How to get published

3rd CSR Communication ConferencePhD Training

Wim J.L. Elving

Agenda

• How to get started with publishing• Focus• Writing tips• Selecting a journal• Other tips & tricks

Wim

• Editor in chief Corporate Communications, an International Journal (2006 – 2015)

• Editorial advisory board– Journal of brand management– International Journal of Management, Economics & Social Sciences – Interactive Communication Systems and Technologies – Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap (Dutch journal of

communications)

• about 35 peer reviewed articles, 4 books, 15 book chapters, 18 editorials

WHYPublishing

• Get your work out• Proof you fit within

Academia• Proof that your research

is contributing• Because your University

wants you to• Because you are brilliant!

HOWPublishing

• Do groundbreaking research

• Conduct the best research• Your ideas have not been

tested before– Well at least not on this

way, in this sample, on this scale, with this method, etcetera

BUTPublishing

Because you are a good researcher doesn’t

mean you are a good writer!

Publish or Perish

• Your position at the University forces you to join in to the rat race of getting publications out

• If you don’t have enough publications in the end, you will end up as lecturer or adjunct lecturer, but not as professor

How to get published

• Do descent research– Adopt the highest academic ethical standards

• Know what is happening in the field of study– Read all new articles, books, blogs, and other

information available in your expertise / research area

• Add to our knowledge!

Keep It SIMPLE!

• Terms in RQ need to be clarified• A confusing RQ will lead to a confusing article

(read low grades)• One key question with several subcomponents

can help you

Interesting

• Essential• Need for a real grounded interest in your

question• Academic and intellectual debate• It is your interest that will motivate you to

keep working and produce a good publications

SMART

‘Skinny’ Questions

• Skinny questions have simple answers• RQ’s starting with (in general)– When?– How many?– Who?– Where?

ARE NO GOOD RESEARCH QUESTIONS

‘Fat’ Questions

• Cannot be answered in one sentence• Make you think of other questions• Begin with:– Why– Which– How

ARE GOOD RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Skinny and FatChange

• WHEN• HOW MANY• WHO• WHERE In

• WHY• WHICH• HOW

AVOID

• Questions that can’t be answered– What is the best way to communicate

• Opinion questions– What does the general public feel about X

• Closed questions– A YES or NO as answer

Data Publication

• Once you have collected your materials start with a scheme for your article

• All (!) academic articles have– Title– Introduction– Theoretical background– Method– Results– Discussion– References

Title

• Often neglected• Often a long (boring?)

representation of the RQ• In CCIJ: the articles with relatively shorter

titles were seem as more attractive and received more downloads & more citations!

• Come up with a sexy title!

Abstract

• Abstracts are published separately from articles in on-line indices, SO MAKE IT CLEAR!– Accurate– Self contained– Concise and specific– 5% of article, or 500 words at most

• CCIJ (and all Emerald journals) use structured abstracts

Abstract

PROBLEM

OBJECTIVE

METHOD

RESULT

The must haves in every ABSTRACT

Introduction

• Context, what is the environment in which your publication is positioned

• (Research) Question• What is new?• Why is this relevant to know!• A outline of what the reader can

expect– Take the reader by the hand

Theoretical background

• What is known about what you are telling• Did you check all recent literature– Make sure that half of your references are from the last

10 year, because• If not, than you are not joining in the current scientific debates• If not, than we are apparently not that interested• (it is really hard as a starting researcher to create a new field of

study)

• Make a scheme, ending with propositions or hypothesis

There is nothing so practical as a good theory (Albert Einstein)

Method

• More important in surveys, experiments, content analysis than for qualitative work

• However, also for qualitative work it is necessary to give information about how you get the data, what you did ask in an interview and how you processed this data into the results

Exceptions

Conceptual paperCritical paper

BUTYou need to be a respected

senior author/researcher to be viewed as able to write conceptual

or critical papers!!

Method II

• Be clear about validity, reliability and relevance

• Scientific research = systematic approach– Raise the same questions at any respondent– Use same time frames

• Translation of Research Question into Research

• Information on how you conducted research

Method IIIQuantitative Qualitative

Procedure Procedure

Respondents Respondents

Questionnaire/survey/experiment questions• Use existing scales• Use existing methods• Etc.

Interview questions / other material• How these are used• What is used• Etc.

Give examples of questions Give examples

How you will analyze your data

How will you analyze your data

How you will present your results

How will you present your data

Method IV

• Standardize!– Reputation was measured with the Reputations

Institute (XXX, 200X). This scale consists of XX elements, that were all satisfactory reliable (Cronbach’s alpha > .XX). Respondents had to indicate to what extend they did agree on a 7-point Likert scale. An example of an item is: ‘…………………’. Scores will be presented on a XX scale where a low score represents a low reputation, and a high score a high reputation.

