Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Today academic publisher Elsevier sent round an email with the top five most downloaded articles from the international journal Midwifery.
We were pleased to see that the fifth paper on that list is a BU paper jointly written with Dr. Helen Bryers, Consultant Midwife in Scotland.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
The latest ABS Journal Guide has lifted an article first-authored by Dr. Tim Breitbarth to be the single most-cited paper in the only 3* journal in the field of sport business.
Considering all major citation databases, Tim’s paper “The role of corporate social responsibility in the football business: Towards the development of a conceptual model” co-authored with Phil Harris in European Sport Management Quarterly (2008) is leaving the strongest footprint in the academic community.
Dr Tim Breitbarth from the Faculty of Management is a regular author, guest editor, project leader, track convener at international conferences as well as invited speaker on CSR in general and CSR in sport.
Full reference:
Breitbarth, T. & Harris, P. (2008): The role of corporate social responsibility in the football business: Towards the development of a conceptual model. European Sports Management Quarterly, 8(2): 179-206.
Abstract:
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted considerable interest in the management discipline, but has rarely been evaluated and explored in the sports management research arena. In evaluating the sports, management and marketing literature, this article considers the role of CSR in professional football. It argues that an increased awareness and integration of CSR into the football business fosters the competitiveness of the game and creates additional value for its stakeholders. The article proposes a conceptual model which outlines the agency role of football in order to create political, cultural, humanitarian and reassurance value. Empirical evidence supporting the model is applied based on case studies from four key countries that currently dominate the shaping of CSR discussion and are vital for the game itself: England, Germany, Japan and the US. The article’s aim is to encourage sports management to see CSR as an opportunity-driven concept, which can assist in achieving better strategic direction, and outlines areas where future research can improve sport management’s appreciation of this rapidly more important topic.
BU’s new Learning Research Group held its second workshop last week, so here is a quick update on activities so far since the group formed.
The group is convened by the Centre for Excellence in Learning and CEMP and meets in the CEL space with two objectives –
1. To bring people together for research into learning, pedagogy and education, related to the broader work of CEL;
2. To develop research strategically for a submission to the Unit of Assessment for Education in REF 2020.
Researchers in the group are working on projects and towards outputs in three related areas – Media and Digital Literacies; Practitioner Enquiry and (Higher) Education Dynamics. Impact case studies are in development in each of these areas and a strategy for capacity building, demonstrating impact and research environment has been produced.
In the first workshop, Professor Alex Kendall from Birmingham City University talked to the group about REF 2014 and gave advice for working across disciplines and faculty structures. In the second workshop, Julian shared sub-panel feedback with a focus on how BU’s research can be distinctive in the changing landscape, Isabella Rega ran a workshop activity to bring us together around research themes, methods and beneficiaries, and the group worked together to refine the plans for the group’s direction of travel, discussing development needs and targets for outputs and impact. The next time we meet, we will be guided by Professor Becky Francis from KCL.
The learning research group will continue to do two things in tandem – work towards a REF submission and support the research element of CEL’s work. To get involved, contact julian@cemp.ac.uk or just come along to the next workshop (after Easter, date will be circulated on the research blog).
BU Senior Lecturer in Midwifery Dr. Jenny Hall published her interesting piece on Nursing Times.net under the title ‘Time-wasters in A&E: time to shake the label’. Jenny uses quite a sociological argument highlighting that “However, labels such as time waster are unhelpful and inappropriate. Instead we have a duty to provide a service that is caring, compassionate and welcoming – no matter the pressures. “
The second CMMPH paper this week is by Professor Emeritus Paul Lewis and BU Visiting Faculty Jillian Ireland in collaboration with Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust midwife Danielle Freemantle. Their paper ‘The loss of midwifery supervision: to mourn or rejoice?’ in the March edition of The Practising Midwife reflects on and discusses some of the possible consequences of the NMC’s decision to end statutory supervision of midwives in the UK.
