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How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

Jordan Kruszynski

• January 4, 2024

You’re in academia.

You’re going steady.

Your research is going well and you begin to wonder: ‘ How exactly do I get a research paper published?’

If this is the question on your lips, then this step-by-step guide is the one for you. We’ll be walking you through the whole process of how to publish a research paper.

Publishing a research paper is a significant milestone for researchers and academics, as it allows you to share your findings, contribute to your field of study, and start to gain serious recognition within the wider academic community. So, want to know how to publish a research paper? By following our guide, you’ll get a firm grasp of the steps involved in this process, giving you the best chance of successfully navigating the publishing process and getting your work out there.

Understanding the Publishing Process

To begin, it’s crucial to understand that getting a research paper published is a multi-step process. From beginning to end, it could take as little as 2 months before you see your paper nestled in the pages of your chosen journal. On the other hand, it could take as long as a year .

Below, we set out the steps before going into more detail on each one. Getting a feel for these steps will help you to visualise what lies ahead, and prepare yourself for each of them in turn. It’s important to remember that you won’t actually have control over every step – in fact, some of them will be decided by people you’ll probably never meet. However, knowing which parts of the process are yours to decide will allow you to adjust your approach and attitude accordingly.

Each of the following stages will play a vital role in the eventual publication of your paper:

• Preparing Your Research Paper
• Finding the Right Journal
• Crafting a Strong Manuscript
• Navigating the Peer-Review Process
• Submitting Your Paper
• Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper

Step 1: Preparing Your Research Paper

It all starts here. The quality and content of your research paper is of fundamental importance if you want to get it published. This step will be different for every researcher depending on the nature of your research, but if you haven’t yet settled on a topic, then consider the following advice:

• Choose an interesting and relevant topic that aligns with current trends in your field. If your research touches on the passions and concerns of your academic peers or wider society, it may be more likely to capture attention and get published successfully.
• Conduct a comprehensive literature review (link to lit. review article once it’s published) to identify the state of existing research and any knowledge gaps within it. Aiming to fill a clear gap in the knowledge of your field is a great way to increase the practicality of your research and improve its chances of getting published.
• Structure your paper in a clear and organised manner, including all the necessary sections such as title, abstract, introduction (link to the ‘how to write a research paper intro’ article once it’s published) , methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
• Adhere to the formatting guidelines provided by your target journal to ensure that your paper is accepted as viable for publishing. More on this in the next section…

Step 2: Finding the Right Journal

Understanding how to publish a research paper involves selecting the appropriate journal for your work. This step is critical for successful publication, and you should take several factors into account when deciding which journal to apply for:

• Conduct thorough research to identify journals that specialise in your field of study and have published similar research. Naturally, if you submit a piece of research in molecular genetics to a journal that specialises in geology, you won’t be likely to get very far.
• Consider factors such as the journal’s scope, impact factor, and target audience. Today there is a wide array of journals to choose from, including traditional and respected print journals, as well as numerous online, open-access endeavours. Some, like Nature , even straddle both worlds.
• Review the submission guidelines provided by the journal and ensure your paper meets all the formatting requirements and word limits. This step is key. Nature, for example, offers a highly informative series of pages that tells you everything you need to know in order to satisfy their formatting guidelines (plus more on the whole submission process).
• Note that these guidelines can differ dramatically from journal to journal, and details really do matter. You might submit an outstanding piece of research, but if it includes, for example, images in the wrong size or format, this could mean a lengthy delay to getting it published. If you get everything right first time, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and trouble, as well as strengthen your publishing chances in the first place.

Step 3: Crafting a Strong Manuscript

Crafting a strong manuscript is crucial to impress journal editors and reviewers. Look at your paper as a complete package, and ensure that all the sections tie together to deliver your findings with clarity and precision.

• Begin by creating a clear and concise title that accurately reflects the content of your paper.
• Compose an informative abstract that summarises the purpose, methodology, results, and significance of your study.
• Craft an engaging introduction (link to the research paper introduction article) that draws your reader in.
• Develop a well-structured methodology section, presenting your results effectively using tables and figures.
• Write a compelling discussion and conclusion that emphasise the significance of your findings.

Step 4: Navigating the Peer-Review Process

Once you submit your research paper to a journal, it undergoes a rigorous peer-review process to ensure its quality and validity. In peer-review, experts in your field assess your research and provide feedback and suggestions for improvement, ultimately determining whether your paper is eligible for publishing or not. You are likely to encounter several models of peer-review, based on which party – author, reviewer, or both – remains anonymous throughout the process.

When your paper undergoes the peer-review process, be prepared for constructive criticism and address the comments you receive from your reviewer thoughtfully, providing clear and concise responses to their concerns or suggestions. These could make all the difference when it comes to making your next submission.

The peer-review process can seem like a closed book at times. Check out our discussion of the issue with philosopher and academic Amna Whiston in The Research Beat podcast!

Step 5: Submitting Your Paper

As we’ve already pointed out, one of the key elements in how to publish a research paper is ensuring that you meticulously follow the journal’s submission guidelines. Strive to comply with all formatting requirements, including citation styles, font, margins, and reference structure.

Before the final submission, thoroughly proofread your paper for errors, including grammar, spelling, and any inconsistencies in your data or analysis. At this stage, consider seeking feedback from colleagues or mentors to further improve the quality of your paper.

Step 6: Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper

Rejection is a common part of the publishing process, but it shouldn’t discourage you. Analyse reviewer comments objectively and focus on the constructive feedback provided. Make necessary revisions and improvements to your paper to address the concerns raised by reviewers. If needed, consider submitting your paper to a different journal that is a better fit for your research.

For more tips on how to publish your paper out there, check out this thread by Dr. Asad Naveed ( @dr_asadnaveed ) – and if you need a refresher on the basics of how to publish under the Open Access model, watch this 5-minute video from Audemic Academy !

Final Thoughts

Successfully understanding how to publish a research paper requires dedication, attention to detail, and a systematic approach. By following the advice in our guide, you can increase your chances of navigating the publishing process effectively and achieving your goal of publication.

Remember, the journey may involve revisions, peer feedback, and potential rejections, but each step is an opportunity for growth and improvement. Stay persistent, maintain a positive mindset, and continue to refine your research paper until it reaches the standards of your target journal. Your contribution to your wider discipline through published research will not only advance your career, but also add to the growing body of collective knowledge in your field. Embrace the challenges and rewards that come with the publication process, and may your research paper make a significant impact in your area of study!

Looking for inspiration for your next big paper? Head to Audemic , where you can organise and listen to all the best and latest research in your field!

Keep striving, researchers! ✨

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Home » How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide

How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide

Table of Contents

Publishing a research paper is an important step for researchers to disseminate their findings to a wider audience and contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their field. Whether you are a graduate student, a postdoctoral fellow, or an established researcher, publishing a paper requires careful planning, rigorous research, and clear writing. In this process, you will need to identify a research question , conduct a thorough literature review , design a methodology, analyze data, and draw conclusions. Additionally, you will need to consider the appropriate journals or conferences to submit your work to and adhere to their guidelines for formatting and submission. In this article, we will discuss some ways to publish your Research Paper.

How to Publish a Research Paper

To Publish a Research Paper follow the guide below:

• Conduct original research : Conduct thorough research on a specific topic or problem. Collect data, analyze it, and draw conclusions based on your findings.
• Write the paper : Write a detailed paper describing your research. It should include an abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
• Choose a suitable journal or conference : Look for a journal or conference that specializes in your research area. You can check their submission guidelines to ensure your paper meets their requirements.
• Prepare your submission: Follow the guidelines and prepare your submission, including the paper, abstract, cover letter, and any other required documents.
• Submit the paper: Submit your paper online through the journal or conference website. Make sure you meet the submission deadline.
• Peer-review process : Your paper will be reviewed by experts in the field who will provide feedback on the quality of your research, methodology, and conclusions.
• Revisions : Based on the feedback you receive, revise your paper and resubmit it.
• Acceptance : Once your paper is accepted, you will receive a notification from the journal or conference. You may need to make final revisions before the paper is published.
• Publication : Your paper will be published online or in print. You can also promote your work through social media or other channels to increase its visibility.

How to Choose Journal for Research Paper Publication

Here are some steps to follow to help you select an appropriate journal:

• Identify your research topic and audience : Your research topic and intended audience should guide your choice of journal. Identify the key journals in your field of research and read the scope and aim of the journal to determine if your paper is a good fit.
• Analyze the journal’s impact and reputation : Check the impact factor and ranking of the journal, as well as its acceptance rate and citation frequency. A high-impact journal can give your paper more visibility and credibility.
• Consider the journal’s publication policies : Look for the journal’s publication policies such as the word count limit, formatting requirements, open access options, and submission fees. Make sure that you can comply with the requirements and that the journal is in line with your publication goals.
• Look at recent publications : Review recent issues of the journal to evaluate whether your paper would fit in with the journal’s current content and style.
• Seek advice from colleagues and mentors: Ask for recommendations and suggestions from your colleagues and mentors in your field, especially those who have experience publishing in the same or similar journals.
• Be prepared to make changes : Be prepared to revise your paper according to the requirements and guidelines of the chosen journal. It is also important to be open to feedback from the editor and reviewers.

List of Journals for Research Paper Publications

There are thousands of academic journals covering various fields of research. Here are some of the most popular ones, categorized by field:

General/Multidisciplinary

• Nature: https://www.nature.com/
• Science: https://www.sciencemag.org/
• PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): https://www.pnas.org/
• The Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/
• JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama

Social Sciences/Humanities

• Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/psp
• Journal of Consumer Research: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/jcr
• Journal of Educational Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/edu
• Journal of Applied Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/apl
• Journal of Communication: https://academic.oup.com/joc
• American Journal of Political Science: https://ajps.org/
• Journal of International Business Studies: https://www.jibs.net/
• Journal of Marketing Research: https://www.ama.org/journal-of-marketing-research/

Natural Sciences

• Journal of Biological Chemistry: https://www.jbc.org/
• Cell: https://www.cell.com/
• Science Advances: https://advances.sciencemag.org/
• Chemical Reviews: https://pubs.acs.org/journal/chreay
• Angewandte Chemie: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15213765
• Physical Review Letters: https://journals.aps.org/prl/
• Journal of Geophysical Research: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/2156531X
• Journal of High Energy Physics: https://link.springer.com/journal/13130

Engineering/Technology

• IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=5962385
• IEEE Transactions on Power Systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=59
• IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=42
• IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=87
• Journal of Engineering Mechanics: https://ascelibrary.org/journal/jenmdt
• Journal of Materials Science: https://www.springer.com/journal/10853
• Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/jcej
• Journal of Mechanical Design: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/mechanicaldesign

Medical/Health Sciences

• New England Journal of Medicine: https://www.nejm.org/
• The BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal): https://www.bmj.com/
• Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama
• Annals of Internal Medicine: https://www.acpjournals.org/journal/aim
• American Journal of Epidemiology: https://academic.oup.com/aje
• Journal of Clinical Oncology: https://ascopubs.org/journal/jco
• Journal of Infectious Diseases: https://academic.oup.com/jid

List of Conferences for Research Paper Publications

There are many conferences that accept research papers for publication. The specific conferences you should consider will depend on your field of research. Here are some suggestions for conferences in a few different fields:

Computer Science and Information Technology:

• IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM): https://www.ieee-infocom.org/
• ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Data Communication: https://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/
• IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP): https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP/
• ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS): https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/
• ACM Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI): https://chi2022.acm.org/

Engineering:

• IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA): https://www.ieee-icra.org/
• International Conference on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (ICMAE): http://www.icmae.org/
• International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering (ICCEE): http://www.iccee.org/
• International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE): http://www.icmse.org/
• International Conference on Energy and Power Engineering (ICEPE): http://www.icepe.org/

Natural Sciences:

• American Chemical Society National Meeting & Exposition: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/meetings/national-meeting.html
• American Physical Society March Meeting: https://www.aps.org/meetings/march/
• International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology (ICEST): http://www.icest.org/
• International Conference on Natural Science and Environment (ICNSE): http://www.icnse.org/
• International Conference on Life Science and Biological Engineering (LSBE): http://www.lsbe.org/

Social Sciences:

• Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA): https://www.asanet.org/annual-meeting-2022
• International Conference on Social Science and Humanities (ICSSH): http://www.icssh.org/
• International Conference on Psychology and Behavioral Sciences (ICPBS): http://www.icpbs.org/
• International Conference on Education and Social Science (ICESS): http://www.icess.org/
• International Conference on Management and Information Science (ICMIS): http://www.icmis.org/

How to Publish a Research Paper in Journal

Publishing a research paper in a journal is a crucial step in disseminating scientific knowledge and contributing to the field. Here are the general steps to follow:

• Choose a research topic : Select a topic of your interest and identify a research question or problem that you want to investigate. Conduct a literature review to identify the gaps in the existing knowledge that your research will address.
• Conduct research : Develop a research plan and methodology to collect data and conduct experiments. Collect and analyze data to draw conclusions that address the research question.
• Write a paper: Organize your findings into a well-structured paper with clear and concise language. Your paper should include an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. Use academic language and provide references for your sources.
• Choose a journal: Choose a journal that is relevant to your research topic and audience. Consider factors such as impact factor, acceptance rate, and the reputation of the journal.
• Follow journal guidelines : Review the submission guidelines and formatting requirements of the journal. Follow the guidelines carefully to ensure that your paper meets the journal’s requirements.
• Submit your paper : Submit your paper to the journal through the online submission system or by email. Include a cover letter that briefly explains the significance of your research and why it is suitable for the journal.
• Wait for reviews: Your paper will be reviewed by experts in the field. Be prepared to address their comments and make revisions to your paper.
• Revise and resubmit: Make revisions to your paper based on the reviewers’ comments and resubmit it to the journal. If your paper is accepted, congratulations! If not, consider revising and submitting it to another journal.
• Address reviewer comments : Reviewers may provide comments and suggestions for revisions to your paper. Address these comments carefully and thoughtfully to improve the quality of your paper.
• Submit the final version: Once your revisions are complete, submit the final version of your paper to the journal. Be sure to follow any additional formatting guidelines and requirements provided by the journal.
• Publication : If your paper is accepted, it will be published in the journal. Some journals provide online publication while others may publish a print version. Be sure to cite your published paper in future research and communicate your findings to the scientific community.

How to Publish a Research Paper for Students

Here are some steps you can follow to publish a research paper as an Under Graduate or a High School Student:

• Select a topic: Choose a topic that is relevant and interesting to you, and that you have a good understanding of.
• Conduct research : Gather information and data on your chosen topic through research, experiments, surveys, or other means.
• Write the paper : Start with an outline, then write the introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion sections of the paper. Be sure to follow any guidelines provided by your instructor or the journal you plan to submit to.
• Edit and revise: Review your paper for errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Ask a peer or mentor to review your paper and provide feedback for improvement.
• Choose a journal : Look for journals that publish papers in your field of study and that are appropriate for your level of research. Some popular journals for students include PLOS ONE, Nature, and Science.
• Submit the paper: Follow the submission guidelines for the journal you choose, which typically include a cover letter, abstract, and formatting requirements. Be prepared to wait several weeks to months for a response.
• Address feedback : If your paper is accepted with revisions, address the feedback from the reviewers and resubmit your paper. If your paper is rejected, review the feedback and consider revising and resubmitting to a different journal.

How to Publish a Research Paper for Free

Publishing a research paper for free can be challenging, but it is possible. Here are some steps you can take to publish your research paper for free:

• Choose a suitable open-access journal: Look for open-access journals that are relevant to your research area. Open-access journals allow readers to access your paper without charge, so your work will be more widely available.
• Check the journal’s reputation : Before submitting your paper, ensure that the journal is reputable by checking its impact factor, publication history, and editorial board.
• Follow the submission guidelines : Every journal has specific guidelines for submitting papers. Make sure to follow these guidelines carefully to increase the chances of acceptance.
• Submit your paper : Once you have completed your research paper, submit it to the journal following their submission guidelines.
• Wait for the review process: Your paper will undergo a peer-review process, where experts in your field will evaluate your work. Be patient during this process, as it can take several weeks or even months.
• Revise your paper : If your paper is rejected, don’t be discouraged. Revise your paper based on the feedback you receive from the reviewers and submit it to another open-access journal.
• Promote your research: Once your paper is published, promote it on social media and other online platforms. This will increase the visibility of your work and help it reach a wider audience.

