Publication - perils, pitfalls and pleasures

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Publishing is a tough challenge in any field, not least in a specialist area such as forensic psychology, and peers will describe it as a minefield to be negotiated with lashings of skill, a peppering of caution and a large helping of courage.

On the surface it can seem as if only certain types of paper are published. To a degree there is some truth in this; you are more likely to be published if you are aligned to a recognised organisation or institution, for example., or equally if the research on which the paper is based has been funded by a well-recognised and respected body. Publishers are very aware that what they publish needs to be read and respected by their readership if they are to retain both their finance and their reputation, so they will more readily gravitate towards papers produced with this type of backing. They are also very sensitive towards the current trends in terms of research and thinking around a field of expertise. For example, these days, a randomised control trial study is more likely to be accepted for publication than a naturalistic study for assessing effectiveness and efficacy in therapy.

Publication as an end result of a research project should form an essential part of the research planning and development process. Success in navigating the minefield that is publishing starts before the research. If it is left as an afterthought or as a consideration towards the end of the project, it is going to be much tougher to find a publisher willing to take on your paper. 

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When planning a project, it is well worth the effort to spend time considering which publishers may be interested in your work, why they might be interested and what it is about this research that is most likely to appeal to them. As a researcher, you may be passionate about a particular project, but you will need to prove to a publisher that there are compelling reasons to publish. Your paper will also have to show a degree of quality that enables the publisher to feel confident that their reputation in the field will be enhanced at best and maintained at the very least. Publishing an article is a risk not just financially for the publisher, but if the work is not of an appropriate standard or the research has any weaknesses, the publisher's reputation as well as your own will be adversely affected. Publication is a state of exposure for both the writer and the publisher. Having this worked out before you launch into the nuts and bolts of your research will help you to devise research that will feed a publishable paper.

For example, you might want to consider the following:

• Is your project essentially small and perhaps requires a follow up so that the results are more robust, strong enough to carry academic criticism which is what publication will raise from experts in your field?
• If you need the results to be robust and stand up to challenge, what type of data will you need?
• How will you analyse that data in order to come to definitive and clear conclusions?
• What research methods will you apply? Are these current and relevant?
• How will you account for bias?
• How will you be able to demonstrate that the study is valid and reliable?

A particularly important aspect to consider at this early planning stage is to identify which journals are most likely to publish your work. This form of research will mean a close study of the journals, analysing what they typically publish, which areas of research they seem to particularly focus on, and the style of writing they employ. For example, is the language particularly complex and academic or is the style more easily accessible and plain? You will also need to be aware of the style of referencing and of the abstract: getting this right at the submission stage will help make your paper that much more attractive for selection by the publisher. This close analysis will also help you to identify current research interests and gaps in the research that your study can look to address.

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There are, of course, thousands of journals, but what at first can seem a dizzyingly high cliff to climb can usually be whittled down by selecting only those journals which specialise in your particular area of research and which publish articles most relevant to your area of study. You can then work out from these, but only as far as you need to.

Once you have completed your research, painstakingly drafted your paper, checked it, revised it and prepared it, you gather up the courage and submit to your chosen publisher. There is no avoiding the wait that will then ensue as the publisher gets round to reading your submission and decides whether they will accept it and if so, when it is to be published. This process could take months, and when you do receive a response, it may be a rejection, whereupon you will need to seek an alternative publication to submit it to. Thorough research in the early stages will mean you have a list of publishers in the order in which you want to submit, so it may mean moving down that list several times over the course of many months.

Inevitably this process can be frustrating and it can be disheartening. The longer a period of time that ensues between drafting the paper and publication, the older and less relevant the results of your research becomes. Alternatively, you find that another article with similar theme is published instead - it is very difficult to come up with original research, as an earlier blog post points out.

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Feedback from the publisher can be harsh, or hard to take - after all, this paper is the results of months and months of planning, research, analysis, overcoming all sorts of challenges and the sheer graft of writing. However, it is important to look on the positive. If your paper is not quite to publishable standards, you have this opportunity to learn your shortcomings and improve. Sometimes it is a matter of presentation needing improvement and since this is different for each publisher, a rejection can teach you to ensure that you follow each publisher's guidelines closely. For example, a rejection could be triggered by not having enough theoretical basis in the literature review, leading to the results not being sufficiently guided by theory. This might result in a full re-write of the literature review, as well as alterations to the results section and discussion section of your paper as you endeavour to improve the theoretical basis for the results.

As with the research project itself, planning and preparation is essential to achieve success in publication of your paper. You can, of course, publish on-line either yourself or through various on-line publications. However, to achieve the recognition that your work deserves and your career requires, you need to achieve recognition by journals or magazines with the gravitas of publications such as the Oxford, Sage or Wiley journals. Publication in any of these journals is a gratifying reward for the effort of researching and writing a fitting paper. Practice makes perfect when learning how to submit for publication.

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