Congratulations to all!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)
Faculty of Health & Social Sciences
On 11th March, Wednesday, we will have a Writing Academy Lunchbyte session where Prof. Matthew Bennett will talk about his personal publishing experience, his approaches to research and writing, how to develop a publication strategy and the challenges of working with colleagues and dealing with both reviewers and editors. He will talk about all type of publishing from journal articles, to books via edited compilations. Drawing on personal experience, he will also focus on how you target high impact journals.
Aims:
| Title | Date | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writing Academy Lunchbyte – My Publishing Experience | Wednesday 11th March 2015 | 13:00-14:30 | TAG03, Tolpuddle Annexe |
To book your place on this workshop please email Organisational Development
The interest in football goes well beyond the boundaries of it’s academic field. Such are the financial incentives and rewards in the modern game, professional football clubs now leave no stone unturned in their attempts to increase their performances on the field, win matches and increase their league position. This is the wider context for a recent submission to eBU: Online Journal, BU’s internal working paper journal designed around immediate publication and open peer review.
Based on an analysis of all 1,053 goals scored in the 2009/10 season, Jamie Osman, Andrew Callaway and Shelley Broomfield consider, ‘Just how important are set plays to teams competing in the Barclays Premier League?’.
The paper is open for wider comment and review from the BU community, and can be found here: http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/36
FHSS staff and students published their latest article ‘Would a student midwife run postnatal clinic make a valuable addition to midwifery education in the UK? — A systematic review’ now out on line in Nurse Education Today 35 : 480-486. The paper is written by Wendy Marsh, Dana M. Colbourne, Susan Way & Vanora Hundley.
We are pleased to inform you that the final version of your article with full bibliographic details is now available online. The publishers are providing the following personal article link, which will provide free access to this article, and is valid for 50 days, until April 17, 2015: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1QcG5xHa50bEa
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
BU Ph.D. student and Consultant Midwife Kathryn Gutteridge and Hannah Dahlen Associate Professor of Midwifery at the University of Western Sydney contributed a chapter to the book ‘The Roar behind the Silence: Why kindness, compassion and respect matter in maternity care’. Kathryn Gutteridge and Hannah Dahlen wrote under the title ‘Stop the fear and embrace birth’. BU’s Dr. Jenny Hall also wrote a chapter called ‘Spirituality, compassion and maternity care’.
The volume edited by
Sheena Byrom and Soo Downe was published this week by Pinter & Martin (London). I received my copy of the book yesterday, but didn’t have a chance to look at it until today. The Roar Behind the Silence is both a practical and inspirational book, which likely to be of interest to people working in maternity care (midwives, doctors, managers), local and regional maternity-care policy-makers as well as politicians and funders and, of course, to many pregnant women and maternity-care pressure groups. The book highlights examples of good practice, and offers practical tools for making change happen, advice on how to use evidence and real-life stories.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Corrosion in large vehicles in the museum environment
Sustainable Design Research Centre recent publication “Modelling of metal-coating delamination incorporating variable environmental parameters” by Hammad Nazir (PhD student), Dr Zulfiqar Khan and K Stokes (Defence Science & Technology Laboratory Ministry of Defence industrial partner) has made it to the most read articles list on the Taylor & Francis website.
This research is co-funded by BU and Defence Science & Technology Laboratory Ministry of Defence, with in-kind support from The Tank Museum at Bovington and other industrial partners.
This paper has been available online since December 15th 2014 with 338 downloads/views recorded on Feb 28th 2015.
Keywords
cathodic delamination, coating delamination, degradation, mathematical modelling, diffusion, adhesion
My Publishing Experience: Prof. Matthew Bennett
Wed 11 March 13:00-14:30 , TAG03, Tolpuddle Annexe, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University.
On Wednesday 11th March, Prof. Matthew Bennett will be hosting a Writing Academy lunchbyte session at TAG03, Tolpuddle Annexe, Talbot Campus, Bournemouth University.
In this session, Matthew will talk about his personal publishing experience, his approaches to research and writing, how to develop a publication strategy and the challenges of working with colleagues and dealing with both reviewers and editors. He will talk about all type of publishing from journal articles, to books via edited compilations. Drawing on personal experience he will also focus on how you target high impact journals. After the presentation, attendees are invited to stay and discuss the topic with the speaker over lunch.
