HOW TO PUBLISH YOUR WORK IN A SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL

Transcription

1 HOW TO PUBLISH YOUR WORK IN A SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL Alison Burrell Editor, European Review of Agricultural Economics Department of Social Sciences Wageningen University Alison.Burrell@wur.nl Wageningen University

2 European Review of Agricultural Economics Founded in 1973 Jointly owned by Oxford University Press and the Foundation for the ERAE Scientific responsibility: Editorial Board Commercial responsibility: OUP Official journal of the EAAE (since 1993) Four issues per year Approx 560 pages (24-27 papers) per volume Book reviews About 160 submissions per year EAAE congress proceedings and special issues

3 GENERAL COMMENTS generalist vs specialist journals generalist journals European Review of Agricultural Economics American Journal of Agricultural Economics Agricultural Economics Journal of Agricultural Economics other agricultural economics journals various economics journals specialist journals e.g. Journal of Development Economics Journal of Productivity Analysis regional (non-english language) journals

4 GENERAL COMMENTS generalist vs specialist journals hierarchy of generalist agricultural economics journals impact factor (2007) = (number of cites in 2007 to articles published in 2005 & 2006) (number of articles published in 2005 & 2006) other citation criteria immediacy index (measures how quickly the average article is cited) cited half-life = (e.g. for 2007) number of journal publication years, going back in time from 2007, that account for 50% of the total citations of the journal in 2007

5 IMPACT FACTORS OF 5 AGR ECON JOURNALS JCR impact factor ERAE AJAE AE JAE FoodP

6 GENERAL COMMENTS generalist vs specialist journals hierarchy of generalist agricultural economics journals criteria for journal choice topic is regularly covered right scientific level choose target journal and write for that journal use the style and tone of the targeted journal be familiar with relevant previous articles in the targeted journal

7 MAKING A PAPER FROM A THESIS start as soon as possible clearly defined and well motivated research question plan and write the paper from scratch material should be directly relevant to specific research question make optimal use of citations to other papers careful selection of references conclusions must be clear and relate fully to the research objective SELL your research: How is it different from what has already been done? What does it add to the literature?

8 MAKING A PAPER FROM A THESIS start as soon as possible clearly defined and well motivated research question plan and write the paper from scratch choose a good title sole or joint authorship? quality control (limited) circulation in draft form for comment workshop presentation(s) language check conform to guidelines for preparing manuscript

9 WHAT IS AN ORIGINAL PAPER? journals have their own definitions current ERAE policy: we exclude papers that are already published in a journal (refereed or not) in a publication with an ISBN number published by a commercial publisher What about working papers? papers displayed on the Internet? conference proceedings? What motivates this strategy? - Desire for freshness authoritativeness citability

10 SUBMISSION CONFORM TO SUBMISSION PROCEDURES OF YOUR TARGETED JOURNAL HONESTY ABOUT PREVIOUS VERSIONS AND COPYRIGHT DOUBLE SUBMISSION NEVER! DO NOT START BOTHERING THE EDITOR UNTIL AT LEAST 3 MONTHS HAVE PASSED

11 REVIEW PROCESS (ERAE) double blind - three referees 3-6 months / 80% of papers finalised within 11 weeks main criteria used: suitability of topic and approach for the ERAE scientific quality presentation, structure, readability contribution to the literature relevance to disciplinary or policy agenda outcome (summarised in editor s letter) conditional acceptance invitation to resubmit after major revision rejection

12 INVITED TO RESUBMIT A REVISED VERSION? this is a good outcome start working on the revisions as soon as possible better to contact editor if instructions for revision are not clear (but use moderation!) resubmission within 3-5 months is desirable respond as fully as possible to referees comments use revision notes as an opportunity to get referees on your side thank the referees for their comments and help

13 YOUR PAPER HAS BEEN REJECTED? don t get angry don t be discouraged 1 use referees comments to improve the paper 2 reconsider choice of target journal AFTER 1 and 2, submit to another journal adjust formatting and style to guidelines of the new target journal if rejected again, reconsider the situation - is the paper fatally flawed? what is going wrong?

14 INVITED TO BE A REFEREE? if you know the author s identity, tell the editor accept ONLY if you intend to deliver within the deadline be polite and constructive to author send a clear signal to the editor this is an important job - the survival of refereed journals, with all the services they provide, depends on high quality peer reviewing strong public good component mutual benefits

15 ERAE ADDRESSES //mc.manuscriptcentral.com/erae // GOOD LUCK!