it? Read on.
Suppose instead of submitting your “final” manuscript to a journal, you send it to a few content-appropriate colleagues for their reaction first. Always put a deadline for their reviews. By colleagues here, I mean anyone in the world you know who can provide meaningful input.
Can that step improve the manuscript and its chances of acceptance later or just alienate your colleagues?
What happens? There are 2 results:
(1) rarely will I receive feedback from all of my colleagues because they’re so busy, and
(2) the feedback I do receive is often invaluable.
Usually, your colleagues will tell if they can review it in your timeframe. Although their reviews are not anonymous as in the journal blind-review process, they will be very honest and supportive. They catch editorial errors as well as suggest substantive changes, plus they can suggest appropriate journals so you don’t get whacked immediately by a journal editor.
I always make the changes and ask their permission to acknowledge their contribution to the manuscript with a credit line. My manuscript is always improved, but this step never guarantees it will be accepted by a journal. I’m still on my own and left to hang out and dry in the editorial review process. However, at least, I’m submitting a better quality manuscript. I also return the favor and review colleagues’ papers when requested. I highly recommend this step before journal submission.
Have any of you engaged in the process I described above? Let me know your thoughts and recommendations.
How do you revise your manuscript after receiving several single-spaced pages of comments? This can often be a painful task. My next blog will address this pain.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