To book a place on either of these workshops, please email staffdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk
If you have any questions relating to these sessions then please contact Pengpeng Hatch.
HEFCE have recently updated the FAQs for the Policy for Open Access in the next REF, all are available here:
http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/rsrch/rinfrastruct/oa/faq/
New questions are marked as ‘NEW’.
Editors of academic journals are regularly cursed by academics worldwide. At universities across the globe we can regularly hear expression such as “Who does the editor think he is rejecting my paper?” or “Why does it have to take six months (or more) to find out my paper is rejected?” or “Why does the editor not understand how good/novel/innovative/… our paper is? These kinds of expression of dismay may or may not be accompanied by an expletive. Being both busy editors and well published authors we thought timely to put pen to paper and explain the work (role and limitations) of the typical editor of an international academic journal.
First, being an editor is not all bad, and is actually a privilege. It is an opportunity to nurture new authors, be at the forefront of your discipline and it is part of being a ‘serious’ scholar. However, we have been at the receiving end of the wrath of authors dissatisfied with something we did or didn’t do as an editor AND we have been disappointed as authors with what we perceived to be, poor editorial decisions!
We wrote a short outline of the proposed paper and send it to the editor of Women and Birth. The idea was readily accepted and resulted in a paper published this week in the scientific journal.
The paper includes little snippets of insight and advice to authors. For example, a reminder that the average editor of an academic journalist an unpaid volunteer, usually a full-time lecturer and/or researcher with a busy day job, who does most of her editorial work on Sunday morning when the kids are still in bed or Tuesday night after the second-year marking has been completed. We hope that knowledge of the editors’ role will help authors (a) understand the submission process better; and (b) be a little bit more patience with the editors. And, last but not least, we hope our article helps the development of editors of the future.
Jenny Hall, Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Reference:
Hall, J., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) The Journal editor: friend or foe? Women & Birth (accepted). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871519215000104
Original article is published on 22 January 2015 via – http://blog.hefce.ac.uk/2015/01/22/thinking-about-monographs-in-a-world-of-open-access/
Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, School of Advanced Study, University of London
There has been only limited discussion of how open access might apply to books, even though these are an important way in which academics in the arts, humanities and social sciences communicate their research. This classically means a monograph, but research books also include works such as scholarly editions, books of research essays by different authors, and scholarly exhibition catalogues.
I say only limited discussion, but underneath the surface there has been a great deal of paddling going on. This has meant debates about how monographs (I’ll use the term from now on to refer to all research books) might be made available on an open access basis, and a variety of initiatives to find financially and organisationally viable ways of doing so.
The Finch Report on open access focused above all on journal articles, and acknowledged that more work was needed to understand the issues with respect to monographs. HEFCE explicitly recognised this when it announced that it would not require them to be open access for the next REF.
And that is where I came in. Late in 2012 HEFCE invited me to lead some work on the implications of open access for monographs. The aim was not to come up with Finch-style policy recommendations, because the development of open access for books is at too early a stage for that. What was needed was some consultation, collecting of information and thinking with a view to producing a report that would be helpful to those interested in developing policy though not in itself setting out what policy might be.
I readily accepted the invitation. Book-centred disciplines have been part of my life as an academic (I’m a historian) and in my roles in higher education and research management. The arts, humanities, and social sciences matter to me, and I appreciate the importance of securing the future of the research book in a changing world of scholarly communication.
I put together an Expert Reference Group drawn from academics, librarians, publishers, funders and others to support me in this work. Together we set about a project that from the outset was not about open access alone, but about the whole position of the monograph today. If we didn’t understand the role of the monograph in research activity and communication, if we didn’t understand its function in the cultures of disciplines and departments, if we didn’t know what was happening to the monograph today, then we really couldn’t begin to understand what open access might mean for it.
My report to HEFCE (and to the AHRC and ESRC who supported the project) was published on 22 January. It covers a lot of ground in exploring the key issues that need to be understood by anyone wanting to think about policy in this area. It needs some 70 pages plus annexes to engage with the reality of what books mean, as well as the potential and the challenges of their moving to open access. The report, therefore, has much to say about the world of research and publication in universities.
