Publishing a Paper: Tips & Advice for Scientists

[sakurako_rus]

Hi everybody!
I`m Russian scientist and work in area of biochemistry. The main tack of mine now is publishing a paper in a journal, it is desirable, with Impact factor. May be, you know some journals, non very captious, with friendly reviewers, where this is not so difficult to publish? Please, help me!

 

[Simon Bridge]

Добро пожаловать на форум
(Welcome to PF)

If I understand you correctly, you want to find a peer-reviewed biochemistry journal with sufficiently low standards that your paper will be accepted but of a high enough standard that you can show it to real scientists without getting laughed at. Is that correct?

Surely you would prefer to publish in the toughest journal in the applicable field - adjusting your paper to suit the kind of peer review they do? In this case, you have to read the journal and see what kinds of papers they publish - comparing with the paper you want to publish.

Without knowing the paper you want to publish it is impossible to otherwise advise you.

It seems odd that you have been working in the field and are unfamiliar with the literature to this extent.
Also, I don't understand why you haven't taken the advise in other forums: eg. Chemical Forums. Why would you expect different advise here?

 

[Evo]

Nice job Simon.

 

[ThinkToday]

Добро пожаловать на форум
(Welcome to PF)

If I understand you correctly, you want to find a peer-reviewed biochemistry journal with sufficiently low standards that your paper will be accepted but of a high enough standard that you can show it to real scientists without getting laughed at. Is that correct?

Surely you would prefer to publish in the toughest journal in the applicable field - adjusting your paper to suit the kind of peer review they do? In this case, you have to read the journal and see what kinds of papers they publish - comparing with the paper you want to publish.

Without knowing the paper you want to publish it is impossible to otherwise advise you.

It seems odd that you have been working in the field and are unfamiliar with the literature to this extent.
Also, I don't understand why you haven't taken the advise in other forums: eg. Chemical Forums. Why would you expect different advise here?

You may be reading too much into the post. By definition captious="tending to find fault and make trivial and excessive criticisms." And by "where this is not so difficult to publish" could simply mean, where they waiting list for manuscript review and time-to-publish isn't as long and where you can publish if you aren’t a big name, famous university, etc. IMO, your post is a bit harsh. It certainly implies the OP is looking for a place to publish inferior work.

To the OP, your post is too thin to be evaluated properly. As was noted, if you want to find out about peer review biochem journals that may be more receptive to publishing the works of the non-famous persons or institutions, or just more quickly published, etc., it would be best to post in a subject related forum. Additionally, many papers go unpublished, as far as journals are concerned, but you can also look into publishing online. I have found useful papers that were only online. Perhaps you may also consider looking into the do’s and don’ts about preparing a paper for review to minimize the risk of rejection.

edit: I checked out the link to the other forum and see where you are coming from. Same thin question with too little detail. IMO, I'd hate to think we're loosing what could be a decent paper because the individual isn't making his/her point well.

To OP: Have a respected peer take a look at your work before you submit it. It may help to get an informed opinion.

 

[D H]

You may be reading too much into the post. By definition captious="tending to find fault and make trivial and excessive criticisms." And by "where this is not so difficult to publish" could simply mean, where they waiting list for manuscript review and time-to-publish isn't as long and where you can publish if you aren’t a big name, famous university, etc. IMO, your post is a bit harsh. It certainly implies the OP is looking for a place to publish inferior work.

Did you see the link to Chemical Forums, where the same person asked the exact same question? The OP has apparently submitted his paper to multiple journals and received rejections from each. If anything, Simon was being nice.

The OP has now moved on to yet another other forum with the exact same request. Physics Forums, like Chemistry Forums, is apparently too captious for his tastes.

 

[ThinkToday]

Did you see the link to Chemical Forums, where the same person asked the exact same question? The OP has apparently submitted his paper to multiple journals and received rejections from each. If anything, Simon was being nice.

The OP has now moved on to yet another other forum with the exact same request. Physics Forums, like Chemistry Forums, is apparently too captious for his tastes.

Maybe I'm just missing it, but I clicked the link in the Chem forum and the link for his question, but even there, the responses didn't seem particularly useful. Again, his question is too thin for much of an answer, but IMO, just telling him to try again or make it "better" isn't much advice.

To the OP: Here's my advice. DON'T keep submitting it until you get a peer review from an independent expert, perhaps a university professor. For us or anyone to give advice, we need to know if you have peers that think the paper is well done, of value, and in a condition to be publish worthy. You may have a well written work that isn't unique enough (different from stuff they've already published) or of sufficient interest to warrent the space it would use. And, if you get a rejection, tell us what they told you the reason to be. Again, not all good papers get published in the main journals.

