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All About Journals (Part 2 of 2)


 

Today, I’m continuing on the topic of journals and publishing your work in Part 2 of this blog. Part 1 was posted a couple of weeks ago and included a description of various types of publications, types of article reviews, and a brief overview of the publication process. This time, I will focus on responding to reviewers and editors and I will also give you some tips to help you along the publication process.

Reviewing and responding
         Last time, I briefly discussed the publication process. Essentially, you will receive some feedback from the editor or a some reviewers and you will have to decide whether you address their concerns and make the suggested changes or whether you wish to send your article for consideration to another journal. Assuming you wish to pursue publication in the same journal who sent you the review, you’ll need to edit your submission.
         You’ll want to make a list of all of the reviewers’ suggestions and make sure to address most/all of them. You will explain to the reviewers (and the editor) the changes you have made to address each of their recommendations in a letter that will accompany your re-submission. In this letter, a common format is to include the reviewer’s feedback (“Table 1 should be deleted as it adds nothing to the text”) followed by your response (“I have removed Table 1”). You will have to do this for every piece of feedback you received. Where appropriate, you should also include the page number where the change occurred, especially if a reviewer has asked you to clarify a statement or discuss a particular research article. When you get to this stage, I am happy to help you through it :)
         Also, know that you don’t necessarily have to make all of the changes the reviewers requested. If you have a good reason for ignoring a change (or if the reviewer doesn’t have a good reason for requesting a change) then you can dismiss the request. HOWEVER, it’s important that you know that it will likely be the same reviewers to re-review your article and they may not appreciate it if you ignore too many of their suggestions. After all, they have made the suggestions in an attempt to improve your article. It is sometimes the case that the two (or more) reviewers disagree about something (e.g., Table 1 is amazing vs. Table 1 should be deleted as it adds nothing to the text). In this case, you can decide which request to follow.
         Once you have completed your review, re-submit it to the journal in the manner requested (likely the same way you submitted the original- either by email or through the publication portal/website). And then, you wait. The reviewers will re-review your piece and make another recommendation. The recommendation options from the reviewers will be the same as in the first round- revise and resubmit for review after minor revisions; revise and resubmit for review after major revisions; or reject- and will take another several weeks/months to complete. Although these are typically a little faster than the first round, there can be additional delays due to the unavailability of one or both of the original reviewers for a number of reasons: retirement, sabbatical/leave, stopped reviewing, didn’t respond to the request to re-review within a certain amount of time, etc. In this case, you may be assigned a new reviewer or the editor may decide to proceed with the remaining reviewer. It is not very typical for the article to require several rounds of review (and re-review), but it can happen. If it does, don’t get discouraged. Similarly, if your article ultimately gets rejected, think positively. After all, you have had professional academics help you improve your article so it should be much better when you send it to the next journal :)

A few tips
·      When writing your article, be sure to frame your research question within the literature- what do we know, what is the gap/what are you adding to our knowledge? And try to tell a logical story beginning with what we know in the literature, how you will set up your experiment (or reflection, or whatever you are writing about), and how it will help us understand or improve something at the end.
·      Make sure you follow the formatting requirements of the journal (including the recommended length for the article). And also make sure to anonymize your document. This includes removing your name, the name of the college, and even mentions of the town or province. And don’t forget to remove your information in the file properties (in MS Word: File – Check for Issue – Inspect Document – Remove All).
·      Always have a “plan b” and “plan c” etc. Of course, you will send your article to a journal that you think will be most receptive to your piece, but in case the review doesn’t go as you had hoped (eventual acceptance), you should be prepared with next steps. Making a list of your top 3 choices is a good idea.
·      Keep yourself (and your publications) organized. Keep track of the status of your various research projects and publications is important (see my previous piece on this topic), as well as knowing which journal(s) you have already submitted your article to (i.e., from where it has already been rejected).

I hope you found this information useful to you in some way. As always, if you have any suggestions for things you’d like to see from me, please reach out to me via email (lynne.kennette(at)durhamcollege.ca) or on MS Teams, or pop in during my weekly “office hours” on whereby(dot)com(slash)drlynne (every Friday from 12:30-1:30). 

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