As a humanities scholar I’m used to reporting complexity where complexity exists, as it does here. Some things are nonetheless clear. Talk of the monograph in crisis is hard to sustain – they’re being published in ever-increasing numbers, academics are writing and reading them, and libraries and individuals are buying them. That doesn’t mean that all is rosy, but it is important to see open access as an opportunity rather than as a response to a crisis.
It is essential that any future for open access monographs sustains their fundamental importance in most arts, humanities and social science disciplines. That means better technology to enable many of the material qualities of the book that go beyond words alone (the format, images, layout, references and much else) to be retained in a digital future. Though few academics told us that they enjoyed reading a whole research monograph on a screen – if they like it they buy or borrow a print edition. Printed books will not disappear.
It also means being flexible about the kind of licences required for books on open access, it means overcoming the potential high charges that owners of third-party rights (to images, texts, bars of music or dance notation) might impose, and it means finding the business models that will make it work. On this last issue there are many experiments underway and it seems to me improbable that any one of them will become dominant – the future will be one with a diversity of business models.
There is much more in the report and I really look forward to its discussion, and to see how HEFCE and others will take the issues forward. Open access carries with it great potential for larger readership and easier access, and also for new ways of engaging with and using the results of research. I was struck by the constructive approach that I found in responses from academics to the question of open access for monographs.
There were, of course, anxieties and policy needs to take these into account, but there was also real recognition of the potential. My advice to HEFCE and other policy makers is that there is much to be gained by working with the grain of academic opinion, and much to be lost by not doing so. I look forward to the debate!
Original article appeared on 21 January 2015 via – http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2015/news99909.html
The Monographs and Open Access Project considers the place of monographs in the arts, humanities and social science disciplines, and how they fit into the developing world of open access to research. It concludes that open access for monographs has a great deal to contribute to scholarly communication, but that the challenges of introducing it will be real and policy should take account of the various issues identified in the report.
The Monographs and Open Access Project was led by Geoffrey Crossick, Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London [Note 1]. It was commissioned by HEFCE in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Important messages in the report are that:
Evidence to support the project was gathered through an extensive programme of consultations, surveys, data-gathering and focused research activities. The research was supported and shaped by an Expert Reference Group of publishers, academics, librarians, funders, open access experts with the additional help of distinguished representatives from overseas.
This project was set up following advice to HEFCE that monographs and other long-form publications should be excluded from requirements for open access in the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF).
Professor Geoffrey Crossick said:
‘This project has demonstrated very clearly the vital importance of monographs to the academic community as a way of developing research thinking, a vehicle for research communication, a demonstrator of academic quality, and much more. Open access offers significant short- and long-term advantages for monograph publishing that should be pursued, but the clear message is that the academically essential qualities of the monograph must be sustained in any moves to open access.
‘The project has shown that, for open access to be achievable, a number of key issues must be tackled. Open access depends on a satisfactory transition to digital publishing that hasn’t yet happened for books in the way that it has for journals, and the various business models that can support open-access monographs are still largely experimental. Furthermore, the potential costs of third-party rights could pose serious problems, and there are issues around licensing that will need careful handling.
I have been encouraged by the very positive way in which academics and others have engaged with this project; it is important that this engagement continues, because there is much to be gained by working with the grain, and much to be lost by not doing so.’
Welcoming the report, David Sweeney, Director, Research, Education and Knowledge Exchange at HEFCE, said:
‘This report makes a huge contribution to the evolving debate around open access, shedding much-needed light on the issues around delivering open access to books. The wealth of evidence and commentary that this project has generated will spark continued debate among academics, learned societies and publishers, as well as provide important guidance to research funders and others interested in developing policies in this area.
‘I am very grateful to Professor Crossick for the open and engaged way that he has handled his investigation into this complex and sensitive area. The report is firmly grounded in the perspectives of the communities that rely so much on monograph publishing, and is all the stronger for it.