Perhaps linking the paper in a post to the correct forum you'd get the feedback you need. Some of it may be captious

 

[Evo]

Perhaps linking the paper in a post to the correct forum you'd get the feedback you need.

We no longer allow independent research to be posted/discussed.

 

[ThinkToday]

We no longer allow independent research to be posted/discussed.

"Physics Forums is not intended as an alternative to the usual professional venues for discussion and review of new ideas, e.g. personal contacts, conferences, and peer review before publication. If you have a new theory or idea, this is not the place to look for feedback on it or help in developing it."

I stand corrected. My mistake.

 

[atyy]

And by "where this is not so difficult to publish" could simply mean, where they waiting list for manuscript review and time-to-publish isn't as long and where you can publish if you aren’t a big name, famous university, etc. IMO, your post is a bit harsh. It certainly implies the OP is looking for a place to publish inferior work.

Again, not all good papers get published in the main journals.

Indeed. Here's a famous paper that was not refereed: http://arxiv.org/abs/math.DG/0211159 .

 

[Borek]

I am not going to quote what this guy, Borek, wrote at CF, but I agree with his post. 4:1 with Czechs was the highest score so far.

 

[Simon Bridge]

Yeah that borek post was the most incisive ... what decided the tone for me was when OP said he wanted journal that would "definitely" accept the paper.

I did actually spend a bit of time considering my response so the criticism, and support, above was, in fact welcome. Many of the concerns raised did occur to me, however - it looked too much like the kinds of things I've seen from the pseudoscience end of the researcher spectrum.

Hardy conclusive, which is why I tried to research the poster... gather more info.
I also read a bunch of threads on PF where a similar question has been raised.

Considering the red-flags, and that I invited him to tell me I was wrong, I hoped the response was about par for the course and friendlier than if he'd actually approached an academic.

Scientists usually don't have a problem telling me where to get off ;)

 

[sakurako_rus]

Hi there! Thank you all for your replies! I just want to say, as a woman, scientist, and medical recearcher, that you should not be so rude with people, without knowing exactly all the conditions. I know nothing about your education, scientific area, and so on, but I know very well, that I would not judge too hurriedly. As for us, publishing in world journals was quite new tack, and my paper was rejected once, because you here don`t appreciate such area as endogenous intoxication. By the way, all patients with burn disease, who die, die usually due exactly to endogenous intoxication development. All I needed, was the advice, is there a way to publish quickly. So thank you again.

 

[sakurako_rus]

Yeah that borek post was the most incisive ... what decided the tone for me was when OP said he wanted journal that would "definitely" accept the paper.

I did actually spend a bit of time considering my response so the criticism, and support, above was, in fact welcome. Many of the concerns raised did occur to me, however - it looked too much like the kinds of things I've seen from the pseudoscience end of the researcher spectrum.

Hardy conclusive, which is why I tried to research the poster... gather more info.
I also read a bunch of threads on PF where a similar question has been raised.

Considering the red-flags, and that I invited him to tell me I was wrong, I hoped the response was about par for the course and friendlier than if he'd actually approached an academic.

Scientists usually don't have a problem telling me where to get off ;)

Excuse me, please, I didn`t know, that all forums in the world are occupied by the same people. May be, we are not real scientists here, but the rule here in our society is not to get people off, no matter, how rude they are.

 

[atyy]

http://www.plosone.org/home.action
http://www.plosone.org/static/information.action
"Rigorous Peer-Review
Too often a journal's decision to publish a paper is dominated by what the Editor/s think is interesting and will gain greater readership — both of which are subjective judgments and lead to decisions which are frustrating and delay the publication of your work. PLoS ONE will rigorously peer-review your submissions and publish all papers that are judged to be technically sound. Judgments about the importance of any particular paper are then made after publication by the readership (who are the most qualified to determine what is of interest to them)."

http://www.frontiersin.org/
A huge family of titles incluuding:
http://www.frontiersin.org/Clinical_and_Translational_Physiology
http://www.frontiersin.org/Integrative_Physiology
http://www.frontiersin.org/about/reviewsystem
"The Frontiers Review System promotes a mandate that is uniquely focused on the flawlessness and accuracy of research and is based on the unique Frontiers Review Guidelines. Review editors – appointed to the Frontiers editorial Boards from the community’s top experts worldwide – constructively collaborate with the authors to ensure that studies are conducted in agreement with the standards of the specific community and to improve the quality of the paper where appropriate. The mandate thus maximizes the publication quality and protects the rights of authors of publishing their work in a fair and unbiased process. Review editors focus on certifying the accuracy and validity of articles, not on evaluating their significance – the latter is done democratically by the community using the Frontiers Evaluation System."