Journals and Conferences for Free Research Paper publications

Here are the websites of the open-access journals and conferences mentioned:

Open-Access Journals:

• PLOS ONE – https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
• BMC Research Notes – https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/
• Frontiers in… – https://www.frontiersin.org/
• Journal of Open Research Software – https://openresearchsoftware.metajnl.com/
• PeerJ – https://peerj.com/

Conferences:

• IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) – https://globecom2022.ieee-globecom.org/
• IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) – https://infocom2022.ieee-infocom.org/
• IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) – https://www.ieee-icdm.org/
• ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) – https://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/
• ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) – https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2022/

Importance of Research Paper Publication

Research paper publication is important for several reasons, both for individual researchers and for the scientific community as a whole. Here are some reasons why:

• Advancing scientific knowledge : Research papers provide a platform for researchers to present their findings and contribute to the body of knowledge in their field. These papers often contain novel ideas, experimental data, and analyses that can help to advance scientific understanding.
• Building a research career : Publishing research papers is an essential component of building a successful research career. Researchers are often evaluated based on the number and quality of their publications, and having a strong publication record can increase one’s chances of securing funding, tenure, or a promotion.
• Peer review and quality control: Publication in a peer-reviewed journal means that the research has been scrutinized by other experts in the field. This peer review process helps to ensure the quality and validity of the research findings.
• Recognition and visibility : Publishing a research paper can bring recognition and visibility to the researchers and their work. It can lead to invitations to speak at conferences, collaborations with other researchers, and media coverage.
• Impact on society : Research papers can have a significant impact on society by informing policy decisions, guiding clinical practice, and advancing technological innovation.

Advantages of Research Paper Publication

There are several advantages to publishing a research paper, including:

• Recognition: Publishing a research paper allows researchers to gain recognition for their work, both within their field and in the academic community as a whole. This can lead to new collaborations, invitations to conferences, and other opportunities to share their research with a wider audience.
• Career advancement : A strong publication record can be an important factor in career advancement, particularly in academia. Publishing research papers can help researchers secure funding, grants, and promotions.
• Dissemination of knowledge : Research papers are an important way to share new findings and ideas with the broader scientific community. By publishing their research, scientists can contribute to the collective body of knowledge in their field and help advance scientific understanding.
• Feedback and peer review : Publishing a research paper allows other experts in the field to provide feedback on the research, which can help improve the quality of the work and identify potential flaws or limitations. Peer review also helps ensure that research is accurate and reliable.
• Citation and impact : Published research papers can be cited by other researchers, which can help increase the impact and visibility of the research. High citation rates can also help establish a researcher’s reputation and credibility within their field.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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How to Write and Publish Your Research in a Journal

Last Updated: February 26, 2024 Fact Checked

Choosing a Journal

Writing the research paper, editing & revising your paper, submitting your paper, navigating the peer review process, research paper help.

This article was co-authored by Matthew Snipp, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Cheyenne Main . C. Matthew Snipp is the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He is also the Director for the Institute for Research in the Social Science’s Secure Data Center. He has been a Research Fellow at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has published 3 books and over 70 articles and book chapters on demography, economic development, poverty and unemployment. He is also currently serving on the National Institute of Child Health and Development’s Population Science Subcommittee. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 699,151 times.

Publishing a research paper in a peer-reviewed journal allows you to network with other scholars, get your name and work into circulation, and further refine your ideas and research. Before submitting your paper, make sure it reflects all the work you’ve done and have several people read over it and make comments. Keep reading to learn how you can choose a journal, prepare your work for publication, submit it, and revise it after you get a response back.

Things You Should Know

• Create a list of journals you’d like to publish your work in and choose one that best aligns with your topic and your desired audience.
• Prepare your manuscript using the journal’s requirements and ask at least 2 professors or supervisors to review your paper.
• Write a cover letter that “sells” your manuscript, says how your research adds to your field and explains why you chose the specific journal you’re submitting to.

• Ask your professors or supervisors for well-respected journals that they’ve had good experiences publishing with and that they read regularly.
• Many journals also only accept specific formats, so by choosing a journal before you start, you can write your article to their specifications and increase your chances of being accepted.
• If you’ve already written a paper you’d like to publish, consider whether your research directly relates to a hot topic or area of research in the journals you’re looking into.

• Review the journal’s peer review policies and submission process to see if you’re comfortable creating or adjusting your work according to their standards.
• Open-access journals can increase your readership because anyone can access them.

• Scientific research papers: Instead of a “thesis,” you might write a “research objective” instead. This is where you state the purpose of your research.
• “This paper explores how George Washington’s experiences as a young officer may have shaped his views during difficult circumstances as a commanding officer.”
• “This paper contends that George Washington’s experiences as a young officer on the 1750s Pennsylvania frontier directly impacted his relationship with his Continental Army troops during the harsh winter at Valley Forge.”

• Scientific research papers: Include a “materials and methods” section with the step-by-step process you followed and the materials you used. [5] X Research source
• Read other research papers in your field to see how they’re written. Their format, writing style, subject matter, and vocabulary can help guide your own paper. [6] X Research source

• If you’re writing about George Washington’s experiences as a young officer, you might emphasize how this research changes our perspective of the first president of the U.S.
• Link this section to your thesis or research objective.
• If you’re writing a paper about ADHD, you might discuss other applications for your research.

• Scientific research papers: You might include your research and/or analytical methods, your main findings or results, and the significance or implications of your research.
• Try to get as many people as you can to read over your abstract and provide feedback before you submit your paper to a journal.

• They might also provide templates to help you structure your manuscript according to their specific guidelines. [11] X Research source

• Not all journal reviewers will be experts on your specific topic, so a non-expert “outsider’s perspective” can be valuable.

• If you have a paper on the purification of wastewater with fungi, you might use both the words “fungi” and “mushrooms.”
• Use software like iThenticate, Turnitin, or PlagScan to check for similarities between the submitted article and published material available online. [15] X Research source

• Header: Address the editor who will be reviewing your manuscript by their name, include the date of submission, and the journal you are submitting to.
• First paragraph: Include the title of your manuscript, the type of paper it is (like review, research, or case study), and the research question you wanted to answer and why.
• Second paragraph: Explain what was done in your research, your main findings, and why they are significant to your field.
• Third paragraph: Explain why the journal’s readers would be interested in your work and why your results are important to your field.
• Conclusion: State the author(s) and any journal requirements that your work complies with (like ethical standards”).
• “We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal.”
• “All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to [insert the name of the target journal].”

• Submit your article to only one journal at a time.
• When submitting online, use your university email account. This connects you with a scholarly institution, which can add credibility to your work.

• Accept: Only minor adjustments are needed, based on the provided feedback by the reviewers. A first submission will rarely be accepted without any changes needed.
• Revise and Resubmit: Changes are needed before publication can be considered, but the journal is still very interested in your work.
• Reject and Resubmit: Extensive revisions are needed. Your work may not be acceptable for this journal, but they might also accept it if significant changes are made.
• Reject: The paper isn’t and won’t be suitable for this publication, but that doesn’t mean it might not work for another journal.

• Try organizing the reviewer comments by how easy it is to address them. That way, you can break your revisions down into more manageable parts.
• If you disagree with a comment made by a reviewer, try to provide an evidence-based explanation when you resubmit your paper.

• If you’re resubmitting your paper to the same journal, include a point-by-point response paper that talks about how you addressed all of the reviewers’ comments in your revision. [22] X Research source
• If you’re not sure which journal to submit to next, you might be able to ask the journal editor which publications they recommend.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• If reviewers suspect that your submitted manuscript plagiarizes another work, they may refer to a Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowchart to see how to move forward. [23] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• ↑ https://www.wiley.com/en-us/network/publishing/research-publishing/choosing-a-journal/6-steps-to-choosing-the-right-journal-for-your-research-infographic
• ↑ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z
• ↑ https://libguides.unomaha.edu/c.php?g=100510&p=651627
• ↑ http://www.canberra.edu.au/library/start-your-research/research_help/publishing-research
• ↑ https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/conclusions
• ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/writing-an-abstract-for-your-research-paper/
• ↑ https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/book-authors-editors/your-publication-journey/manuscript-preparation
• ↑ https://apus.libanswers.com/writing/faq/2391
• ↑ https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/library/keyword/search-strategy
• ↑ https://ifis.libguides.com/journal-publishing-guide/submitting-your-paper
• ↑ https://www.springer.com/kr/authors-editors/authorandreviewertutorials/submitting-to-a-journal-and-peer-review/cover-letters/10285574
• ↑ http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep02/publish.aspx
• ↑ Matthew Snipp, PhD. Research Fellow, U.S. Bureau of the Census. Expert Interview. 26 March 2020.

About This Article

To publish a research paper, ask a colleague or professor to review your paper and give you feedback. Once you've revised your work, familiarize yourself with different academic journals so that you can choose the publication that best suits your paper. Make sure to look at the "Author's Guide" so you can format your paper according to the guidelines for that publication. Then, submit your paper and don't get discouraged if it is not accepted right away. You may need to revise your paper and try again. To learn about the different responses you might get from journals, see our reviewer's explanation below. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper in 7 Steps

What comes next after you're done with your research? Publishing the results in a journal of course! We tell you how to present your work in the best way possible.

This post is part of a series, which serves to provide hands-on information and resources for authors and editors.

Things have gotten busy in scholarly publishing: These days, a new article gets published in the 50,000 most important peer-reviewed journals every few seconds, while each one takes on average 40 minutes to read. Hundreds of thousands of papers reach the desks of editors and reviewers worldwide each year and 50% of all submissions end up rejected at some stage.

In a nutshell: there is a lot of competition, and the people who decide upon the fate of your manuscript are short on time and overworked. But there are ways to make their lives a little easier and improve your own chances of getting your work published!

Well, it may seem obvious, but before submitting an academic paper, always make sure that it is an excellent reflection of the research you have done and that you present it in the most professional way possible. Incomplete or poorly presented manuscripts can create a great deal of frustration and annoyance for editors who probably won’t even bother wasting the time of the reviewers!

This post will discuss 7 steps to the successful publication of your research paper:

• Check whether your research is publication-ready
• Choose an article type
• Choose a journal
• Construct your paper
• Decide the order of authors
• Check and double-check
• Submit your paper

1. Check Whether Your Research Is Publication-Ready

Should you publish your research at all?

If your work holds academic value – of course – a well-written scholarly article could open doors to your research community. However, if you are not yet sure, whether your research is ready for publication, here are some key questions to ask yourself depending on your field of expertise:

• Have you done or found something new and interesting? Something unique?
• Is the work directly related to a current hot topic?
• Have you checked the latest results or research in the field?
• Have you provided solutions to any difficult problems?
• Have the findings been verified?
• Have the appropriate controls been performed if required?
• Are your findings comprehensive?

If the answers to all relevant questions are “yes”, you need to prepare a good, strong manuscript. Remember, a research paper is only useful if it is clearly understood, reproducible and if it is read and used .

2. Choose An Article Type

The first step is to determine which type of paper is most appropriate for your work and what you want to achieve. The following list contains the most important, usually peer-reviewed article types in the natural sciences:

Full original research papers disseminate completed research findings. On average this type of paper is 8-10 pages long, contains five figures, and 25-30 references. Full original research papers are an important part of the process when developing your career.

Review papers present a critical synthesis of a specific research topic. These papers are usually much longer than original papers and will contain numerous references. More often than not, they will be commissioned by journal editors. Reviews present an excellent way to solidify your research career.

Letters, Rapid or Short Communications are often published for the quick and early communication of significant and original advances. They are much shorter than full articles and usually limited in length by the journal. Journals specifically dedicated to short communications or letters are also published in some fields. In these the authors can present short preliminary findings before developing a full-length paper.

3. Choose a Journal

Are you looking for the right place to publish your paper? Find out here whether a De Gruyter journal might be the right fit.

Submit to journals that you already read, that you have a good feel for. If you do so, you will have a better appreciation of both its culture and the requirements of the editors and reviewers.

Other factors to consider are:

• The specific subject area
• The aims and scope of the journal
• The type of manuscript you have written
• The significance of your work
• The reputation of the journal
• The reputation of the editors within the community
• The editorial/review and production speeds of the journal
• The community served by the journal
• The coverage and distribution
• The accessibility ( open access vs. closed access)

4. Construct Your Paper

Each element of a paper has its purpose, so you should make these sections easy to index and search.

Don’t forget that requirements can differ highly per publication, so always make sure to apply a journal’s specific instructions – or guide – for authors to your manuscript, even to the first draft (text layout, paper citation, nomenclature, figures and table, etc.) It will save you time, and the editor’s.

Also, even in these days of Internet-based publishing, space is still at a premium, so be as concise as possible. As a good journalist would say: “Never use three words when one will do!”

Let’s look at the typical structure of a full research paper, but bear in mind certain subject disciplines may have their own specific requirements so check the instructions for authors on the journal’s home page.

4.1 The Title

It’s important to use the title to tell the reader what your paper is all about! You want to attract their attention, a bit like a newspaper headline does. Be specific and to the point. Keep it informative and concise, and avoid jargon and abbreviations (unless they are universally recognized like DNA, for example).

4.2 The Abstract

This could be termed as the “advertisement” for your article. Make it interesting and easily understood without the reader having to read the whole article. Be accurate and specific, and keep it as brief and concise as possible. Some journals (particularly in the medical fields) will ask you to structure the abstract in distinct, labeled sections, which makes it even more accessible.

A clear abstract will influence whether or not your work is considered and whether an editor should invest more time on it or send it for review.

4.3 Keywords

Keywords are used by abstracting and indexing services, such as PubMed and Web of Science. They are the labels of your manuscript, which make it “searchable” online by other researchers.

Include words or phrases (usually 4-8) that are closely related to your topic but not “too niche” for anyone to find them. Make sure to only use established abbreviations. Think about what scientific terms and its variations your potential readers are likely to use and search for. You can also do a test run of your selected keywords in one of the common academic search engines. Do similar articles to your own appear? Yes? Then that’s a good sign.

4.4 Introduction

This first part of the main text should introduce the problem, as well as any existing solutions you are aware of and the main limitations. Also, state what you hope to achieve with your research.

Do not confuse the introduction with the results, discussion or conclusion.

4.5 Methods

Every research article should include a detailed Methods section (also referred to as “Materials and Methods”) to provide the reader with enough information to be able to judge whether the study is valid and reproducible.

Include detailed information so that a knowledgeable reader can reproduce the experiment. However, use references and supplementary materials to indicate previously published procedures.

4.6 Results

In this section, you will present the essential or primary results of your study. To display them in a comprehensible way, you should use subheadings as well as illustrations such as figures, graphs, tables and photos, as appropriate.

4.7 Discussion

Here you should tell your readers what the results mean .

Do state how the results relate to the study’s aims and hypotheses and how the findings relate to those of other studies. Explain all possible interpretations of your findings and the study’s limitations.

Do not make “grand statements” that are not supported by the data. Also, do not introduce any new results or terms. Moreover, do not ignore work that conflicts or disagrees with your findings. Instead …

Be brave! Address conflicting study results and convince the reader you are the one who is correct.

4.8 Conclusion

Your conclusion isn’t just a summary of what you’ve already written. It should take your paper one step further and answer any unresolved questions.

Sum up what you have shown in your study and indicate possible applications and extensions. The main question your conclusion should answer is: What do my results mean for the research field and my community?

4.9 Acknowledgments and Ethical Statements

It is extremely important to acknowledge anyone who has helped you with your paper, including researchers who supplied materials or reagents (e.g. vectors or antibodies); and anyone who helped with the writing or English, or offered critical comments about the content.

Learn more about academic integrity in our blog post “Scholarly Publication Ethics: 4 Common Mistakes You Want To Avoid” .

Remember to state why people have been acknowledged and ask their permission . Ensure that you acknowledge sources of funding, including any grant or reference numbers.

Furthermore, if you have worked with animals or humans, you need to include information about the ethical approval of your study and, if applicable, whether informed consent was given. Also, state whether you have any competing interests regarding the study (e.g. because of financial or personal relationships.)

4.10 References

The end is in sight, but don’t relax just yet!

De facto, there are often more mistakes in the references than in any other part of the manuscript. It is also one of the most annoying and time-consuming problems for editors.

Remember to cite the main scientific publications on which your work is based. But do not inflate the manuscript with too many references. Avoid excessive – and especially unnecessary – self-citations. Also, avoid excessive citations of publications from the same institute or region.

5. Decide the Order of Authors

In the sciences, the most common way to order the names of the authors is by relative contribution.

Generally, the first author conducts and/or supervises the data analysis and the proper presentation and interpretation of the results. They put the paper together and usually submit the paper to the journal.