‘Monographs sit outside the open-access requirements for the next REF. But the long timescales for book authorship and publishing mean that any policy for open-access monographs in future REF exercises would need to be established soon to give due notice to the sector.’
HEFCE will consider this report and discuss its policy implications with other research funders including AHRC and ESRC, recognising that any steps towards policies for open-access monographs should be preceded by a thorough process of consultation and engagement.
I
n the past six weeks we saw the publication of three methods papers by BU academics. BU’s Joanne Mayoh and her colleague Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie in the USA published a paper on mixed-methods approaches in phenomenology.1 They argue that phenomenological research methods work extremely well as a component of mixed-methods research approaches. The purpose of this article is twofold, they provide: (1) a philosophical justification for using what they label mixed-methods phenomenological research (MMPR); and (2) examples of MMPR in practice to underline a number of potential models for MMPR that can practically be used in future research.
In the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences Catherine Angell and Jane Hunt with Professor Emerita Jo Alexander offer methodological insights into the ‘draw and write’ research method. 2 Their literature review identified that the method has been used inconsistently and found that there are issues for researchers in relation to interpretation of creative work and analysis of data. As a result of this, an improvement on this method, entitled ‘draw, write and tell’, was developed in an attempt to provide a more child-orientated and consistent approach to data collection, interpretation and analysis. This article identifies the issues relating to ‘draw and write’ and describes the development and application of ‘draw, write and tell’ as a case study, noting its limitations and benefits.
Finally, BU Visiting Faculty Emma Pitchforth and CMMPH’s Edwin van Teijlingen together with Consultant Midwife Helen MacKenzie Bryers published a paper advocating mixed-methods approaches in health research.3 This paper outlines the different paradigms or philosophies underlying quantitative and qualitative methods and some of the on-going debates about mixed-methods. The paper further highlights a number of practical issues, such as: (1) the particular mix and order of quantitative and qualitative methods; (2) the way of integrating methods from different philosophical stance; and (3) how to synthesise mixed-methods findings. This paper is accompanied by an editorial in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology. 4
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health
References:
The RKEO coffee morning is today in the RKE Office on the 4th Floor Melbury House (Lansdowne Campus) starting at 9.30am. The morning will concentrate on the wonders of the Project Delivery Team within RKEO, its personnel, the work they do and how they can help you with live surgeries and demonstrations on open access, BRIAN, the online ethics checklist and RED so please come along!
The Team has three specialist areas: Finance, Outputs and Governance which feed into Faculty dedicated teams. So if you want to know more about managing projects, applying for ethics approval, how to use BRIAN, Open Access or anything else Research and Knowledge Exchange focused please come along and have a chat with us, or just to enjoy a coffee and cake.
The coffee morning will be held in the RKE Office on the 4th Floor Melbury House (Lansdowne Campus) starting at 9.30am on Wednesday 4th February.
We look forward to seeing you!
Tourism, a global industry, brings with it a number of public health problems, one of which is the spread of sexually transmitted infections transmitted between travellers and hosts.
Previous studies have largely focused on sex workers and sex tourists. This latest paper ‘Nepalese Trekking Guides: A Quantitative Study of Sexual Health Knowledge And Sexual Behaviour’ published yesterday in the Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences assesses sexual behaviour, knowledge and condom use among male trekking guides in Nepal. 
A self-administered questionnaire survey (n=324) was conducted using snowball sampling amongst men working as mountain trekking guides in Nepal. Most respondents (59%) had initiated sex before the age of 18. Most (84 %) reported sexual relations with a woman other than their partner, 46% reported foreign partners, 43% had Nepalese partners, and 28% had concurrent foreign and Nepalese partners. Most (70 %) reported ever having sex with a foreign woman and two-thirds had had sexual intercourse with foreign women in the previous 12 months. Participants’ age, education status, age of first sex, smoking and drinking habits and English proficiency were significant predictors of having sex with foreign women.About 60% reported condom use during their most recent occasion of extra-martial sex. A similar proportion had used a condom during last sexual intercourse with a foreign woman. The likelihood of condom use was associated with a guide’s age, educational level, ethnicity, age of first sex and work experience. Most trekking guides reported sexual relations with foreign women as well as irregular use of condoms. Although sexual health knowledge about among trekking guides is high, some misconceptions still result in unsafe sex. Hence there is an urgent need to revise the existing training for trekking guides and implement appropriate health promotion programmes.