 

[Simon Bridge]

OK - the short answer is that there is no way to publish quickly to a peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps you'll be better to present your findings at a conference?
Which conference exactly will depend on your budget and your research...

You mean "endogeneous intoxication" as in: Matveyev and Davydov's (mid 2000s) work on laser blood treatments? That sort of thing? You are right - it is not readily accepted outside Russian Journals. At least not in so many words.

I've seen this term associated with the ideas of autointoxication - something of a bugbear of the fringe medicine crowd - where illness is caused by toxins from inside the patient's body. Treatment tends to involve some form of detoxification or irradiation of the blood. Though in fairness I should stress that these ideas are by no means exclusive to the fringe medicine community.

My understanding of burn cases is that the leading cause of death is commonly accepted to be via infection from outside the body[1] (after respiratory tract damage). Usually demonstrated by growing the cultures. I would expect a journal would hope that your paper will need to take into account other work published by the journal in the general field - especially if your paper disagrees with it.

If your research is specific to burns, there are burn-treatment/research conferences around the World. Have you tried journals specific to burns research and treatment?

Note - the "telling me where to get off" statement was facetious :) However - in my initial response I chose to ask questions rather than make judgements ... if I am wrong you should certainly tell me. It does not matter if you are a woman or a man, how well I can help you depends on the information I have and, to get that, I have to be able to ask questions. This can come across as rude... excuse me.

Я бы раньше у вас ненавидеть меня за говорю вам правду, чем обожать меня говорит вам ложь.

-------------------
[1] eg Sharma B R et al (2006) Septicemia as a cause of death in burns: An autopsy study doi:10.1016/j.burns.2006.02.008
and Bloesma G C et al (2008) Mortality and causes of death in a burn centre doi:10.1016/j.burns.2008.02.010

 

[sakurako_rus]

I specified, that I`m a girl, because somebody wrote “he”. I`m not a feminist, but I`d like to be called as a woman, despite the fact, I prefer to deal with men rather than women.
Endogenous intoxication is thought to be an important factor in many diseases, and we study its role in IBD. Concerning burnt disease, I have to notice, that septicemia, you`ve mentioned, is not only one cause of death, and endogenous intoxication is a real problem, because it is caused by burnt tissues damage and destruction. Metabolites have membrano- and organotoxic properties, so this process can lead to a death. We have been studied this phenomena for more than 20 years.
So, I appreciate your opinion, and, you know, I wouldn`t publish such a post, if I wasn`t asked.
By the way, I`m not offended. What do you think about football? And, if I may ask, where are you from? Do you take part and when?

 

[sakurako_rus]

Я бы раньше у вас ненавидеть меня за говорю вам правду, чем обожать меня говорит вам ложь.

-------------------
[1] eg Sharma B R et al (2006) Septicemia as a cause of death in burns: An autopsy study doi:10.1016/j.burns.2006.02.008
and Bloesma G C et al (2008) Mortality and causes of death in a burn centre doi:10.1016/j.burns.2008.02.010[/QUOTE]

you know Ruussian quite well. Carry on!

 

[Simon Bridge]

Understood.

Hopefully you know have more of a direction (re. conferences - specialized journals?).
I believe I wrote "he" - in English this is a neuter pronoun unless the context says a man ... and I am a feminist. Hint: you can specify gender in your profile - this let's people figure out the correct pronoun to use. Many women online don't do this because many males online can get boorish if they do.

You can find out about me easily enough and I cannot stand football ;)

[I had a Russian girlfriend once - I learned a bit then but not enough to write all that. I cheated by using Google Translate.]

 

[Borek]

I cheated by using Google Translate

I am afraid it shows

 

[Simon Bridge]

Heyy - the Russian I was talking to liked it! :)

 

[ThinkToday]

At last, peace in happy valley

As was stated above, for now your best bet is to present at a conference, and hope the paper gets picked up. Some societies will publish the papers or abstracts presented in the meeting in a compendium, so at least it would be "out there".

 

[Simon Bridge]

Presenting a paper at a conference also provides an opportunity for feedback and meeting people working on similar ideas. From there it is usually possible to refine a paper for peer review with more confidence.