Co-authors make intellectual contributions to the data analysis and contribute to data interpretation. They review each paper draft. All of them must be able to present the paper and its results, as well as to defend the implications and discuss study limitations.

Do not leave out authors who should be included or add “gift authors”, i.e. authors who did not contribute significantly.

6. Check and Double-Check

As a final step before submission, ask colleagues to read your work and be constructively critical .

Make sure that the paper is appropriate for the journal – take a last look at their aims and scope. Check if all of the requirements in the instructions for authors are met.

Ensure that the cited literature is balanced. Are the aims, purpose and significance of the results clear?

Conduct a final check for language, either by a native English speaker or an editing service.

7. Submit Your Paper

When you and your co-authors have double-, triple-, quadruple-checked the manuscript: submit it via e-mail or online submission system. Along with your manuscript, submit a cover letter, which highlights the reasons why your paper would appeal to the journal and which ensures that you have received approval of all authors for submission.

It is up to the editors and the peer-reviewers now to provide you with their (ideally constructive and helpful) comments and feedback. Time to take a breather!

If the paper gets rejected, do not despair – it happens to literally everybody. If the journal suggests major or minor revisions, take the chance to provide a thorough response and make improvements as you see fit. If the paper gets accepted, congrats!

It’s now time to get writing and share your hard work – good luck!

If you are interested, check out this related blog post

[Title Image by Nick Morrison via Unsplash]

David Sleeman

David Sleeman worked as Senior Journals Manager in the field of Physical Sciences at De Gruyter.

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9 Steps To Publish A Research Paper

Researchers and scholars undertake academic studies to advance knowledge in their respective fields of study. To this end, they also focus on getting their work published in high-impact and widely read journals. This helps them to highlight and disseminate their work, be known in their respective fields, and grow professionally in their careers.

However, the process of publishing a research paper can be challenging and time-consuming. It requires careful planning, attention to detail, and the ability to receive feedback constructively. In this blog, we outline nine steps to publish research papers successfully in high-impact journals and help researchers contribute to their fields of study.

9 Steps to Publish Research Papers Successfully

Publishing a well-written research paper can be confusing. To achieve a successful publication within a reasonable timeframe, researchers must grasp the intricacies of the publication process outlined below:

• Finalize your research topic:  A contemporary research topic, reflecting current challenges and trends in your respective field of study, is an aspect that you can seriously consider while finalizing your topic. 
• Choose the right journal and article type:  It is crucial to identify early on the most appropriate journal for your research paper. This will save considerable time and effort and increase the likelihood of its acceptance. Discussing with peers and colleagues in the field who have authored and reviewed articles will undoubtedly be helpful. Review the aims, objectives, and scope of the journal and its area of specialization to assess if your research conforms to the necessary guidelines. Consider also the peer review process, the impact factor of the journal and the time taken to publish an article. Depending on the nature of your work, also decide on the type of article relevant to your work, which may be a completely original research paper, review paper or letter, rapid or short communication. 
• Write, format, and refine your paper for submission: Even before starting to write the paper , go through the author guidelines and formatting style followed by the journal. This will make the writing process easier. Structure the article according to the type of article you are writing. Going through the published articles in the target journal will also help you in the process. A standard structure for a research paper needs to have the title, abstract, keywords, introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgements, and references. 
• Prepare required documents like a cover letter and declaration of conflicts of interest:  When you submit your manuscript, a cover letter is a must. It should highlight the central theme of your paper and the significance of your study. Further, clearly state that you comply with all basic requirements and declare any or no potential conflict of interest that could arise. 
• Check that your work is complete and submission-ready.  Read your work several times to identify any gaps and ambiguities. Review your work for innovativeness, rigour, and contribution to topical issues in the field. Seek feedback from supervisors and peers. 
• Submit your manuscript to your chosen journal : Re-check the paper to ensure that there are no errors in grammar, wording, sentence construction, or formatting and that there is consistency in formatting. Professional proofreading is important in this regard. Check if there is a logical flow of arguments and that any images or graphs used are easy to understand and clear. Ensure that all co-authors have reviewed and approved the paper for submission. 
• Tackle post-submission revisions (including peer review comments):  Nearly all papers submitted to journals undergo a peer review process, which ensures the quality of the papers published in the journal. The reviewers may provide comments and suggestions to strengthen your paper. Review the reviewer’s comments carefully and make sure to respond to each one. Aim to send your responses using the timeline given by the journal editors. 
• Revise and resubmit the manuscript (responding to peer review comments):  It is essential to approach the comments as constructive criticism. Remember to be polite and respectful in your response. Make sure to provide a detailed response on how you have addressed each comment by the reviewers. If you do not agree with any comment, always respond professionally with care; avoid getting into a personal attack. Give a detailed explanation of your arguments. Resubmit the revised manuscript highlighting all the modifications carried out based on the comments by the reviewers. Along with the manuscript, provide a letter stating the author’s responses and that they have addressed the comments by the editor and the reviewers. 
• Get accepted for journal publication:  Once the revisions are made to the satisfaction of the editor and reviewers, the paper is accepted for publication. If your paper is rejected, make the necessary revisions and send it to the journal of your second choice. 

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• 10-Point Manuscript Checklist to Ensure High-Quality Journal Submissions 
• Research Paper Writing: A 15-Point Academic Writing Checklist
• How to Write a Research Paper Introduction (with Examples)
• How to Write a Conclusion for Research Papers (with Examples)

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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal

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• Published: 30 April 2020
• Volume 36 , pages 909–913, ( 2021 )

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• Clara Busse   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0178-1000 1 &
• Ella August   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5151-1036 1 , 2  

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Communicating research findings is an essential step in the research process. Often, peer-reviewed journals are the forum for such communication, yet many researchers are never taught how to write a publishable scientific paper. In this article, we explain the basic structure of a scientific paper and describe the information that should be included in each section. We also identify common pitfalls for each section and recommend strategies to avoid them. Further, we give advice about target journal selection and authorship. In the online resource 1 , we provide an example of a high-quality scientific paper, with annotations identifying the elements we describe in this article.

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Introduction

Writing a scientific paper is an important component of the research process, yet researchers often receive little formal training in scientific writing. This is especially true in low-resource settings. In this article, we explain why choosing a target journal is important, give advice about authorship, provide a basic structure for writing each section of a scientific paper, and describe common pitfalls and recommendations for each section. In the online resource 1 , we also include an annotated journal article that identifies the key elements and writing approaches that we detail here. Before you begin your research, make sure you have ethical clearance from all relevant ethical review boards.

Select a Target Journal Early in the Writing Process

We recommend that you select a “target journal” early in the writing process; a “target journal” is the journal to which you plan to submit your paper. Each journal has a set of core readers and you should tailor your writing to this readership. For example, if you plan to submit a manuscript about vaping during pregnancy to a pregnancy-focused journal, you will need to explain what vaping is because readers of this journal may not have a background in this topic. However, if you were to submit that same article to a tobacco journal, you would not need to provide as much background information about vaping.

Information about a journal’s core readership can be found on its website, usually in a section called “About this journal” or something similar. For example, the Journal of Cancer Education presents such information on the “Aims and Scope” page of its website, which can be found here: https://www.springer.com/journal/13187/aims-and-scope .

Peer reviewer guidelines from your target journal are an additional resource that can help you tailor your writing to the journal and provide additional advice about crafting an effective article [ 1 ]. These are not always available, but it is worth a quick web search to find out.

Identify Author Roles Early in the Process

Early in the writing process, identify authors, determine the order of authors, and discuss the responsibilities of each author. Standard author responsibilities have been identified by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) [ 2 ]. To set clear expectations about each team member’s responsibilities and prevent errors in communication, we also suggest outlining more detailed roles, such as who will draft each section of the manuscript, write the abstract, submit the paper electronically, serve as corresponding author, and write the cover letter. It is best to formalize this agreement in writing after discussing it, circulating the document to the author team for approval. We suggest creating a title page on which all authors are listed in the agreed-upon order. It may be necessary to adjust authorship roles and order during the development of the paper. If a new author order is agreed upon, be sure to update the title page in the manuscript draft.

In the case where multiple papers will result from a single study, authors should discuss who will author each paper. Additionally, authors should agree on a deadline for each paper and the lead author should take responsibility for producing an initial draft by this deadline.

Structure of the Introduction Section

The introduction section should be approximately three to five paragraphs in length. Look at examples from your target journal to decide the appropriate length. This section should include the elements shown in Fig.  1 . Begin with a general context, narrowing to the specific focus of the paper. Include five main elements: why your research is important, what is already known about the topic, the “gap” or what is not yet known about the topic, why it is important to learn the new information that your research adds, and the specific research aim(s) that your paper addresses. Your research aim should address the gap you identified. Be sure to add enough background information to enable readers to understand your study. Table 1 provides common introduction section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

The main elements of the introduction section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap

Methods Section

The purpose of the methods section is twofold: to explain how the study was done in enough detail to enable its replication and to provide enough contextual detail to enable readers to understand and interpret the results. In general, the essential elements of a methods section are the following: a description of the setting and participants, the study design and timing, the recruitment and sampling, the data collection process, the dataset, the dependent and independent variables, the covariates, the analytic approach for each research objective, and the ethical approval. The hallmark of an exemplary methods section is the justification of why each method was used. Table 2 provides common methods section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Results Section

The focus of the results section should be associations, or lack thereof, rather than statistical tests. Two considerations should guide your writing here. First, the results should present answers to each part of the research aim. Second, return to the methods section to ensure that the analysis and variables for each result have been explained.

Begin the results section by describing the number of participants in the final sample and details such as the number who were approached to participate, the proportion who were eligible and who enrolled, and the number of participants who dropped out. The next part of the results should describe the participant characteristics. After that, you may organize your results by the aim or by putting the most exciting results first. Do not forget to report your non-significant associations. These are still findings.

Tables and figures capture the reader’s attention and efficiently communicate your main findings [ 3 ]. Each table and figure should have a clear message and should complement, rather than repeat, the text. Tables and figures should communicate all salient details necessary for a reader to understand the findings without consulting the text. Include information on comparisons and tests, as well as information about the sample and timing of the study in the title, legend, or in a footnote. Note that figures are often more visually interesting than tables, so if it is feasible to make a figure, make a figure. To avoid confusing the reader, either avoid abbreviations in tables and figures, or define them in a footnote. Note that there should not be citations in the results section and you should not interpret results here. Table 3 provides common results section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Discussion Section

Opposite the introduction section, the discussion should take the form of a right-side-up triangle beginning with interpretation of your results and moving to general implications (Fig.  2 ). This section typically begins with a restatement of the main findings, which can usually be accomplished with a few carefully-crafted sentences.

Major elements of the discussion section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap

Next, interpret the meaning or explain the significance of your results, lifting the reader’s gaze from the study’s specific findings to more general applications. Then, compare these study findings with other research. Are these findings in agreement or disagreement with those from other studies? Does this study impart additional nuance to well-accepted theories? Situate your findings within the broader context of scientific literature, then explain the pathways or mechanisms that might give rise to, or explain, the results.

Journals vary in their approach to strengths and limitations sections: some are embedded paragraphs within the discussion section, while some mandate separate section headings. Keep in mind that every study has strengths and limitations. Candidly reporting yours helps readers to correctly interpret your research findings.

The next element of the discussion is a summary of the potential impacts and applications of the research. Should these results be used to optimally design an intervention? Does the work have implications for clinical protocols or public policy? These considerations will help the reader to further grasp the possible impacts of the presented work.

Finally, the discussion should conclude with specific suggestions for future work. Here, you have an opportunity to illuminate specific gaps in the literature that compel further study. Avoid the phrase “future research is necessary” because the recommendation is too general to be helpful to readers. Instead, provide substantive and specific recommendations for future studies. Table 4 provides common discussion section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Follow the Journal’s Author Guidelines

After you select a target journal, identify the journal’s author guidelines to guide the formatting of your manuscript and references. Author guidelines will often (but not always) include instructions for titles, cover letters, and other components of a manuscript submission. Read the guidelines carefully. If you do not follow the guidelines, your article will be sent back to you.

Finally, do not submit your paper to more than one journal at a time. Even if this is not explicitly stated in the author guidelines of your target journal, it is considered inappropriate and unprofessional.

Your title should invite readers to continue reading beyond the first page [ 4 , 5 ]. It should be informative and interesting. Consider describing the independent and dependent variables, the population and setting, the study design, the timing, and even the main result in your title. Because the focus of the paper can change as you write and revise, we recommend you wait until you have finished writing your paper before composing the title.

Be sure that the title is useful for potential readers searching for your topic. The keywords you select should complement those in your title to maximize the likelihood that a researcher will find your paper through a database search. Avoid using abbreviations in your title unless they are very well known, such as SNP, because it is more likely that someone will use a complete word rather than an abbreviation as a search term to help readers find your paper.

After you have written a complete draft, use the checklist (Fig. 3 ) below to guide your revisions and editing. Additional resources are available on writing the abstract and citing references [ 5 ]. When you feel that your work is ready, ask a trusted colleague or two to read the work and provide informal feedback. The box below provides a checklist that summarizes the key points offered in this article.

Checklist for manuscript quality

Data Availability

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Vetto JT (2014) Short and sweet: a short course on concise medical writing. J Cancer Educ 29(1):194–195

Brett M, Kording K (2017) Ten simple rules for structuring papers. PLoS ComputBiol. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005619

Lang TA (2017) Writing a better research article. J Public Health Emerg. https://doi.org/10.21037/jphe.2017.11.06

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Acknowledgments

Ella August is grateful to the Sustainable Sciences Institute for mentoring her in training researchers on writing and publishing their research.

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Busse, C., August, E. How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal. J Canc Educ 36 , 909–913 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z

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• How to Publish a Research Paper: A Complete Guide
• Self Publishing Guide

Read:  Learn How to Write & Craft a Compelling Villain for Your Story.

• Step 1: Identifying the Right Journal
• Step 2: Preparing Step 3: Your Manuscript

Step 3: Conducting a Thorough Review

Step 4: Writing a Compelling Cover Letter

Step 5: Navigating the Peer Review Process

Step 6: Handling Rejections

Step 7: Preparing for Publication

Step 8: Promoting Your Published Paper

Step 1: Identifying the Right Journal 

The first step in publishing a research paper is crucial, as it sets the foundation for the entire publication process. Identifying the right journal involves carefully selecting a publication platform that aligns with your research topic, audience, and academic goals. Here are the key considerations to keep in mind during this step:

• Scope and Focus : Assess the scope and focus of your research to find journals that publish articles in your field of study. Look for journals that have previously published papers related to your topic or research area.
• Readership and Impact Factor : Consider the target audience of the journal and its readership. Higher-impact factor journals typically attract a broader readership and can enhance the visibility and credibility of your research.
• Publication Frequency : Investigate the publication frequency of the journal. Some journals publish issues monthly, quarterly, or annually. Choose a journal that aligns with your timeline for publication.
• Indexing and Reputation : Check if the journal is indexed in reputable databases, such as Scopus or PubMed. Indexed journals are more likely to be recognized and accessed by researchers worldwide.
• Journal Guidelines : Familiarise yourself with the journal’s submission guidelines, available on their website. Pay attention to manuscript length limits, reference styles, and formatting requirements.
• Open Access Options : Consider whether the journal offers open access publishing. Open-access journals allow unrestricted access to your paper, potentially increasing its visibility and impact.
• Ethical Considerations : Ensure the journal follows ethical publication practises and abides by industry standards. Verify if the journal is a member of reputable publishing organisations, such as COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics).
• Publication Fees : Check if the journal charges any publication fees or article processing charges (APCs). These fees can vary significantly among journals and may influence your decision.
• Target Audience : Consider the journal’s target audience and the level of technical detail appropriate for that audience. Some journals cater to a more specialised readership, while others aim for a broader appeal.
• Journal Reputation : Research the reputation of the journal within your academic community. Seek advice from colleagues or mentors who have published in similar journals.

By carefully considering these factors, you can make an informed decision on the most suitable journal for your research paper. Selecting the right journal increases your chances of acceptance and ensures that your work reaches the intended audience, contributing to the advancement of knowledge in your field.

