How to Publish a Research Paper?

To be active in an academic community you should publish a paper in any of the peer reviewed journal. It helps you to be in touch with the other scholars of your network and also help in betterment of your research idea. If you submit a paper with good technical, innovative and straightforward research idea, then nothing can stop it from being published. You have a select a better journal for publishing which suits your writing style and topic.

Researching and Gathering Information

            Before going on into research you have to first choose a topic based on your interest. You can either select a topic in which you have more knowledge or a topic which you are not familiar with, it’s up to you. But it is advisable to choose a topic in which you have interest and some primary knowledge. Try to create a floe, steps and procedure for the research paper in which you want to format the information collected during the research.

            You have to collect the required information for your research from any of the sources like existing research papers, from surveys, from websites, by experimentation or from the people who have knowledge in the field. You should keep notes on everything you collected and all the sources from where you collected, it will help you later on when doing citation. Arrange all the data collected during research to form your paper, put them all in any software such as “Microsoft Office Word”. Your research article should contain four main sections: Introduction, Main content, Conclusion and Citation of your research.

Submitting your Paper

• Take reviews from your professor or colleague for your research paper

You should get their help for correcting mistakes like spelling, grammar, typos, conciseness and clarity. The research paper should address some problem that is relevant and significant. The paper you write should demonstrate a clear meaning, not very difficult to follow and all the audience should understand it.

Try to get review from more than one person, from which any one should be an outsider who is not an expert in that particular field, so that you can get a perspective of outsider which is more valuable.

• Revise your paper by following the recommendations of reviewers

Make as many drafts as possible and check them several times before drafting and submitting your research paper. Make your paper more engaging, easy flow and very clear which will increase the probability of your paper getting selected for publishing.

• Start preparing your manuscript based on the requirements of chosen journal

Every journal has a specific set of guidelines to format their paper. Almost all journals give a set of instruction document known as “Author’s Guide” or “Instruction to Authors” which has the instructions regarding font type, length and layout. It also has instructions for the paper submission and for review process.

The science journal article will obey a set of organizational format like: “Abstract; Introduction; Methods; Results; Discussion; Conclusion; Acknowledgements/References.” The journals in “arts and humanities” have no such strict instructions.

• Submit your article when you feel it satisfied

Check the guide for author will be provided for each journal on their particular website. If you have fulfilled all the requirements mentioned by them then you are good to go and submit your paper for publication. In some journals they prefer online submission while others want a hard copy of it.

• You should submit your paper for publication to any one journal in a particular time. So work accordingly.
• Use the same mail id which you use for your university while submitting your paper for publication because it can bring more connection and recognition for your work.
• Don’t panic when you get the journals first response

Only some of the articles will be accepted by the journal in their first go itself after peer-review. Don’t worry if yours is not one of them; make changes to it accordingly after reviewing it. The correction reply from the journal will be any one of them from below mentioned:

• “Accept with Revision” – Make some minor corrections to it by considering the feedback provided by reviewers.
• “Revise and Resubmit” – Journal is interested to publish your paper if you make the necessary corrections needed by them.
• “Reject and Resubmit” – Currently your paper is not considered for publication. Maybe in future if you do changes on it more focus fully, then you may get a chance.
• “Reject” – your paper is not considered for publication by that particular journal but you can try with some other journals.

When you write a research paper and try to publish it, you should also be ready for getting rejected. You have to go through a lot before getting selected on a peer-review.

• Conditional acceptance (Minor review)

When you have corrected all the major mistakes in your paper after revisions you might get a “Conditional Acceptance” which means your paper will be accepted for publication if you correct some more minor issues. Those changes to your paper will generally be small in scope such as format and grammar changes, rephrasing of paragraphs, also addition of extra references. The conditional acceptance may go several rounds because reviewer can find more mistakes each time and also you different reviewers may review your paper each time. Even the one, who previously reviewed, might find different error at that time.

• Embrace reviewers comments as constructive criticism

Many times your paper can undergo peer-review and ask you to resubmit your paper after correction which was given by the editors and anonymous reviewers. Do changes carefully considering their feedbacks.

• Don’t rely on the submission you did in starting. Be flexible to accept the reviews and make changes to it accordingly. Make a better paper by using your writer and researcher skill.
• If you not feel comfortable to make change to your paper based on the reviewer’s comments then explain it to the editor confidently but respectfully.
• Keep on trying till your paper get published

If you got rejected by a particular journal in which you wished to publish your paper, continue try to publish in some other journal.

• If your paper is rejected by one journal then it does not mean your paper is very bad. There are many criteria’s to be noticed before publishing a paper in which some mistakes may happen without our knowledge.
• Find another journal if rejected from first one, ask help from the previous editor to find a best match.
• Acceptance

If your paper is accepted by all the editors and reviewers then it is ready for publication and you will receive an acceptance letter for that. Now you have to prepare some extra files and final draft with specific format for publication it is different from the one which you did in review process. If you wish to publish in a journal that is based on subscription then you have to sign in a copyright form. It may take some time for publication even after your paper is accepted for publication because editors need some time to work on every particular issue. No wonder it can take up to a year.