Reference:
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P., Bhatta, P., Ingham, R., Stone, N. (2015) Sexual health knowledge and risky sexual behaviour of Nepalese trekking guides. Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences 1 (4): 35-42.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Original article – http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/03/how-to-get-published-in-an-academic-journal-top-tips-from-editors?CMP=new_1194
Journal editors share their advice on how to structure a paper, write a cover letter – and deal with awkward feedback from reviewers.
Writing for academic journals is highly competitive. Even if you overcome the first hurdle and generate a valuable idea or piece of research – how do you then sum it up in a way that will capture the interest of reviewers?
There’s no simple formula for getting published – editors’ expectations can vary both between and within subject areas. But there are some challenges that will confront all academic writers regardless of their discipline. How should you respond to reviewer feedback? Is there a correct way to structure a paper? And should you always bother revising and resubmitting? We asked journal editors from a range of backgrounds for their tips on getting published.
1) Focus on a story that progresses logically, rather than chronologically
Take some time before even writing your paper to think about the logic of the presentation. When writing, focus on a story that progresses logically, rather than the chronological order of the experiments that you did.
Deborah Sweet, editor of Cell Stem Cell and publishing director at Cell Press
2) Don’t try to write and edit at the same time
Open a file on the PC and put in all your headings and sub-headings and then fill in under any of the headings where you have the ideas to do so. If you reach your daily target (mine is 500 words) put any other ideas down as bullet points and stop writing; then use those bullet points to make a start the next day.
If you are writing and can’t think of the right word (eg for elephant) don’t worry – write (big animal long nose) and move on – come back later and get the correct term. Write don’t edit; otherwise you lose flow.
Roger Watson, editor-in-chief, Journal of Advanced Nursing
3) Don’t bury your argument like a needle in a haystack
If someone asked you on the bus to quickly explain your paper, could you do so in clear, everyday language? This clear argument should appear in your abstract and in the very first paragraph (even the first line) of your paper. Don’t make us hunt for your argument as for a needle in a haystack. If it is hidden on page seven that will just make us annoyed. Oh, and make sure your argument runs all the way through the different sections of the paper and ties together the theory and empirical material.
Fiona Macaulay, editorial board, Journal of Latin American Studies
4) Ask a colleague to check your work
One of the problems that journal editors face is badly written papers. It might be that the writer’s first language isn’t English and they haven’t gone the extra mile to get it proofread. It can be very hard to work out what is going on in an article if the language and syntax are poor.
Brian Lucey, editor, International Review of Financial Analysis
5) Get published by writing a review or a response
Writing reviews is a good way to get published – especially for people who are in the early stages of their career. It’s a chance to practice at writing a piece for publication, and get a free copy of a book that you want. We publish more reviews than papers so we’re constantly looking for reviewers.
Some journals, including ours, publish replies to papers that have been published in the same journal. Editors quite like to publish replies to previous papers because it stimulates discussion.
Yujin Nagasawa, co-editor and review editor of the European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, philosophy of religion editor of Philosophy Compass
6) Don’t forget about international readers
We get people who write from America who assume everyone knows the American system – and the same happens with UK writers. Because we’re an international journal, we need writers to include that international context.
Hugh McLaughlin, editor in chief, Social Work Education – the International Journal
7) Don’t try to cram your PhD into a 6,000 word paper
Sometimes people want to throw everything in at once and hit too many objectives. We get people who try to tell us their whole PhD in 6,000 words and it just doesn’t work. More experienced writers will write two or three papers from one project, using a specific aspect of their research as a hook.
Hugh McLaughlin, editor in chief, Social Work Education – the International Journal
8) Pick the right journal: it’s a bad sign if you don’t recognise any of the editorial board
Check that your article is within the scope of the journal that you are submitting to. This seems so obvious but it’s surprising how many articles are submitted to journals that are completely inappropriate. It is a bad sign if you do not recognise the names of any members of the editorial board. Ideally look through a number of recent issues to ensure that it is publishing articles on the same topic and that are of similar quality and impact.
Ian Russell, editorial director for science at Oxford University Press
9) Always follow the correct submissions procedures
Often authors don’t spend the 10 minutes it takes to read the instructions to authors which wastes enormous quantities of time for both the author and the editor and stretches the process when it does not need to
Tangali Sudarshan, editor, Surface Engineering
10) Don’t repeat your abstract in the cover letter
We look to the cover letter for an indication from you about what you think is most interesting and significant about the paper, and why you think it is a good fit for the journal. There is no need to repeat the abstract or go through the content of the paper in detail – we will read the paper itself to find out what it says. The cover letter is a place for a bigger picture outline, plus any other information that you would like us to have.
Deborah Sweet, editor of Cell Stem Cell and publishing director at Cell Press
11) A common reason for rejections is lack of context
Make sure that it is clear where your research sits within the wider scholarly landscape, and which gaps in knowledge it’s addressing. A common reason for articles being rejected after peer review is this lack of context or lack of clarity about why the research is important.
Jane Winters, executive editor of the Institute of Historical Research’s journal, Historical Research and associate editor of Frontiers in Digital Humanities: Digital History
12) Don’t over-state your methodology
Ethnography seems to be the trendy method of the moment, so lots of articles submitted claim to be based on it. However, closer inspection reveals quite limited and standard interview data. A couple of interviews in a café do not constitute ethnography. Be clear – early on – about the nature and scope of your data collection. The same goes for the use of theory. If a theoretical insight is useful to your analysis, use it consistently throughout your argument and text.
Fiona Macaulay, editorial board, Journal of Latin American Studies
13) Respond directly (and calmly) to reviewer comments
When resubmitting a paper following revisions, include a detailed document summarising all the changes suggested by the reviewers, and how you have changed your manuscript in light of them. Stick to the facts, and don’t rant. Don’t respond to reviewer feedback as soon as you get it. Read it, think about it for several days, discuss it with others, and then draft a response.
Helen Ball, editorial board, Journal of Human Lactation
14) Revise and resubmit: don’t give up after getting through all the major hurdles
You’d be surprised how many authors who receive the standard “revise and resubmit” letter never actually do so. But it is worth doing – some authors who get asked to do major revisions persevere and end up getting their work published, yet others, who had far less to do, never resubmit. It seems silly to get through the major hurdles of writing the article, getting it past the editors and back from peer review only to then give up.
Fiona Macaulay, editorial board, Journal of Latin American Studies
15) It is acceptable to challenge reviewers, with good justification
It is acceptable to decline a reviewer’s suggestion to change a component of your article if you have a good justification, or can (politely) argue why the reviewer is wrong. A rational explanation will be accepted by editors, especially if it is clear you have considered all the feedback received and accepted some of it.
Helen Ball, editorial board of Journal of Human Lactation
16) Think about how quickly you want to see your paper published
Some journals rank more highly than others and so your risk of rejection is going to be greater. People need to think about whether or not they need to see their work published quickly – because certain journals will take longer. Some journals, like ours, also do advance access so once the article is accepted it appears on the journal website. This is important if you’re preparing for a job interview and need to show that you are publishable.
Hugh McLaughlin, editor in chief, Social Work Education – the International Journal
17) Remember: when you read published papers you only see the finished article
Publishing in top journals is a challenge for everyone, but it may seem easier for other people. When you read published papers you see the finished article, not the first draft, nor the first revise and resubmit, nor any of the intermediate versions – and you never see the failures.
Philip Powell, managing editor of the Information Systems Journal
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Postgraduate Research Summer Social – 2 weeks to go!
Research Café: How are researchers working to prevent child drowning in Bangladesh? – Tuesday 1 July 6:30-8pm
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call
ERC Advanced Grant 2025 Webinar MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025
Update on UKRO services
European research project exploring use of ‘virtual twins’ to better manage metabolic associated fatty liver disease
Research Information Network
Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 Published
Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published