Step 2: Preparing Your Manuscript

After identifying the appropriate journal, the next step is to prepare your manuscript for submission. This stage involves meticulous attention to detail and adherence to the journal’s specific author guidelines. Here’s a comprehensive guide to preparing your manuscript:

• Read Author Guidelines : Carefully read and understand the journal’s author guidelines, which are available on the journal’s website. The guidelines provide instructions on manuscript preparation, the submission process, and formatting requirements.
• Manuscript Structure : Follow the standard structure for a research paper, including the abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion sections. Ensure that each section is clear and well-organised.
• Title and Abstract : Craft a concise and informative title that reflects the main focus of your research. The abstract should provide a summary of your study’s objectives, methods, results, and conclusions.
• Introduction : The introduction should introduce the research problem, provide context, and state the research objectives or questions. Engage readers by highlighting the significance of your research.
• Methodology : Describe the research design, data collection methods, and data analysis techniques used in your study. Provide sufficient detail to enable other researchers to replicate your study.
• Results : Present your findings in a clear and logical manner. Use tables, graphs, and figures to enhance the presentation of data. Avoid interpreting the results in this section.
• Discussion : Analyse and interpret your results in the discussion section. Relate your findings to the research objectives and previously published literature. Discuss the implications of your results and any limitations of your study.
• Conclusion : In the conclusion, summarise the key findings of your research and restate their significance. Avoid introducing new information in this section.
• Citations and References : Cite all sources accurately and consistently throughout the manuscript. Follow the journal’s preferred citation style, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago.
• Proofreading and Editing : Thoroughly proofread your manuscript to correct any grammatical errors, typos, or inconsistencies. Edit for clarity, conciseness, and logical flow.
• Figures and Tables : Ensure that all figures and tables are clear, properly labelled, and cited in the main text. Follow the journal’s guidelines for the formatting of figures and tables.
• Ethical Considerations : Include any necessary statements regarding ethical approval, conflicts of interest, or data availability, as required by the journal.

By meticulously preparing your manuscript and adhering to the journal’s guidelines, you increase the likelihood of a successful submission. A well-structured and polished manuscript enhances the readability and impact of your research, ultimately increasing your chances of acceptance for publication.

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The process of conducting a thorough review of your research paper is a critical step in the publication journey. This step ensures that your work is polished, accurate, and ready for submission to a journal. A well-reviewed paper increases the chances of acceptance and demonstrates your commitment to producing high-quality research. Here are the key aspects to consider during the review process:

• Grammatical Errors and Typos : Start by carefully proofreading your paper for any grammatical errors, typos, or spelling mistakes. Even minor errors can undermine the credibility of your research and distract readers from your main points. Use grammar-checking tools, but also read your paper line by line to catch any issues that zated tools might miss.
• Consistency and Clarity : Ensure that your writing is consistent throughout the paper. Check that you have used the same terminology, abbreviations, and formatting consistently. Additionally, pay attention to sentence structure and coherence, making sure that each paragraph flows logically into the next.
• Accuracy of Data, Graphs, and Tables : Review all the data presented in your research, including figures, graphs, and tables. Verify that the data is accurate, correctly labelled, and represented in a clear and understandable manner. Any errors in data representation can lead to misinterpretations and undermine the reliability of your findings.
• Citation and Referencing : Verify that all the sources you have cited are accurate and properly formatted according to the citation style required by the target journal. Missing or incorrect citations can lead to accusations of plagiarism and harm the integrity of your work.
• Addressing Feedback : If you have received feedback from colleagues, mentors, or peer reviewers during the pre-submission process, carefully consider their suggestions and address any concerns raised. Engaging with feedback shows your willingness to improve and strengthen your paper.
• Objective Evaluation : Try to read your paper with a critical eye, as if you were a reviewer assessing its merits. Identify any weaknesses or areas that could be improved, both in terms of content and presentation. Be open to rewriting or restructuring sections that could benefit from further clarity or depth.
• Seek Feedback : To ensure the highest quality, seek feedback from colleagues or mentors who are knowledgeable in your research field. They can provide valuable insights and offer suggestions for improvement. Peer review can identify blind spots and help you refine your arguments.
• Formatting and Guidelines : Review the journal’s specific formatting and submission guidelines. Adhering to these requirements demonstrates your attention to detail and increases the likelihood of acceptance.

In conclusion, conducting a thorough review of your research paper is an essential step before submission. It involves checking for grammatical errors, ensuring clarity and consistency, verifying data accuracy, addressing feedback, and seeking external input. A well-reviewed paper enhances its chances of publication and contributes to the overall credibility of your research.

The cover letter is your opportunity to make a strong first impression on the journal’s editor and to persuade them that your research paper is a valuable contribution to their publication. It serves as a bridge between your work and the editor, highlighting the significance and originality of your study and explaining why it is a good fit for the journal. Here are the key elements to include in a compelling cover letter:

• Introduction : Start the letter with a professional and cordial greeting, addressing the editor by their name if possible. Introduce yourself and provide your affiliation, including your academic title and institution. Mention the title of your research paper and its co-authors, if any.
• Brief Summary of Research : Provide a concise and compelling summary of your research. Clearly state the research question or problem you addressed, the methodology you employed, and your main findings. Emphasise the significance of your research and its potential impact on the field.
• Highlight Originality : Explain what sets your study apart from existing research in the field. Highlight the original contributions your paper makes, whether it’s a novel approach, new insights, or addressing a gap in the literature. Demonstrating the novelty of your work will capture the editor’s attention.
• Fit with the Journal : Explain why your research is a good fit for the target journal. Refer to recent articles published in the journal that are related to your topic and discuss how your research complements or extends those works. Aligning your paper with the journal’s scope and objectives enhances your chances of acceptance.
• Addressing Specific Points : If the journal’s author guidelines include specific requirements, address them in your cover letter. This shows that you have read and followed their guidelines carefully. For example, if the journal requires you to highlight the practical implications of your research, briefly mention these in your letter.
• Previous Engagement : If you have presented your research at a conference, workshop, or seminar, or if it has been previously reviewed (e.g., as a preprint), mention it in the cover letter. This indicates that your work has already undergone some scrutiny and may strengthen its appeal to the journal.
• Declaration of Originality : State that the paper is original, has not been published elsewhere, and is not under simultaneous consideration by any other publication. This declaration reassures the editor that your work meets the journal’s submission policies.
• Contact Information : Provide your contact details, including email and phone number, and express your willingness to address any queries or provide additional information if needed.
• Expression of Gratitude : Thank the editor for their time and consideration in reviewing your submission.

In conclusion, a well-crafted cover letter complements your research paper and convinces the journal’s editor of the significance and originality of your work. It should provide a succinct overview of your research, highlight its relevance to the journal’s scope, and address any specific points raised in the author guidelines. A compelling cover letter increases the likelihood of your paper being seriously considered for publication.

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The peer review process is a crucial step in scholarly publishing, designed to ensure the quality, accuracy, and validity of research papers before they are accepted for publication. After you submit your manuscript to a journal, it is sent to peer reviewers who are experts in your field. These reviewers carefully assess your work, providing feedback and recommendations to the editor. Navigating the peer review process requires patience, open-mindedness, and a willingness to engage constructively with reviewers. Here’s a detailed explanation of this step:

• Submission and Assignment : Once you submit your paper, the journal’s editorial team performs an initial screening to check if it aligns with the journal’s scope and guidelines. If it does, the editor assigns peer reviewers who have expertise in the subject matter of your research.
• Reviewing Process : The peer reviewers evaluate your paper’s methodology, data analysis, conclusions, and overall contribution to the field. They may assess the clarity of your writing, the strength of your arguments, and the relevance of your findings. Reviewers also look for potential flaws or limitations in your study.
• Reviewer Feedback : After the reviewers have thoroughly examined your paper, they provide feedback to the editor. The feedback usually falls into three categories: acceptance, revision, or rejection. In the case of a revision, reviewers may specify the changes they believe are necessary for the paper to meet the journal’s standards.
• Editor’s Decision : Based on the reviewers’ feedback, the editor makes a decision about your paper. The decision could be acceptance, conditional acceptance pending minor revisions, major revisions, or rejection. Even if your paper is rejected, remember that the peer review process provides valuable feedback that can help improve your research.
• Responding to Reviewer Comments : If your paper requires revisions, carefully read the reviewer comments and suggestions. Address each comment in a respectful and diligent manner, providing clear responses and incorporating the necessary changes into your manuscript.
• Revised Manuscript Submission : Submit the revised version of your paper along with a detailed response to the reviewers’ comments. Explain the changes you made and how you addressed their concerns. This demonstrates your commitment to enhancing the quality of your research.
• Reiteration of the Review Process : Depending on the revisions, the editor may send your paper back to the same reviewers or to new reviewers for a second round of evaluation. This process continues until the paper is either accepted for publication or deemed unsuitable for the journal.
• Acceptance and Publication : If your paper successfully navigates the peer review process and meets the journal’s standards, it will be accepted for publication. Congratulations on reaching this milestone!

In conclusion, the peer review process is an essential part of academic publishing. It involves expert evaluation of your research by peers in the field, who provide valuable feedback to improve the quality and rigour of your paper. Embrace the feedback with an open mind, respond diligently to reviewer comments, and be patient during the review process. Navigating peer review is a collaborative effort to ensure that only high-quality and significant research contributes to the scholarly community.

Receiving a rejection of your research paper can be disheartening, but it is a common and normal part of the publication process. It’s important to remember that rejection does not necessarily reflect the quality of your work; many groundbreaking studies have faced rejection before finding the right publication platform. Handling rejections requires resilience, a growth mindset, and the willingness to learn from the feedback. Here’s a comprehensive explanation of this step:

• Understanding the Decision : When you receive a rejection, take the time to carefully read the editor’s decision letter and the feedback provided by the peer reviewers. Understand the reasons for the rejection and the specific concerns raised about your paper.
• Embrace Constructive Feedback : Peer reviewer comments can provide valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your research. Embrace the feedback constructively, recognising that it presents an opportunity to improve your work.
• Assessing Revisions : If the decision letter includes suggestions for revisions, carefully consider whether you agree with them. Evaluate if implementing these revisions aligns with your research goals and the core message of your paper.
• Revising the Manuscript : If you decide to make revisions based on the feedback, thoroughly address the reviewer’s comments and consider making any necessary improvements to your research. Pay close attention to the areas identified by the reviewers as needing improvement.
• Resubmission or Alternative Journals : After revising your manuscript, you have the option to either resubmit it to the same journal (if allowed) or consider submitting it to a different journal. If you choose the latter, ensure that the new journal aligns with your research topic and scope.
• Tailoring the Submission : When submitting to a different journal, tailor your manuscript and cover letter to fit the specific requirements and preferences of that journal. Highlight the relevance of your research to the journal’s readership and address any unique guidelines they have.
• Don’t Lose Hope : Rejections are a natural part of the publication process, and many researchers face them at some point in their careers. It is essential not to lose hope and to remain persistent in pursuing publication opportunities.
• Learn and Improve : Use the feedback from the rejection as a learning experience. Identify areas for improvement in your research, writing, and presentation. This will help you grow as a researcher and improve your chances of acceptance in the future.
• Seek Support and Guidance : If you are struggling to navigate the publication process or interpret reviewer comments, seek support from colleagues, mentors, or academic advisors. Their insights can provide valuable guidance and encouragement.

In conclusion, handling rejections is a normal part of the publication journey. Approach rejection with a growth mindset, embracing the feedback provided by reviewers as an opportunity to improve your research. Revise your manuscript diligently, and consider submitting it to other journals that align with your research. Remember that persistence, learning from feedback, and seeking support are key to achieving success in the scholarly publishing process.

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After successfully navigating the peer review process and receiving acceptance for your research paper, you are one step closer to seeing your work published in a reputable journal. However, before your paper can be published, you need to prepare it for production according to the journal’s specific requirements. This step is essential to ensuring that your paper meets the journal’s formatting and style guidelines and is ready for dissemination to the academic community. Here’s a comprehensive explanation of this step:

• Reviewing the Acceptance Letter : Start by carefully reviewing the acceptance letter from the journal’s editor. This letter will outline any final comments or suggestions from the reviewers that need to be addressed before publication.
• Addressing Reviewer Comments : If there are any outstanding revisions or clarifications requested by the reviewers, address them promptly and thoroughly. Reviewer feedback plays a crucial role in enhancing the quality and clarity of your paper, so it’s essential to give each comment due attention.
• Adhering to Journal Guidelines : Familiarise yourself with the journal’s production requirements and guidelines for formatting, referencing, and figure preparation. Ensure that your paper adheres to these guidelines to avoid delays in the publication process.
• Finalising the Manuscript : Once all revisions have been made and the paper aligns with the journal’s requirements, finalise your manuscript. Carefully proofread the entire paper to catch any remaining grammatical errors or typos.
• Handling Permissions and Copyright : If your paper includes copyrighted material (e.g., figures, tables, or excerpts from other publications), obtain permission from the original copyright holders to reproduce that content in your paper. This is crucial to avoid potential copyright infringement issues.
• Completing Authorship and Affiliation Details : Verify that all authors’ names, affiliations, and contact information are accurate and consistent. Ensure that the corresponding author is clearly identified for communication with the journal during the publication process.
• Submitting the Final Manuscript : Follow the journal’s instructions to submit the final version of your manuscript along with any required supplementary materials. This may include high-resolution figures, data sets, or additional supporting information.
• Waiting for Publication : After submitting the final version, the journal’s production team will work on typesetting, formatting, and preparing your paper for publication. This process may take some time, depending on the journal’s workflow and schedule.
• Proofing and Corrections : Once the typeset proof is ready, carefully review it for any formatting errors or typographical mistakes. Respond to the journal promptly with any necessary corrections or clarifications.
• Copyright Transfer : If required by the journal, complete the copyright transfer agreement, granting the publisher the right to publish and distribute your work.
• Publication Date and DOI : Your paper will be assigned a publication date and a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), a unique alphanumeric string that provides a permanent link to your paper, making it easily accessible and citable.

In conclusion, preparing your research paper for publication involves carefully addressing reviewer comments, adhering to journal guidelines, handling permissions and copyright issues, and submitting the final version for production. Thoroughly reviewing and finalising your paper will ensure its readiness for dissemination to the academic community.

Congratulations on successfully publishing your research paper! Now, it’s time to promote your work to reach a broader audience and increase its visibility within the academic and research communities. Effective promotion can lead to more citations, recognition, and potential collaborations. Here’s a comprehensive explanation of this step:

• Share on Social Media : Utilise social media platforms to announce the publication of your paper. Share the title, abstract, and a link to the paper on your professional profiles, such as  LinkedIn ,  Twitter , or  ResearchGate . Engage with your followers to generate interest and discussion.
• Collaborate with Colleagues : Collaborate with your co-authors and colleagues to promote the paper collectively. Encourage them to share the publication on their social media and academic networks. A collaborative effort can increase the paper’s visibility and reach.
• Academic Networks and Research Platforms : Upload your paper to academic networks and research platforms like Academia.edu, Mendeley, or Google Scholar. This allows other researchers to discover and cite your work more easily.
• Email and Newsletters : Inform your professional contacts and research network about the publication through email announcements or newsletters. Consider writing a brief summary of your paper’s key findings and significance to entice readers to access the full paper.
• Research Blog or Website : If you have a personal research blog or website, create a dedicated post announcing the publication. Provide a summary of your research and its implications in a reader-friendly format.
• Engage with the Academic Community : Participate in academic conferences, workshops, and seminars to present your research. Networking with other researchers and sharing your findings in person can create buzz around your paper.
• Press Releases : If your research has practical implications or societal relevance, consider working with your institution’s press office to issue a press release about your paper. This can attract media attention and increase public awareness.
• Academic and Research Forums : Engage in online academic and research forums to discuss your findings and share insights. Be active in relevant discussions to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
• Researcher Profiles : Keep your researcher profiles, such as those on Google Scholar, ORCID, and Scopus, updated with your latest publications. This ensures that your paper is indexed and visible to other researchers searching for related work.
• Altmetrics : Monitor the altmetrics of your paper to track its online attention, including mentions, downloads, and social media shares. Altmetrics provide additional metrics beyond traditional citations, giving you insights into your paper’s broader impact.
• Engage with Feedback : Respond to comments and questions from readers who engage with your paper. Engaging in scholarly discussions can further promote your work and demonstrate your expertise in the field.

In conclusion, promoting your published paper is an essential step to increasing its visibility, impact, and potential for further collaboration. Utilise social media, academic networks, collaborations with colleagues, and engagement with the academic community to create interest in your work. Effective promotion can lead to more citations and recognition, enhancing the overall impact of your research.

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Publishing a research paper is a rewarding experience that requires dedication, perseverance, and attention to detail. By following this essential guide, you can navigate the publication process successfully and contribute valuable knowledge to your field of study.