Results

• Systematic presentation of what your research results are

• No INTERPRETATION• Facts• Present only what is needed in your argument• Select!– Don’t present a correlation table of allvariables

Results II

• Do present logical statistics• Don’t overdo• Since we are in communication / business / or

other social science, limit (or preferably don’t) use of formula’s

• If your sample size is less than 100, do not use more than 2 decimals

• Follow your hypothesis / propositions.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted

Discussion

• What is your research contributing?• What are the conclusions• What consequences have your conclusions on– Practical issues– Theoretical issues

• Are your results undermining current theoretical insights?– Don’t state that theory is wrong, but rather, based on

these results the theory of XXX might be troublesome, because of these and that circumstances

Discussion II

• Add limitations – Sample– Theories used– Procedures– Scope – Etcetera– Don’t overdo limitations, but certainly add them

• Always: more research is needed!• And with a positive, conclusive remark

Discussion III

• Tip: start with a small summary– In this contribution we wanted to gain more

information on XXXX. Based upon theory X YYYY, but based on theory Z XXXX. We conducted a <kind of research>. Our main conclusions are that ……….

Publication process

• Check manuscript requirements of journal– If 8,000 words is word limit, don’t use more!

• Citations system (APA, Harvard) needs to be applied

• Way of presenting manuscript needs to be applied

• If not DESK REJECT

Example CCIJ

• During the time I was editor in chief I had four indicators for desk rejecting manuscripts

1. Length2. Scope of journal, if no reference was made to

CCIJ or other communication / corporate communications / PR / organizational journals

3. If references were old (for instance if only 3 out of 50 references were from last 10 years)

4. If reference system was not applied

Review path

TIME

Manuscript

Reviewers

Desk reject

About 2 months

• ACCEPT• MINOR REVISIONS• MAJOR REVISIONS• REJECT & RESUBMIT• REJECT

Editor in chief decision

Max 3 times

Article

Revise, resubmit, major & minor revisions

• Reviewers need to be critical, and ALWAYS will give suggestions what is not good and what should be improved

• That is the task of reviewers!• Carefully read those comments• Think about how you will start the revisions• Think about which revisions are needed and

which not

Add a document!

• Always add a document in which you step by step describe what you did with the suggestions and what you did not do

• Always be very polite!– (First we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers

for their suggestions and positive feedback we received on the previous version of our manuscript.)

• Sometimes the extra document might become longer than the original manuscript

Time

• Up to publication, this might take 2 years• Example– 2 months reviews; revise & resubmit– 2 months work; + adding another review (2 months)– Maybe a third (final round) adding another 4 months (2

months writing + 2 months review)– Extra time needed for editor– Accepted, but editors will have other manuscripts

accepted already, sometimes up to 3 or 4 issues– Print, takes time

Tips

• Use paper & pencil to draw up a scheme of your manuscript at the start

• Be consequent in terminology, use the same word for each time you mention it, and do not start the creativity process in using all kind of different words for the same phenomenon– organization, institution, company, etcetera

• Add yourself as a reviewer for journals, by being reviewer yourself you learn

Tips II

• Don’t overdo with sending emails to editors, like:– Dear sir, can you give me more information on the

status of my manuscript– I saw in manuscript central that there weren’t any

reviewers assigned. Can you please clarify?• Being editor is not a full time job (& sometimes

not a paid one). I can assure you that being editor costs a lot of time, and (s)he is doing its best to manage all manuscripts the best

Tips III

• Write attractive• Don’t make your paper or study active– This study examines In this study we examine– This paper reveals In this paper we reveal

• Be sure to have the goals, contribution and gap of your research explicit

• Do not talk about the superiority of your method• Do not take too much words on irrelevant parts

Tips IV

• If you are a non-native English speaker lets have your text checked with a language agency!

• It can be quite irritating to see the following comments at regular basis in your reviews– It is clear that the author is a non native English

speaker…• Make sure that no comments can be given on

your language, your references system, and other parts of the presentation of your paper

TIP V

• Do not send in your manuscript to different journals at the same time!

• If your manuscript is rejected by one journal, it is OK to send it to another journal; BUT be sure to check whether you have references to that journal, and your manuscript fits in that journal

Finally

Useful tools

• Check your paper quality – be your own editor http://www.hemingwayapp.com

• Grammar & writing: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar