How to write academic research papers: Select best journals

How to write academic research papers: Select best journals

In this series of courses, you will learn how to write a research paper in English in 5+1 steps which will be dealt with in three phases (i.e., the pre-drafting phase, the drafting phase, and the post-drafting phase).

In the 5+1 steps, which will be dealt with in separate courses, you will learn how to start by selecting your research topic, and you will be guided step-by-step from the journal selection (in this course) to the step of submitting your final draft to the target journal and getting it published.

The information provided in this course is not only useful while writing a research paper, but a large bulk of it will also be useful while writing book reviews, review papers, short reports, and so on.

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From now on, I will be discussing the second step of the 5+1 steps of writing research papers in English. In this step, I am going to teach you how to select appropriate journals as an outlet for publication of your paper.

But perhaps you ask yourself why now? You probably ask yourself why selecting journal before writing my paper? You might say that I have not done anything yet except for selecting the topic, not drafted my manuscript, and not even collected the data yet! So, how come that I should select the journal from now? Why is this step dedicated to selecting the target journals?

The answer is straightforward, but in order to elaborate on the reasons, I will use a real example (or better to say a metaphor) here.

Tailor vs. Author

Do you remember the time when you went to the tailor and asked her/him to sew a piece of clothing? Did s/he sew on her/his own choice or asked you about your need? Certainly, your answer is ‘s/he asked my need; s/he asked whether I need a coat, a shirt, pants, or something else, s/he asked whether I need formal or casual clothing, s/he asked whether I need blue, white, black or clothing of other colors.’

When you went to a tailor and asked him to sew a coat or a shirt, what did s/he do first? S/he sewed the clothing or measured you up? For sure, your answer is ‘s/he first measured me up and then sewed the intended piece of clothing based on my size.’

And now the second question:

Why do you think s/he asked your need? Actually, because s/he wanted to know what to measure up, what color and design s/he ought to choose, which material best suits the intended piece of clothing, which model s/he should use, whether to sew a formal dressing or a casual one, and many other things.

Do not forget that YOU ARE A TAILOR WHO SEWS PAPER(S). Therefore, you should know what you are going to write: Are you going to write a research paper, a review paper, a book review, or whatever else? You should know what the standards are: that is, its size, style of references, guidelines, and so on. You should know what raw material to use, that is, which sources to cite. You should know what the customers need, that is, who are the readers and what they need. And, you should know many other things because you are the tailor of the paper, and the journal is the first-hand customer of your product, or better to say, the journal is the wholesaler/distributor who buys from authors and distributes among readers.

It is crystal clear that after writing a paper, you should submit it to a journal. If you do not measure it up first, after submission of the paper you will notice that the paper you sewed does not fit the size of the target journal (i.e., you neglected the standards of the target journal). And, therefore, you will have to alter it; you will have to make it shorter or longer, you will have to make it looser or tighter, you will have to change the material (i.e., you will have to cite other sources, use a different method of data collection, etc.), and you will have to change the format: from a book review to a review paper, or research paper or something else. And after all, if you cannot convince the customer (i.e., if you cannot convince the journal), you will have to look for another customer (i.e., a less-quality journal), and most probably the second customer is not as good as the first one. This may happen again and again. Unfortunately, this alteration is not only time-consuming but it may also be tedious and boring. This is only one reason why you should first select your target journal(s), and then write your paper based on its standards. There are a large number of reasons, which will be dealt with one after another in the following sections. Remember that professional manufacturers always find the target market before producing goods.

Select the best journals both as a source of literature and as an outlet for publishing your papers

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What you will learn

• How to select the most appropriate journal to publish their papers
• How to select the most appropriate journal to read and cite its previously published papers
• The journal selection criteria affecting your work

Rating: 4

Level: All Levels

Duration: 2 hours

Instructor: Ahmad Sharifzadeh