Remember, each publication is a stepping stone in your academic journey, and even rejections provide opportunities for growth. Embrace the process, continue refining your research, and celebrate your contributions to advancing scientific knowledge. Good luck on your journey to academic success!

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How to Write & Publish a Research Paper: Step-by-Step Guide

This guide is far more than a list of instructions on what to include in each section of your research paper. In fact, we will:

• Use a research paper I wrote specifically as an example to illustrate the key ideas in this guide ( link to the full-text PDF of the research paper ).
• Use real-world data (on 100,000 PubMed research papers) to show you how professional scientists write in practice, instead of presenting my own opinion on the subject.
• Provide practical tips on how to: improve your writing , find the right journal , and submit your article .

Let’s get started!

• Structure of a research paper
• Writing the Introduction section
• Writing the Methods section
• Writing the Results section
• Writing the Discussion section
• Writing the Abstract
• Writing the Title
• Writing optional sections
• Refining and improving your article
• Managing and formatting your References
• Submitting your article

1. Structure of a research paper

Most research papers follow the IMRaD structure that consists of 4 main sections:

• I ntroduction
• D iscussion

The paper also has some essential elements–Title, Abstract, and References–and may contain other optional sections–Conclusion, Acknowledgements, Funding, Conflicts of interest, and Appendix.

These sections often appear in the following order:

The advantages of following the IMRaD structure are:

• To make the paper easily scannable by readers (since most won’t read the entire manuscript.
• To avoid repeating the same information in different places.

To follow the IMRaD structure, you must learn what information goes where.

So, here’s an overview of what each of the main sections represents:

Together, these 4 sections start with the main topic of the paper and end up with a conclusion regarding that topic:

1.1. Where to start?

When writing a research paper, some people prefer to start with the Results section—since it comes out right from the data they just analyzed. Others start with the Methods section—since information about how they designed the study and analyzed the data is still fresh in their mind. Personally, I prefer to start with the Introduction section for 2 reasons:

• While doing a literature review for the introduction, sometimes I discover a problem in my approach or an interesting secondary objective that I did not think about, which as you can imagine, changes a lot of things in other sections of the article.
• I want to formulate the hypothesis before analyzing the data in order to avoid HARKing (Hypothesizing after the results are known) which is a major problem in statistics (see: 7 Tricks to Get Statistically Significant p-Values ).

2. Writing the Introduction section

The Introduction targets a non-specialized audience, so when writing it, make sure to use simple and beginner-friendly terms.

2.1. Length of the Introduction section

The introduction section should be:

• 400 to 760 words long (3 to 5 paragraphs).
• The shortest section of the article (half the length of the other sections: Methods, Results, and Discussion).

(These data are based on an analysis I made on 61,518 articles from PubMed )

2.2. Structure of the Introduction section

Here’s what you should include in the Introduction:

• Step #1: Describe the general context of your work (your aim should be to convince the reader that the topic of your research is interesting).
• Step #2: Summarize the results of previous studies on the topic (report what others have found and provide references. But don’t do an in-depth literature review, a short summary of these findings is enough).
• Step #3: Identify the gap , problem, or limitations of previous studies (find the missing pieces of the puzzle).
• Step #4: State your objective , hypothesis, question that you want to answer, or problem that you want to solve (make sure that the purpose of your study is clear and understandable, otherwise people won’t care about your results).
• Step #5: Present your solution : explain the approach you used to achieve the objective, explain what is different about it and what makes it special. Here you have to sell your approach. But keep it short (leave the details to the methods section).

2.3. Verb tense and voice in the Introduction section

Use the past tense for things that were already done and the present tense for things that continue to be true today.

For instance:

“Previous studies found that the rate of heart disease is increasing “.

“The goal of this study is to explore why the rate of heart disease increased in the past 10 years”.

You should write the Introduction using mainly the active voice.

“ A recent study found conflicting results”.

Should be favored over:

“ Conflicting results were recently found “.

2.4. Example: writing an Introduction section

In this section, we are going to verify that the Introduction section of our example article ( link to the full-text PDF ) follows the step-by-step structure discussed above. (The article studies the influence of title length on its attractiveness).

What follows is the Introduction of that article with the main steps highlighted:

INTRODUCTION

The role of a research title is to draw the reader’s attention while providing an overview of the article’s content. Finding a way to engage readers is important since only 18% of those who read the title proceed to read the abstract (Mabe and Amin, 2002).

Title attractiveness may be affected by its length; but studies on this subject have been inconsistent and sometimes contradictory (Subotic and Mukherjee, 2014; Letchford et al., 2015; Guo et al., 2018; Jacques and Sebire, 2010; Habibzadeh and Yadollahie, 2010; Stremersch et al., 2007; Falahati Qadimi Fumani et al., 2015). This may be due to bias and confounding since these studies did not follow a causal model to eliminate alternative explanations and indirect effects.

The confusion over the effect of title length led to a gap between what professional writers recommend and what researchers do in practice: while professionals recommend keeping titles as short as possible (Zeiger, 1999; Neill, 2007), in practice, titles are getting longer (Milojevi¢, 2017; Whissell, 2012) and more descriptive (mentioning the study objective, the variables involved, the main result, and the study design).

To help resolve this issue, the present study aims to quantify the direct influence of title length on its attractiveness by analyzing data on 9,830 biomedical research papers from PubMed and adjusting for confounding and indirect effects through the use of a causal diagram.

Writing is not just about following a series of rules: you should keep an eye on the flow of your story that ties your paragraphs together.

Here’s an overview of the story of our Introduction section:

3. Writing the Methods section

The Methods section is the recipe for the study: it should provide enough information to replicate the study without looking elsewhere (although most of those who read the Methods section will not be interested in replicating your study, instead they just want to make sure that your study is credible).

The Methods is the most technical section of the article. So, unlike the Introduction, don’t shy away from technical terms, since those who are not interested in such details will most likely skip this section.

3.1. Length of the Methods section

The Methods section should be:

• 760 to 1,620 words long (6 to 14 paragraphs).
• The same length as the Results or the Discussion, and about double the length of the Introduction.

(These data are based on an analysis I did on 61,514 articles from PubMed )

3.2. Structure of the Methods section

Here’s what you should include in the Methods section:

• The date and duration of the study.
• The sampling procedure.
• The assignment to different study groups.
• The source of the data.
• Any approval needed to conduct the study.
• Step#3: List the inclusion and exclusion criteria (i.e., the characteristics that participants must have to be included in the study).
• The reason behind choosing such procedure.
• The order in which things were done (a flow diagram can simplify the description of complex procedures).
• The calculation of the minimum sample size needed.
• The role of each variable (dependent, independent, or control variable).
• The methods used to address bias in the study.
• The methods used to handle missing data.
• The measures used to summarize the data.
• The type of statistical test or model you used to test your hypothesis and the threshold for statistical significance (don’t go into detail about obvious statistical tests or models, but advanced methods should be either described or referenced).
• The statistical software used [optional].

3.3. Verb tense and voice in the Methods section

Use the past tense (because the things you did took place in the past).

“The data were downloaded “.

“A linear regression model was used “.

Use the passive voice (to avoid repeating the pronouns: “I” or “We”).

“Variables were summarized using the mean and standard deviation”.

Instead of:

“I summarized the variables using the mean and standard deviation”.

3.4. Example: writing a Methods section

In this section, we are going to verify that the Methods section of our example article ( link to the full-text P D F ) follows the structure discussed above. (Remember that this article is about studying the influence of title length on its attractiveness).

What follows is the Methods section of this article with the main steps highlighted:

For this cross-sectional study, data were downloaded from PubMed Central in March 2021 using a web API created by Comeau et al. (2019). From a collection of about 3 million biomedical research articles from various journals, 105,984 were chosen at random from those uploaded between the years 2016 and 2021.

From these 105,984 articles, a total of 96,154 were discarded for incomplete data, leaving 9,830 articles ready for analysis (Figure 4). Reasons for discarding articles included: unavailable full text, unmentioned study design, missing impact factor of the journal in which the article was published, missing article DOI, and unavailable citation count.

To study the influence of title length on its attractiveness, and in order to avoid defining and measuring Title attractiveness , I substituted this variable with another closely related one: the Citation count for a given article; this can work provided that we block all alternative paths other than the direct effect of Title attractiveness on Citation count . Looking at the causal diagram in Figure 5, we notice that there is only one alternative path, and it can be blocked by adjusting for the Journal in which the article was published. Since the data contained articles from 1,040 different journals (and to avoid complicating the analysis by creating 1,039 dummy variables), I ended up adjusting for the Journal impact factor , a direct descendent of the deconfounding variable Journal , thus representing most of its effect.

To compute the direct causal effect of Title length on Title attractiveness , alternative explanations of the association between these two such as confounding and indirect effects must also be eliminated. From Figure 5, we see that this can be accomplished by adjusting for the Mention of study design in the title (a confounder) and the use of Comma in the title and Colon in the title (indirect effects).

After determining the variables that we want to adjust for, Poisson regression was used to compute the effect of Title length on Citation count . In our case, a Poisson model has 2 major advantages over linear regression: (1) it fits the data better, since counts follow a Poisson rather than a normal distribution, and (2) it accounts for different publication dates of different articles, which is important to offset the advantage of older articles regarding the time they had to collect citations (this can be accomplished by including Years since publication as an offset in the model).

The Poisson model described above can be summarized with the following equation:

log(Citation count) =β 0 + β 1 × Title length + β 2 × Journal impact factor + β 3 × Mention of study design in the title + β 4 × Comma in the title + β 5 × Colon in the title + log(Years since publication)

Variables in the model, such as Citation count , Title length , and Journal impact factor , were summarized using the median and the interquartile range (IQR), since they follow either a Poisson or a skewed non-normal distribution.

Note that in some cases, you will be forced to include some results in the Methods section. Although the research paper has a separate Results section (which we will discuss next), sometimes we include some results in the Methods section to justify the use of a certain material or method.

For example, in the Methods section above, in order to defend the use of the variable Journal impact factor instead of Journal , I ended up reporting the number of journals in the study (which is a number calculated from the data, so it normally belongs to the Results section):

“Since the data contained articles from 1,040 different journals (and to avoid complicating the analysis by creating 1,039 dummy variables), I ended up adjusting for the Journal impact factor, a direct descendent of the deconfounding variable Journal, thus representing most of its effect.”

4. Writing the Results section

In the Results section, you should describe and summarize your findings without explaining them (the interpretation should be left for the Discussion section).

4.1. Length of the Results section

The Results section should be:

• 610 to 1,660 words long (5 to 11 paragraphs).
• The same length as the Methods or the Discussion, and about double the length of the Introduction.

(These data are based on an analysis I did on 61,458 articles from PubMed )

4.2. Structure of the Results section

Here’s what you should include in the Results section:

• At each stage and for each group of the study, report the number of participants (if some were lost to follow-up, provide the reasons).
• Describe participants’ characteristics.
• Compare participants in different groups.
• Describe the main variables in the study.
• The statistical significance (the p-value).
• The precision (the 95% confidence interval).
• The practical significance (the effect size).

4.3. Using figures and tables

A table or a figure are useful to highlight important results or to represent a lot of numbers that, if reported in the text, can be unpleasant for the reader.

Here are a few rules regarding figures and tables:

• The supporting text should complement the table or figure but not repeat the same content.
• The table or figure should stand alone (i.e., the reader can understand it without referring to the text).
• No vertical lines.
• A line above the header row.
• A line below the header row.
• A line at the bottom of the table.
• No horizontal lines to separate data rows.

(Refer to the example below to see how your tables should look like)

4.4. Verb tense and voice in the Results section

Use the past tense for completed actions.

“In our sample of 9,830 articles, the median title length composed of 16 words (IQR = 6), had 2.2 yearly citations (IQR = 3.33), and was published in a journal with an impact factor of 2.74 (IQR = 1.67).”

Use the present tense for things that continue to be true today.

“The Poisson model shows a significant negative effect of longer titles on citation count.”

Use the active voice when possible.

4.5. Example: writing a Results section

In this section, we are going to verify that the Results section of our example article ( link to the full-text P D F ) follows the structure discussed above. (Remember that this article is about studying the influence of title length on its attractiveness).

What follows is the Results section of this article with the main steps highlighted:

In our sample of 9,830 articles, the median title composed of 16 words (IQR = 6), had 2.2 yearly citations (IQR = 3.33), and was published in a journal with an impact factor of 2.74 (IQR = 1.67). Also, 4,317 (43.9%) of titles contained at least one colon, 1,442 (14.7%) contained at least one comma, and 2,794 (28.4%) mentioned the study design.

The Poisson model shows a significant negative effect of longer titles on citation count (Table 2). Specifically, each additional word in the title causes a drop of 2.5% in the citation rate (95% confidence interval: [-2.7%, -2.3%]; p < 0.001). Equivalently, we can say that removing one word from the title causes an increase of 2.5% in the citation rate. To put that into perspective, removing one word from the title of the median article (that has 2.2 citations per year) causes a gain of 0.055 (= 2.2 × 0.025) citations per year, equivalent to 1 citation every 19 years.

5. Writing the Discussion section

In the Discussion section, you should explain the meaning of your results, their importance, and implications.

5.1. Length of the Discussion section

The Discussion section should be:

• 820 to 1,480 words long (5 to 9 paragraphs).
• The same length as the Methods or the Results, and about double the length of the Introduction.

(These data are based on an analysis I did on 61,517 articles from PubMed )

5.2. Structure of the Discussion section

Here’s what you should include in the Discussion section:

• Step #1: Answer the study objective (i.e., where the Introduction ended). Your first sentence can be: “We/I found that” , “This study shows/proves that” , etc.
• Explain its consequences.
• Comment on whether it supports or refutes your initial hypothesis (i.e., was this result expected or unexpected?).
• Compare it with the results of other studies (if they contradict each other: explain why, and suggest a way for further studies to resolve this contradiction).
• Then discuss your secondary finding (if you have any) by following the same steps as you did for the main finding.
• Step #3: Point out the strengths of your study (e.g., the use of a new and superior method, a larger sample size, etc.).
• How you addressed these limitations in your design and analysis (i.e., justify the methods used in your study).
• What future studies should do to address these limitations.
• Step #5: Conclude with a takeaway message that reminds the reader of your most important finding and its implications (this Conclusion paragraph is sometimes put in a separate section after the Discussion [for more information, see: Length of a Conclusion Section: Analysis of 47,810 Examples ]).

5.3. Verb tense and voice in the Discussion section

Use the past tense for completed actions. For instance:

“I found that…”.

Use the present tense for things that continue to be true today. For instance:

“This study shows that…”.

5.4. Example: writing a Discussion section

In this section, we are going to verify that the Discussion section of our example article ( link to the full-text PDF ) follows the structure discussed above. (Remember that this article is about studying the influence of title length on its attractiveness).

What follows is the Discussion section of this article with the main steps highlighted:

This study shows that shorter research titles are more engaging by proving that they attract more citations. However, this effect, although statistically significant, is practically negligible since removing one word from a title will attract, on average, a single additional citation every 19 years–so I would not recommend shortening research titles as a strategy for increasing the citation count.

Previous studies on the subject reported conflicting results for articles in different disciplines since they did not use a causal approach to control bias and confounding. For instance, they found that shorter titles attracted more citations in psychology (Subotic and Mukherjee, 2014) and general scientific research (Letchford et al., 2015), but less in economics (Guo et al., 2018) and medicine (Jacques and Sebire, 2010; Habibzadeh and Yadollahie, 2010), and had no effect in marketing research (Stremersch et al., 2007) and scientometrics (Falahati Qadimi Fumani et al., 2015). What distinguishes the present study was the use of a causal diagram to identify and block alternative paths between title length and citation count, removing all but the causal explanation of any association between the two.

However, there are some limitations: (1) the 3 million biomedical research articles that are freely available on PubMed Central from which our sample was drawn may not accurately represent all published articles—thus introducing selection bias; (2) adjusting for the journal impact factor instead of the journal itself (to reduce model complexity) may have resulted in some residual confounding; and (3) the general approach taken to adjust for bias and confounding using a causal diagram (Figure 5) created based on my understanding of the subject may have incorporated an element of subjectivity into the analysis. Future studies can address these issues by: (1) collecting data on articles from different disciplines (to increase the result’s generalizability), (2) including a larger number of articles from each journal (to enable adjusting for Journal instead of Journal impact factor ), and (3) validating, either theoretically or analytically, the structure of the causal diagram (to reduce subjectivity).

Finally, this study proves that shortening a research title is not an effective strategy for earning more citations. Yet, writing shorter titles may still have other benefits, such as: getting more reads on Mendeley (Zahedi and Haustein, 2018; Didegah and Thelwall, 2013), tweets (Haustein et al., 2015), appearances in social media in general (Zagovora et al., 2018), and avoiding truncation when they appear on the results page of an online search engine like Google.

6. Writing the Abstract

The Abstract is a summary of the article.

6.1. Length of the Abstract

The Abstract should be 220 to 320 words long (1 to 4 paragraphs).

(These data are based on an analysis I did on 61,429 articles from PubMed )

6.2. Structure of the Abstract

In the Abstract, you should provide a summary of each section of your paper (It can be divided into subheadings, if the journal allows it):

• Step #1: Start with a one sentence introduction to the subject.
• Step #2: Mention the study objective .
• Step #3: Summarize the Methods section .
• Step #4: Highlight key results in numbers (including data is important for researchers who want to cite your article based only on the Abstract).
• Step #5: End with a one sentence conclusion (i.e., skip the detailed discussion of the results and go straight to the takeaway message).

6.3. Example: writing an Abstract

In this section, we are going to verify that the Abstract of our example article ( link to the full-text PDF ) follows the structure discussed above. (Remember that this article is about studying the influence of title length on its attractiveness).

What follows is the Abstract of this article with the main steps highlighted:

Attractive titles are expected to drive more reads and thus more citations to a research article, so studying the effect of title length on its attractiveness can be reduced to analyzing its influence on the citation count. Previous studies on the subject showed conflicting results that are probably attributable to bias and confounding, since they mostly focused on predicting citation count based on title length instead of using a causal model to explain the relationship between the two. The present study aims to quantify the direct influence of title length on its attractiveness guided by a causal diagram to identify and eliminate alternative explanations such as indirect effects and confounding. The study used data on 9,830 biomedical research articles from PubMed Central, downloaded through an API created by Comeau and colleagues. Poisson regression modeled the citation rate as a function of title length, adjusting for mediators of indirect effects—such as the use of a comma and a colon in the title—and confounders—such as the journal impact factor and the mention of study design in the title. The model shows that each word removed from the title increases the citation rate by 2.5%. This means that, for the median article that receives 2.2 citations per year, each word removed from the title causes a gain of 0.055 citations per year, equivalent to 1 citation every 19 years. Although statistically significant, this effect is practically negligible—so shortening a research title is not an effective strategy for earning more citations.

7. Writing the Title

The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first. Blaise Pascal

The Title’s role is to describe the content of the article and attract people to read it. Remember that only 18% of those who read the title proceed to read the Abstract [Source: Mabe and Amin, 2002 ].

7.1. Length of the Title

The Title should be 11 to 18 words long (80 to 129 characters).

Keep your Title as short as possible, since:

• Google shows only the first 60 characters of titles in their results page, so longer titles will be truncated when they appear in Google search.
• High-impact journals tend to publish articles with short titles.

(These data are based on an analysis I did on 104,161 titles from PubMed )

7.2. Structure of the Title

The Title should:

• Mention the central question or the purpose of the study (including important variables).
• Be front loaded : this means that the keywords should be close to the beginning of the title (remember that readers are scanning the title and they want to determine as fast as possible if they are interested in your article).
• Have a meaningful short version . For those searching online, Google will show them only the first 60 characters of your title and the rest is truncated. So, make sure to pack enough information in this part for users to be able to judge whether they want to click it.
• Mention the study design [optional].
• Avoid abbreviations and jargon . For instance: “ The effects of having CVD on the psychological status “ should be replaced by “Psychological effects of cardiovascular disease” .

7.3. Example: writing a Title

The following figure shows how the Title of our example article follows the structure discussed above:

8. Writing optional sections

8.1. writing the acknowledgement section.

In this section, you should acknowledge any significant technical contribution, permission, advice, suggestion, or comment you received.

“I would like to thank Prof. John for assistance with choosing an appropriate study design”.

“Thanks are due to all the hospital crew members who contributed their time and effort to make the data collection feasible in the shortest time possible”.

8.2. Writing the Funding section

In this section, you should provide the sources of funding, or the sources of the equipment and materials used in the study, and the role of funders.

“The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication of this article”.

“This work was supported by [name of the funder, and grant number]”.

8.3. Writing the Conflicts of Interest section

In this section, you should state if you have any direct or indirect competing interests that may have influenced the outcome of the study, such as: financial, work, personal, or religious interests.

“The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest”.

“The corresponding author was a former employee in company X that sells the main product used in this study”.

8.4. Writing the Appendix

In this section, you should provide supplementary information that was too large to be included in the main text, such as: data, questionnaires, and additional details on the materials and methods used.

9. Refining and improving your article

The following is a list of useful tips to improve your writing:

• Avoid jargon , be concise, and focus on saving your readers’ time. The truth is that nobody enjoys reading, if readers can download information into their brain, they would!
• Assume that your readers are beginners : so, use terms that are easy to understand.
• Avoid acronyms when possible.
• You don’t know the subject.
• You don’t want to repeat the pronouns ”I” or ”We” in many places in the same paragraph (although it would be fine to use them sparingly, see: ”I” & ”We” in Academic Writing: Examples from 9,830 Studies ).
• You want to emphasize what was done instead of who did it (especially in the Methods section).
• To maintain the flow of ideas (for more information, see the video lecture by Steven Pinker below).
• Write short sentences and paragraphs : each paragraph should be between 2 and 6 sentences long (65 to 167 words), and should cover a single topic. (For more information, see: Paragraph Length: Data from 9,830 Research Papers )
• Get rid of hedge words : e.g. ”These results might suggest that a fair amount of x is suspected to have a meaningful impact on y” . These make you sound hesitant or unsure about what you are talking about.
• Avoid using “They” or “Their” when the subject is singular . For a gender-neutral language, revise the sentence to make the subject plural. For instance, use: “Participants were assigned according to their choosing” instead of “Each participant was assigned according to their choosing” .

For more writing tips, I highly recommend this lecture by Steven Pinker:

10. Managing and formatting your References

When it comes to references, you should:

• Cite between 25 and 56 references overall (approximately 1 reference for every 95 words or 4 sentences) [Source: How Many References Should a Research Paper Have? Study of 96,685 Articles ].
• Aim to find those published within the past 13 years [Source: How Old Should Your Article References Be? Based on 3,823,919 Examples ].
• Cite the original source, not secondary sources.
• Cite research papers and books instead of websites and videos (unless these contained original data not available elsewhere).
• Use a citation management software to collect and organize your references. I recommend Zotero® since it is free, easy to learn, and has a lot of tutorials online.

11. Submitting your article

Here’s a step-by-step description of how to find a journal and submit your article:

• Go to: The Directory of Open Access Journals (This is a database of 17,614 journals that publish open-access articles–i.e., if you publish in these journals, your article’s full-text will be available for free to your readers).
• Under SEE JOURNALS, select: Without article processing charges in order to exclude journal where you have to pay to publish your article.
• Under SUBJECTS, choose: the domain that is closest to the topic of your article.
• Under LANGUAGES, select: English.
• Select a journal from the suggested list.
• Go to the journal’s website, look for their “Instructions for authors”, and format your article accordingly.
• Sign-up to their website and submit your article.

Once your article is submitted, the editor takes a look at it and may:

• The topic of your article is not interesting for the journal’s audience.
• Your work is not important enough to be published in that journal.
• Rejected: In this case, you have to send your article to another journal (don’t get discouraged by rejection, sometimes important articles get rejected).
• Rejected, but can be resubmitted after making some major changes suggested by the reviewers (for instance, expanding, deleting, or re-writing major parts of the article): in this case, you can either revise and resubmit, or look for another journal.
• Accepted, but needs minor changes.
• Accepted (without the need for changes).

When you want to revise and resubmit your article, you should prepare 2 things:

• A revised manuscript with all the modifications you made highlighted (to make it easy for the reviewers to see what you changed).
• A response for the reviewers where you address their comments point by point: you can either agree or disagree with their recommendations (but, in case you disagree, you should explain the reason).

Once your paper is accepted, you will get a final version formatted in the journal’s style. Be careful to look for errors before you accept this final version.

Further reading

• How Long Should a Research Paper Be? Data from 61,519 Examples
• Can a Research Title Be a Question? Real-World Examples
• Statistical Software Popularity in 40,582 Research Papers

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Expert Commentary

White papers, working papers, preprints, journal articles: What’s the difference?

In this updated piece, we explain the most common types of research papers journalists will encounter, noting their strengths and weaknesses.

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .

by Denise-Marie Ordway, The Journalist's Resource February 25, 2022

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/media/working-papers-research-articles/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

This tip sheet, originally published in May 2018, has been updated to include preprint research, a type of research featured often in news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

Journalists rely most often on four types of research in their work. White papers, working papers, preprints and peer-reviewed journal articles.

How are they different? And which is best?

Below, we explain each, pointing out its strengths and weaknesses. As always, we urge journalists to use care in selecting any research to ground their coverage and fact-check claims.

Peer-reviewed article

Peer-reviewed research — the kind that appears in academic journals and that we highlight here at The Journalist’s Resource — has undergone a detailed critique by scholars with expertise in the field. While peer-reviewed research is generally the most reliable, journalists should keep in mind that publication in a prestigious journal is no guarantee of quality and that no single university or research organization always does the best research on a given topic.

It is safe to assume, however, that articles published in top-tier journals have been reviewed and given a stamp of approval by a number of accomplished scholars. For journalists who are uncertain, we’ve put together a list of 13 questions  to ask to gauge the quality of a research article.

Keep in mind that not everything that appears in a scholarly journal has been peer reviewed. Journals publish various types of content, including book reviews, editorials, letters to the editor and, sometimes, even poetry.

Working paper

This broad category describes research papers that have not been peer reviewed or published in a journal. Working papers can be in various stages of completion. One might be ready for publication in a prestigious journal while another requires significant editing and other changes that could actually alter its main findings. Sometimes, working paper findings are so preliminary, authors will advise against citing their work .

Even so, working papers are a great way for journalists to gain access to new research quickly. The peer-review and publication process can take months to a year or longer, which means that by the time studies get published, their findings are sometimes not as useful or the data are old.

In choosing working papers, journalists should communicate with scholars about the progress of their research and how confident they are in their findings. It’s a good idea to seek corroboration from peer-reviewed research and to ask other researchers for help assessing a study.

A preprint is similar to a working paper in that it has not been vetted through a formal peer-review process. However, preprints tend to be more complete . Also, preprints submitted to public servers such as the Social Science Research Network and the health sciences server medRxiv get a cursory screening before they’re published online for public view.

Preprints, like academic journal articles, are assigned a Digital Object Identifier , or DOI, and become a permanent part of the scientific record.

White paper

A white paper is a report, often compiled by government agencies, businesses and nonprofit organizations, that outlines an issue and often explores possible solutions to a problem. For example, in November 2021, the federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services released a white paper looking at factors that help or hinder law enforcement recruitment of Black Americans. Earlier in the year, the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center published a white paper on the American Rescue Plan ‘s widespread implications for government agencies.

In the business world, white papers also are used for marketing purposes — to describe a new product or approach, for instance, or diagnose a problem.

While a white paper can help journalists get up to speed quickly on an issue, it’s important to note some white papers advocate a specific position or policy change. Some rely on incomplete research or research that has not been peer reviewed.

Looking for more guidance on writing about research? Check out our tip sheets on covering biomedical research preprints amid the coronavirus and what journalists should know about peer review .

The Journalist’s Resource would like to thank Matthew Baum , the Marvin Kalb professor of global communications and professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, for his help preparing this tip sheet.

About The Author

Denise-Marie Ordway

High School Guide: How to Publish a Research Paper in 5 Easy Steps

Indigo Research Team

We understand how overwhelming the idea of publishing research as a high schooler may seem. It’s true, that the process of submitting and publishing a paper can be very complex and daunting. It needs a lot of preparation and perseverance.

However, publishing research increasingly becomes the " gold " that a college Admission Officer is looking for. Publication in leading journals, like Concord Review, or International Journal for High School Students can showcase your ability and determination to a college admission officer when you apply for college.

Although it seems complicated, worry not! We’ll simplify the steps for you.

‍ This article will break down 5 steps on how to publish a research paper.

1. Find the Right Mentor for Your Research Purposes

Can you write a research paper on your own? Yes, you can. But, it would be extremely difficult. Finding the perfect mentor is key to having a smooth ride. As an aspiring high school student, you'll want guidance from someone who shares your intellectual interests and can offer expertise in your field of study. Mentors can also help you find information about publishing research as well as where to publish a research paper.

“If you cannot see where you are going, find someone who has been there before.” - J.L. Norris

To find a mentor, first , you need to reflect on your goals and needs. Ask yourself these questions:

• Do you want help developing research questions? • Feedback on a draft? • Opportunities to co-author a paper?

Defining what you hope to gain from mentorship will help determine who may be the best fit.

‍ Secondly, once you know (in general) who you want to work with, you can start your search by browsing the faculty profiles on your school’s website or research database like academia.edu or you can also utilize social media platforms like LinkedIn. Look for professors with expertise in your areas of interest. 

It’s important to reach out in the right manner for them to notice you. Remember, you are the one who needs their help and not the other way around. Therefore, the way you reach out online is very crucial to get their attention. Keep in mind that you should do thorough research about this person before sending a message. Here’s an example of a short template message you can use for initial communication on LinkedIn:

Dear Professor [Last Name],

I'm [Your Name], a high school student passionate about [Your Research Interest]. Impressed by your work in [Their Field]. I'm very intrigued by your argumentation about [Topic]. I’m looking for a mentorship for a project I'm planning. Your guidance would be invaluable. Could we discuss this possibility

Looking forward to hearing from you. Best,

[Your Name] ‍

Third, if you still can’t find an available mentor, you should also expose yourself to new ideas by attending guest lectures, joining online forums, and reading publications in your field. You can also find mentors who have published research papers that you are interested in. Engage with the material by asking questions. This demonstrates your passion for learning and can lead to finding a mentor.

While finding a mentor can be a bit of a hassle, you can check out our mentors and find the mentor of your preferences. After you have found your mentor, you can start doing the second step.

2. Choose an Exciting Research Topic That Interests You

Choosing topics that you are deeply passionate about or interested in is the key to keeping you motivated until the end of the research. 

Discover Your Passions or Interests

There are many passion project ideas that you can explore. But you can always start by asking:

• What do you love to read about or discuss with friends?  • Are there any social issues you care deeply about?  • What are the topics related to your hobbies, favorite books or movies, sports teams, and travel destinations? • Or do you like more of the popular subjects in your school like biology, chemistry, computer science, psychology, or genetics? Look for topics that spark your curiosity or creativity.

Find an Opportunity Gap

Review what research has already been done on topics that interest you. Look for areas that could use more exploration or that you could investigate further. Think about new angles, questions, or perspectives you might bring to the subject. Finding an unexplored niche in a broader topic area can lead to an exciting, original research paper.

Talk to Your Mentor

Discuss ideas with your mentor, especially if you have an area of study in mind but need guidance narrowing down to a specific, manageable research question. Your mentor may be able to suggest topics that would work well for a research paper and align with standards or curriculum. They can also help determine if a topic idea is too broad or narrow, or if resources will be readily available.

Application of the Research in Reality

Choose a topic that could have real-world implications or applications. How can your research paper help real-world problems?

Think about local issues in your community or school that could be addressed or improved through research. Papers investigating practical solutions or the effectiveness of policies, programs, or interventions tend to be very compelling.

3. Choose the Right Journal or Conference to Publish Your Research Paper

“Where can I publish my research paper?” ‍

You can publish your research paper through respectable journals, conferences, or research paper competitions. It's important to have a goal in mind before starting any research paper. Determining this in the beginning might help you to stay on course and motivated. 

Consider the Scope of the Selected Journals

Decide the scope then look for publications that focus on your area of study or research topic. Are you looking to publish a research paper in an international journal? Or are you aiming for more local journals? 

Double-check that the journal accepts submissions from high school students and check their reputation. Aim high, but be realistic. See if any professors or mentors can recommend appropriate platforms. Review the editorial board and see if top researchers in your field are involved.

Examples of the journals that can publish your research paper as a high schooler include:

• Concord Review  
• The National High School Journal of Science
• STEM Fellowship Journal
• Journal of Student Research
• Journal of High School Science (JHSS)
• International Journal of High School Research (IJHSR)

“Where can I publish my research paper for free?” ‍

Here are some journals where you can submit your research paper for free, but be aware some of them require a publication fee:

• Journal of Emerging Investigators (JEI)
• Young Scientist Journal
• Youth Medical Journal
• Journal Research High School
• Hope Humanities Journal
• International Youth Neuroscience Association Journal
• Whitman Journal of Psychology

Review Submission Guidelines

Once you’ve set your mind and chosen your goal, carefully read and follow the instructions for authors. Pay attention to formatting, abstract length, images, and anything else specified. Following the guidelines shows you understand publishing norms in your field.

4. Conduct Thorough Research, Write and Format Your Research Paper Properly

Now that you have selected a topic and compiled sources, it's time to dive into your research and start writing. Publishing a research paper in a journal requires thorough research and a properly formatted paper.

• Analyze and read all of your resources and take notes on the key ideas, facts, questions, examples, data, quotes, and arguments that might be relevant to your research project. Keep it organized into an outline.
• Determine your research question and consult with your mentor. Once you begin drafting your paper, be sure to paraphrase, summarize, and quote the right citation.  ‍
• Carefully proofread and format your paper. Double-check for any spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors. Ensure your paper follows the recommended style guide for font type and size, spacing, margins, page numbers, headings, and image captions. ‍

Of course, writing a research paper is not as easy. If you need guidance, you can also try to join research programs that will allow you to finish the research paper easier.

5. Review Before Submitting Your Research Paper and Respond to Feedback

Once your paper is complete, it's time to share your work with the world.

Review Your Research Paper

Before making this incredible step, review your research paper once again. Have a teacher or mentor check your paper to ensure it meets the journal's standards. Put together a cover letter introducing yourself and your research. Explain the importance of your work and most importantly, why they need to publish your work.

Anticipate Feedback

Even after submitting, your work isn't done. Journals will send your paper out for peer review by experts in the field. Reviewers may suggest changes to strengthen your paper before it can be accepted. Don't get discouraged—even professional researchers incorporate feedback! Address each comment thoroughly and openly. Making revisions will improve your paper and help you become a better writer and researcher.

How Long Does it Take to Publish a Research Paper?

In general, the publication process can take several months to a year or more from the initial submission to final publication. It depends on the institutions and the availability of the peer reviewers. If your paper is accepted for publication, congratulations! If not, use the experience as an opportunity to improve. Carefully consider the feedback and see it as a chance to strengthen your methods, arguments, and writing. Don't hesitate to submit to another journal or work with your mentor to revise and resubmit.

That’s it! Congratulations on finishing all the steps!

Whether or not you get published, finishing the research paper is an achievement in itself. We hope that this article on how to publish a research paper will help you to get your research paper published. Remember that persistence, attention to detail, and a clear understanding of your target journal's guidelines are key. Stay determined and keep researching. You got this!

Need more guidance to do your research paper and most importantly, publish your paper? Don't worry, we've got you! At Indigo Research, we connect you with leading professors from renowned universities who are eager to mentor you and support you in publishing your research!

Click to discover more about how we can help!

Scholarly Communication Services : Publishing

We can help you navigate the evolving scholarly publishing process — not only for your “final” manuscript, but also your other critical research and publishing outputs, such as: preprints, data, interactive models, conference proceedings, posters, working papers, blog posts, and much more.

More information

The lifecycle, peer review, research impact, research data, economic overview.

You want to build your academic reputation, but how do you know to what journals or academic presses you should submit your work? You’ll want to consider norms in your field, recommendations from peers or advisors, and the extent of your desire for open access.

We’ve put together some guidelines.

Evaluating journals

With journal publishing, you will often be making choices based on the “impact” of various journals — meaning how those journals are recognized and perceived in the scholarly community, the frequency of citation of articles from those journals, and the like. (We discuss various statistical measures of impact in the  Research Impact and Scholarly Profiles  section.) But you should also consider impact in terms of openness. That is: Who can access the scholarship being published by that journal? Is it open for reading by all, or confined to only those institutions able to pay?

Gauging journal subject matter fit and impact

If you’re unfamiliar with the journals in your field, there are comparison tools that can help with the evaluation process:

• Journal Citation Reports :  JCR provides citation data for journals across nearly two hundred subject categories. You can browse by subject category or by known title. JCR enables you to identify journals with high impact factors, understand the ranking of journals within a subject category, and more. 
• Eigenfactor.org :  Offers valuable information about the Eigenfactor Score and the Article Influence Score for various journals. You can also explore the cost effectiveness of journals for both  subscription journals  (which search ranks subscription-based journals according to the value-per-dollar that they provide) and  open access journals  (which compares the article-processing fees charged by open access journals).
• CiteScore :  Identify and compare journal impact metrics across a wide range of journal titles and disciplines.
• UlrichsWeb :  Provides key information about journals’ publishing frequency, location, audience, peer review status and more.

Evaluating open access journals

If you’re interested in open access publishing, but unfamiliar with a particular OA journal you’ve come across, you can also find out more about it by checking these additional sites:

• Is the journal included in the Directory of Open Access Journals ( DOAJ )? DOAJ is comprehensive, “community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.” To be included, journals must be peer-reviewed or employ editorial quality control. This also means the journals do not employ deceptive marketing practices to solicit papers to get the article processing charge that authors may pay. (See our page on  open access publishing models .)
• Is the publisher a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association ( OASPA )? 
• The  Scholarly Communication Toolkit  page on  Evaluating Journals   also has tremendous information about how to select open access journals for publication.

Concerned about deception?

If you’ve checked the above sources, but still have questions about the legitimacy of a journal solicitation you’ve received, there are several ways you can screen for propriety.

• Are you getting  confusing spam?  If you’ve been receiving unsolicited e-mails from journals that are  not  indexed in the above reputable sources, this may be an indication of deceptive practices.
• Have you checked for  deceptive characteristics ?   Researchers in 2017 identified  various characteristics of deceptive journals. They went on to  summarize these as : “low article-processing fees (less than US$150); spelling and grammar errors on the website; an overly broad scope; language that targets authors rather than readers; promises of rapid publication; and a lack of information about retraction policies, manuscript handling or digital preservation. Manuscript submissions by e-mail and the inclusion of distorted images are also common.”
• Have you done a “ Think, Check, Submit ?”  Thinkchecksubmit.org , a campaign from many leading open access publishers, also helps researches identify trusted journals for their research by offering them a simple checklist to assess journal or publisher credentials. This is another great way to evaluate journal quality and spot unscrupulous activity. In addition to their checklist, you can check out their Think, Check, Submit video:

Remember,  we can help!   If you’re not sure about a journal, email us at  [email protected] .  And you can always consult advisors or  subject specialist librarians  in your field to provide more tailored advice.

Evaluating academic presses

Choosing a book publisher can be daunting, especially if you are looking to be published for the first time. The most useful advice and guidance will likely come from peers, colleagues, and academic advisors familiar with publishing in your discipline. They’ll be most knowledgeable about the logistics, publishing terms, marketing efforts, and prestige of particular presses.

Another way to get started is to consult resources that reveal various presses’ goals, target audiences, and interests. Some of the best resources that do that are the publishers' catalogs — that is, inventories and descriptions of the books they’ve published.

• American Association of University Presses (AAUP) has a  list of member university presses . By going to the websites of particular publishers, you can find these catalogs and see exactly what the press is publishing in your discipline.
• Not sure which publishers’ websites to look at? AAUP also has a Subject Area Grid that identifies the interest areas of member publishers.

Explore presses with open access programs

Increasingly, presses offer open access book publishing. Open access books have tremendous potential to increase your readership and impact, while also still fostering print sales for readers who prefer it. They also can facilitate advanced media innovation in the publishing process. 

With open access books, as with some open access journals, there may be an author fee assessed as a cost recovery mechanism for the press — given that they may sell fewer print copies to libraries since the book will be made available openly online. At UC Berkeley, we have a program that subsidizes any such fees! Check out our  Get Funding to Publish Open Access  page for details.

Other networking

Finally, there’s some networking you could do. Anali Perry of Arizona State University, on the  Select a Venue  page of her  Getting Published  guide, offers some great advice for outreach that can lead to a more streamlined press selection process.

As she explains:

If you’re attending conferences, you can set up meetings with editors to review a book idea and discuss whether this might be of interest. Another option is to contact editors directly with book ideas, written as a long essay (in the style of the press’s book catalog) stating the problem, what are you proposing, and how it is yours. Do this before writing the entire book - it’s better to work with an editor while you’re writing the book, not after. You can also be in contact with more than one publisher until you decide to accept an offer — just be honest that you’re investigating multiple options.

You can also check out this video from the AAUP. In 2015, AAUP convened a virtual panel to “take the scary out of scholarly publishing.” Their experts discussed tips and strategies for working with scholarly presses throughout the publishing process.

Contact us  to set up a consultation!

What is “peer review”?

At its core, peer review (or the process called “refereeing”) is the effort of scholars within a similar discipline or area of research to critique and evaluate the scholarly contribution from others within that same domain, and determine whether that scholarship should be disseminated or how it can be improved. Peer review results in over 1.5 million scholarly articles published each year .

Journals differ in the percentage of submitted papers that they accept and reject. Higher impact factor journals such as Science or Nature can reject even good quality research papers if an editor deems it not ground-breaking enough. Other journals, such as PLoS One , instead take the approach of getting more scholarship out and circulated. They have utilized a review process that focuses on satisfaction of scientific rigors rather than assessment of innovativeness. 

Basic models for peer review

As scholarly publishing changes, so too have peer review models. Typically, though, peer review involves authors (who conduct research and write the manuscript), reviewers (“peers” in the domain who provide expert opinions and advice), and editors (who make acceptance and publishing decisions). A basic model could like like the following, though there are multiple approaches. 

In this model: A paper is submitted to a journal. A journal editor screens the manuscript to determine whether it should be passed through to the critique stage, or rejected outright. The editor collects reviewers who then undertake analysis and critique of the work. The reviewers pass opinions and suggested edits back to the editor, who asks the author to revise accordingly. This process of revision could go through several iterations. After author revisions are complete, the editor will decide whether to accept the paper for publication, or reject it.

Note, too, that some publishers have implemented a “cascading” approach so as not to squander reviewers’ efforts if a paper is ultimately rejected by an editor at the final stage. As Dan Morgan, Digital Science Publisher at the University of California Press, explains (at p. 10 of the Standing up for Science 3 guide to peer review):

Cascading peer review (a.k.a. ‘waterfall peer review’) is when a paper that has been rejected after peer review is passed on to another journal along with the reviewers’ reports. The peer review process at the second journal can be kept relatively short because the editor considers the reports from an earlier round of peer review, along with any new reviews. Variations on this process exist, according to the type of journal — but essentially reviews can ‘cascade’ down through various journals.

Cascading peer review can accelerate the time to publication so that valuable review efforts are not lost. Moreover, many publishing groups that issue multiple journals will automatically apply this process — helping to find the right journal for your particular manuscript.

Transparency

Within this basic peer review model, journals can employ different approaches to how and whether authors get to know their reviewers, and vice versa. The idea behind masking or revealing this information is that such knowledge may introduce bias, or affect how honest and critical the reviews are. These various approaches include, for example:

• Single-blind review: Reviewers know who authors are, but authors do not know who reviewers are. 
• Double-blind review: Neither reviewers nor authors are informed about who the others are.
• Open review: Reviewers and authors know who each other are, and this review can also include the transmission of reviewer commentary in the open final publication.
• Post-publication open review: Here, readers and reviewers can submit public comments on published articles. Often, these comments are mediated by the editor.

If working papers are uploaded to a repository (such as ArXiv for mathematics, physics, and non-life sciences), there is also an opportunity for pre-publication peer review via the comments submitted by readers and downloaders at those sites.

You can learn a lot more about the mechanics of peer review, and tips for how to conduct peer review, in the following guide:

• Peer Review the Nuts-and-Bolts: A Guide for Early Career Researchers  ( Standing up for Science 3 , 2017)

And you can contact with questions at  [email protected] ! 

Why are we talking about impact?

Among other things, awareness of your scholarly impact can help you:

•  Strengthen your case when applying for promotion or tenure.
•  Quantify return on research investment for grant renewals and progress reports.
•  Strengthen future funding requests by showing the value of your research.
•  Understand your audience and learn how to appeal to them.
•  Identify who is using your work and confirm that it is appropriately credited.
•  Identify collaborators within or outside of your subject area.
•  Manage your scholarly reputation.

Measuring your impact

Measuring impact is not a perfect science, and there are many who argue against its implications altogether. Here, we just want to present information about the statistical measures that exist so that you can make informed decisions about how and whether to gauge your impact.

Often, measuring impact relies on metrics such as:  article-level metrics ,  author-level metrics ,  journal or publisher metrics , and  alt-metrics .

Article-level metrics

Article-level metrics quantify the reach and impact of published research. For this, we can look to various measures such as citation counts, field-weighted citation impact, or social networking readership statistics. 

e.g. Citation count : How many times has your article been cited? This can be difficult to assess and assign meaning to. How recent your article is obviously affects how many times it’s been cited. Additionally, the database or source of the statistic greatly impacts the count because the database needs to be able to scan a large number of possible places where your article could be cited — and not all databases have access to the same information in that regard.

e.g. Field-weighted citation impact : Since it takes time for publications to accumulate citations, it is normal that the total number of citations for recent articles is lower. Moreover, citations in research from one field may accumulate faster than others because that field simply produces more publications. Therefore, instead of comparing absolute counts of citations you might want to consider another citation measure called field-weighted citation impact (also known as FWCI) that adjusts for these differences. Field-weighted citation impact divides the number of citations received by a publication by the average number of citations received by publications in the same field, of the same type, and published in the same year. The world average is indexed to a value of 1.00. Values above 1.00 indicate above-average citation impact, and values below 1.00 likewise indicate below-average citation impact. It’s a proprietary statistic, though, meaning you’d need access to Elsevier’s SCOPUS product, which UC Berkeley provides.

e.g. Social Networking Site Readership : Another article-level metric is something like  Mendeley Readership , which indicates the number of Mendeley users who have added a particular article into their personal library.  This number can be considered an early indicator of the impact a work has, and typically Mendeley readership counts correlate moderately with future citations. 

Author-level metrics

Author-level metrics address an author’s productivity and diversity of reach. We can look to measures of overall scholarly output, journal count, journal category count, and H-index or H-graph.

e.g. Journal count:  Journal count indicates the diversity of an author’s publication portfolio: In how many of the distinct journals have this author’s publications appeared? This can be useful to show the excellence of authors who work across traditional disciplines and have a broad array of journals available in which to submit.

e.g. Journal category count : Journal category count addresses in how many journal categories has someone published. This can be useful for tracking breadth/reach of scholarship, and inter-disciplinariness.

• e.g. H-index: H-index is an author-level metric that attempts to measure both the productivity and citation impact of the publications of a scientist or scholar. The definition of the index is that a scholar with an index of h has published h papers, each of which has been cited in other papers at least h times. It is believed that after 20 years of research, an h index of 20 is good, 40 is outstanding, 60 is truly exceptional.

e.g. Scholarly output:  Scholarly   output demonstrates an author’s productivity: How many publications does this author have? This is a good metric for comparing authors who are similar, and at similar stages of career.

​ Journal or publisher metrics

Journal or publisher metrics address weights or prestige that particular publications are seen to carry. Some measures include:

e.g. ​ SCImago Journal & Country Rank : SCImago Journal & Country Rank can be considered the “average prestige per article,” and is based on the idea that not all citations of your work are the same. (In other words, your articles could be cited in publications of varying prestige.) Here, the subject field, quality, and reputation of the journals in which your publications are cited have a direct effect on the “value” of a citation. 

e.g. Impact per publication  (IPP): IPP gives you a sense of the average number of citations that a publication published in the journal will likely receive. It measures the ratio of citations per article published in a journal. Unlike the standard impact factor, the IPP metric uses a three-year citation window, widely considered to be the optimal time period to accurately measure citations in most subject fields.

e.g. Source-normalized impact per paper:  When normalized for the citations in the subject field, the raw Impact per Publication (IPP) becomes the Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP). SNIP measures contextual citation impact by weighting citations based on the total number of citations in a subject field. The impact of a single citation is given higher value in subject areas where citations are less likely, and vice versa.

Altmetrics 

​ Altmetrics account for “non-traditional” citations of your scholarly work. They address the fact that scholarly conversations have expanded beyond the peer-reviewed article. People are now Tweeting and blogging about your articles, for instance, and altmetrics accumulate these mentions. To find out how your work is being cited and used in these ways, learn more at  Altmetric.com .

Monitoring your impact

There are numerous existing and emerging tools available to help you track your scholarly impact by enabling you to create a virtual scholarly profile in which you input and keep track of all your professional activities and publications. 

When selecting one of these tools, it’s helpful to consider:

• What sources of information are your chosen tools “pulling from” or indexing? The greater number of sources that the tool can “read,” the more comprehensive your metrics will be.
• What is the business model of your tool? Is it for-profit and available with premium features for a fee, or is it a free platform available to all? For instance, Symplectic’s Elements and Elsevier’s Pure are licensed platforms that come often at substantial cost to an institution, whereas Impact Story, ORCID, and Google Scholar offer free profile services.
• Have you made a copy of your scholarly materials available also through your institutional repository? Many of the profiling tools are not geared toward actually preserving a copy of your work. So, to ensure that a copy of your work remains publicly available, it’s best to make sure you also deposit a copy in your institutional repository (in the case of UC, this is eScholarship.org).

With all that in mind, here are a few profiling tools from which you can choose:

ImpactStory

From their site: Impactstory is an open-source website that helps researchers explore and share the the online impact of their research.By helping researchers tell data-driven stories about their work, we're helping to build a new scholarly reward system that values and encourages web-native scholarship. We’re funded by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

From their site: ORCID provides an identifier for individuals to use with their name as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities. We provide open tools that enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions, and affiliations. We provide this service to help people find information and to simplify reporting and analysis.

Google Scholar Citations

From their site: Google Scholar Citations provide a simple way for authors to keep track of citations to their articles. You can check who is citing your publications, graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics. You can also make your profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for your name...Best of all, it's quick to set up and simple to maintain - even if you have written hundreds of articles, and even if your name is shared by several different scholars. You can add groups of related articles, not just one article at a time; and your citation metrics are computed and updated automatically as Google Scholar finds new citations to your work on the web. You can choose to have your list of articles updated automatically or review the updates yourself, or to manually update your articles at any time.

ResearchGate

From their site: Share your publications, access millions more, and publish your data. Connect and collaborate with colleagues, peers, co-authors, and specialists in your field. Get stats and find out who's been reading and citing your work.

Academia.edu

From their site: Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. The company's mission is to accelerate the world's research. Academics use Academia.edu to share their research, monitor deep analytics around the impact of their research, and track the research of academics they follow.

From their site: LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the internet with more than 500 million members in over 200 countries and territories.

Fee-based or proprietary profiling systems like  Elements  or  Pure .

These are software systems to help collect, understand, and showcase scholarly activities. These are not currently available at UC Berkeley.

Increasing your impact

In general, we recommend three overarching strategies to increase your scholarly impact:

A.  Get your work seen and cited. B.  Promote your work and be social. C.  Develop and execute a personal plan.

We discuss each of these strategies with specifics below.

A.  Get your work seen and cited

Publish pre-prints or post-prints in open access repositories.  

Institutional or discipline-specific open access repositories (e.g. eScholarship.org for UC publications, BioArXiv, Humanities Commons, etc.) enable you to self-archive a copy of your work so that it is accessible for free by readers around the world. Moreover, these repositories are indexed on Google so that your scholarship can easily be found. This is a terrific way to build readership and impact, while also contributing to progress and knowledge by making a version of your work available to all. To choose a repository that’s right for you, you can check the DOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories).

As a UC faculty member, staff, or student, you are automatically authorized under the UC open access policies to post a pre-print copy of your scholarly articles (defined broadly) to the UC repository, eScholarship. You can also check the web tool Sherpa/ROMEO to determine whether there are other versions of your scholarship that your publisher has authorized for deposit.

Publish open access.

Open access is the free, immediate, online availability of scholarship. This means that when people publish a scholarly article in an open access journal, it is put online for anyone to access — without readers (or readers’ institutions) having to pay any fees or subscription charges for it (also known as “paywalls”).

Paywalls limit readership. The great value of publishing open access means that barriers between readers and scholarly publication are removed, making it easier for everyone to find, use, cite, and build upon knowledge and ideas. In this way, open access connects your scholarship to the world, and helps build your impact. Publishing open access is often a condition of research funding, so you should check your grants.

Open access publishers may ask for a fee to publish your scholarship open online in lieu of the fees they would ordinarily have collected from institutional memberships to the journal or publication. The UC Berkeley Library has a fund to cover these costs. You can learn more in our  BRII (Berkeley Research Impact Initiative) Guide  about applying for this funding.

There’s an open access place for all research outputs.

Your “final” publication — traditionally, an article, chapter, or scholarly monograph — is not the only thing readers desire to access and cite. You can publish your research data, code, software, presentations, working papers, and other supporting documents and documentation open access as well. In fact, in some cases, your funders might require it. Sharing these other research instruments not only advances knowledge and science, but also can help increase your impact and citation rates.

You can find the right open place for all your outputs. For instance, it’s possible to:

• Publish code on  GitHub .
• Publish data sets on  FigShare  or  Dryad .
• Publish presentations on  SlideShare .

Publish several pieces on same topic.

If you’ve written a journal article, you can spread the word about it by supplementing it with a blog post or magazine article — thereby attracting greater attention from readers interested in your topic. What’s more, publishing your article open access to begin with also helps your work get discovered by journalists, making it easier for them to write their own supplemental magazine articles about your research, too.

Write for your audience and publish in sources they read.

Of course, many of us would like to be able publish in high impact journals or ones targeted to our audience. To find the best fit journals, it can be helpful to review the journal’s scope and submission criteria, and compare that to whom you believe your intended audience to be.

Use persistent identifiers to disambiguate you and your work from other authors.

There are more than 7 billion people in the world. If someone searches for your articles by your name, how can you be sure that they find yours and not someone else’s? How can you be sure that citations really reflect citations of your work and not someone else’s? Persistent identifiers — both for you and your publications — help disambiguate the chaos.

• ORCID : Much in the same way that a social security number uniquely identifies you, an  ORCID  “provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized.”  Increasingly, publishers and funders ask for your ORCID upon article submission or application so that they can disambiguate you from other researchers, too. ORCIDs are free to create and doing so takes just moments. They also enable you to set up a personal web profile page where you can link all of your scholarship to your unique identifier — creating a profile that is uniquely yours.
• Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) : A DOI is a type of persistent identifier used to uniquely identify digital objects like scholarly articles, chapters, or data sets. Metadata about the digital object is stored in association with the DOI, which often includes a URL where the object can be found. The value of the DOI is that the identifier remains fixed over the lifetime of the digital object  even if you later change the particular URL where your article is hosted.  Thus, referring to an online document by its DOI provides more stable linking than simply using its URL. Publishers and repositories often assign DOIs to each of your publications for this reason. If you are a UC Berkeley researcher depositing in eScholarship, you can obtain a DOI through a service called  EZID .

B.  Promote your work and be social

Although it might seem too self-laudatory for some people’s tastes, speaking up about issues of interest to you and your audience can help position you as a thought leader in your space. Therefore, it can be helpful to participate and collaborate in promoting and discussing your work through social networking, blogging, list serves, personal networks, and more. 

And don’t overlook your research that’s still underway! Discussing what’s in progress can help build interest.

C.  Develop and execute a personal plan.

Perhaps the best way to increase your impact is to develop a plan that is tailored for your own needs, and check in with yourself periodically about whether it’s working. Your plan should focus on tactics that make your work visible, accessible, and reusable .

What might such a plan look like? Here is a sample that you can adapt.

• Create and maintain an online profile (GoogleScholar, etc.).
• Use persistent identifiers (e.g. ORCIDs, DOIs) to disambiguate/link.
• Publish in fully OA journals or choose OA options.
• Creative Commons license your work for re-use.
• Post pre- or post-prints to repositories (eScholarship, PubMed Central, etc.).
• Make social media engagement a habit.
• Engage your audience in meaningful conversations.
• Connect with other researchers.
• Appeal to various audiences via multiple publications.
• Check back in on your goals.

Do you want to talk more about tailoring strategies so that they are right for you? Please contact us at  [email protected] !

You’ve invested significant time and resources into preparing your final publication. So, after peer review, you’re done, right? Not necessarily. You may desire (or be required) to also publish the data underlying your research.

Why should we care about publishing data?

Sharing research data promotes transparency, reproducibility, and progress. In some fields, it can spur new discoveries on a daily basis. It’s not atypical for geneticists, for example, to sequence by day and post research results the same evening — allowing others to begin using their datasets in nearly real time (see, for example,  Pisani and AbouZahr’s paper ). The datasets researchers share can inform business or regulatory policymaking, legislation, government or social services, and more.

Publishing your research data can also increase the impact of your research, and with it, your scholarly profile. Depositing datasets in a repository makes them both visible and citable. You can include them in your CV and grant application biosketches. Conversely, scholars around the world can begin working with your data and crediting you. As a result, sharing detailed research data can be associated with increased citation rates (check out  this Piwowar et al. study , among others).

Publishing your data may also be required. Federal funders (e.g.  National Institutes of Health ), granting agencies (e.g.  Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ), and journal publishers (e.g.  PLoS ) increasingly require datasets be made publicly available — often immediately upon associated article publication.

How do we publish data?

Merely uploading your dataset to a personal or departmental website won’t achieve these aims of promoting knowledge and progress. Datasets should be able to link seamlessly to any research articles they support. Their metadata should be compatible with bibliographic management and citation systems (e.g.  CrossRef  or  Ref Works ), and be formatted for crawling by abstracting and indexing services. After all, you want to be able to find other people’s datasets, manage them in your own reference manager, and cite them as appropriate. So, you’d want your own dataset to be positioned for the same discoverability and ease of use.

How can you achieve all this? It sounds daunting, but it’s actually pretty straightforward and simple. You’ll want to select a data publishing tool or repository that is built around both preservation and discoverability. It should:

• Offer you a stable location or DOI (which will provide a persistent link to your data’s location). 
• Help you create sufficient metadata to facilitate transparency and reproducibility.
• Optimize the metadata for search engines.

You can learn about a variety of specific tools through the  Research Data Management program website , on their  Data Preservation and Archiving  page. Briefly, here are some good options:

Sample tools

• Dryad : Dryad is an open-source, research data curation and publication platform. UC Berkeley Library is a proud partner of Dryad and offers Dryad as a free service for all UC Berkeley researchers to publish and archive their data. Datasets published in Dryad receive a citation and can be versioned at any time. Dryad is integrated with hundreds of journals and is an easy way to both publish data and comply with funder and publisher mandates. Check out published datasets or submit yours at:  https://datadryad.org/stash . 
• Figshare: Figshare is a multidisciplinary repository where users can make all of their research outputs available in a citable, shareable and discoverable manner. Figshare allows users to upload any file format to be made visualisable in the browser so that figures, datasets, media, papers, posters, presentations and filesets can be disseminated. Figshare uses Datacite DOIs for persistent data citation. Users are allowed to upload files up to 5GB in size and have 20 GB of free private space. Figshare uses Amazon Web Services - backups are performed on a daily basis, which are kept for 5 days. 
• re3data : re3data.org is a global registry of research data repositories that covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines. It presents repositories for the permanent storage and access of data sets to researchers, funding bodies, publishers and scholarly institutions. re3data.org promotes a culture of sharing, increased access and better visibility of research data. The registry went live in autumn 2012 and is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

To explore others, check out  OpenDOAR , the Directory of Open Access Repositories.

We also recommend that, if your chosen publishing tool enables it, you should include your  ORCID (a persistent digital identifier)  with your datasets just like with all your other research. This way, your research and scholarly output will be collocated in one place, and it will become easier for others to discover and credit your work.

What does it mean to license your data for reuse?

Uploading a dataset — with good metadata, of course! — to a repository is not the end of the road for shepherding one’s research. We must also consider what we are permitting other researchers to do with our data. And, what rights do we, ourselves, have to grant such permissions — particularly if we got the data from someone else, or the datasets were licensed to us for a particular use?

To better understand these issues, we first have to distinguish between attribution and licensing.

Citing datasets, or providing attribution to the creator, is an essential scholarly practice.

The issue of someone properly  citing  your data is separate, however, from the question of whether it’s  permissible  for them to reproduce and publish the data in the first place. That is, what license for reuse have you applied to the dataset?

The type of reuse we can grant depends on whether we own our research data and hold copyright in it. There can be a number of possibilities here.

• Sometimes the terms of contracts we’ve entered into (e.g. funder/grant agreements, website terms of use, etc.) dictate data ownership and copyright. We must bear these components in mind when determining what rights to grant others for using our data.
• Often, our employers own our research data under our employment contracts or university policies (e.g. the research data is “work-for-hire”).

Remember, the dataset might not be copyrightable to begin with if it does not constitute original expression. We could complicate things if we try to grant licenses to data for which we don’t actually hold copyrights. For an excellent summary addressing these “Who owns your data?” questions, including copyright issues, check out  this blog post by Katie Fortney  written for the UC system-wide Office of Scholarly Communication.

What’s the right license or designation for your data?

To try to streamline ownership and copyright questions, and promote data reuse, often data repositories will simply apply a particular  “Creative Commons” license  or public domain designation to all deposited datasets. For instance:

• Dryad  and  BioMed Central  repositories apply a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) designation to deposited data — meaning that, by depositing in those repositories, you are not reserving any copyright that you might have. Someone using your dataset still should cite the dataset to comply with scholarly norms, but you cannot mandate that they attribute you and cannot pursue copyright claims against them.

It’s worth considering what your goals are for sharing the data to begin with, and selecting a designation or license that both meets your needs  and  fits within whatever ownership and use rights you have over the data. We can help you with this. Ambiguity surrounding the ability to reuse data inhibits the pace of research. So, try to identify clearly for potential users what rights are being granted in the dataset you publish.

Please contact us at  [email protected] .

Basics of scholarly publishing

The scholarly communication landscape is impacted by various shifting economic forces, such as changes in:

• Publishing platforms and markets (e.g. emergence of open access business models, consortial funding for subscriptions, funder publishing platforms)
• Ways research is conducted (e.g. social research networks fostering global collaboration)
• Public policies (e.g. open access mandates, copyleft licensing models) 

In the traditional publishing model , scholars produce and edit research and manuscripts, which publishers then evaluate, assemble, publish, and distribute. Libraries at the institutions where scholars are employed then pay for subscriptions to license or purchase this content that researchers have created. Typically these are large subscription packages with academic publishers that encompass dozens if not hundreds of journal titles.

The costs of scholarly journal subscriptions have risen unsustainably over many decades, outstripping inflation even relative to higher education markets. As costs have risen, so has the portion of the global research community operating without full access to the scholarly record (including nearly all U.S. universities). The open access (OA) movement, discussed elsewhere on these pages (see Open Access Publishing ), is in part a response to this affordability crisis.

Open access overview

In an OA world, libraries would not be paying for these out-of-reach subscriptions. But, if academic publishers are still distributing scholarly content through traditional journal systems, they of course would want some other form of cost recovery if subscriptions are off the table. OA publishing models differ in how and whether they address this issue.  

As we discuss in the Open Access Publishing  section, two of the predominant open access publishing models are “Gold Open Access” and “Green Open Access.”

Gold open access

Gold OA provides immediate access on the publisher’s website. Some Gold OA publishers recoup production costs via charges for authors to publish (“article processing charges” or “book processing charges”) rather than having readers (or libraries) pay to access and read it. This is a system in which “author pays” rather than “reader pays.” The charges to be paid by the author can come from many sources, such as: research accounts, research grants, the university, the library, scholarly societies, and consortia. Production costs can also be offset by the sale of memberships, add-ons, and enhanced services by the publisher. 

Green open access

Also known as self-archiving, in the Green OA model authors continue to publish as they always have in all the same journals. Once the article has been published in a traditional journal, however, the author then posts the “final author version” of the article to an institutional or subject matter repository. Those uploaded manuscripts are open to all to be read. Often, publishers do not allow the formatted publication version to be deposited, but instead only permit the unformatted “post-print” (refereed) or “pre-print” (author submitted) version to be uploaded.

The (real) non-economic value of OA

While open access publishing has the potential to reduce costs, this is not the only (or even the main) driving force behind open access advocacy. The benefits to individual scholars, related institutions, scholarly communication, and the general researching public are also primary motivating factors.

Open access literature is free, digital, and available to anyone online. Providing greater access to scholarship can help attract more readers and build impact.

Moreover, in most cases open access literature is also free of downstream copyright restrictions apart from attributing the original author. This type of OA literature can be reused, remixed, and built upon to further spur innovation and progress.

New open access publishing models are continuing to emerge and be evaluated for sustainability. We have much more to say about them and all things open access on our Open Access  page. 

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