05-06-2018

WORKSHOP ON
PUBLISHING IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALS

SRIKANT SARANGI

Aalborg University, Denmark

NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
College of Medicine, Qatar University
Cardiff University, UK
NTNU, Trondheim, 29-30 May 2018

PRELIMINIRAIES

• A few disclaimers:

 This is not a course in academic writing.

 We are not dealing with specific disciplines or

individual journals.

 By default, many of the discussions will be

generic, but potentially transferrable across
disciplinary boundaries and across different
stages of the publishing journey.

INTRODUCTION & SCENE-SETTING:

KEY MILESTONES IN THE JOURNAL
PUBLICATION JOURNEY

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INTRODUCTION

• Rare/privileged access to the backstage

processes/activities in journal publishing – an
opportunity to learn from others’ experiences.

• The journals and manuscripts discussed are meant

to be illustrative – against the backdrop of
different disciplinary backgrounds of participants.

• Becoming successful journal article writers implies

becoming competent readers/reviewers – so
experience in reading/reviewing others’ work is a
key component.

INTRODUCTION

• Three-in-one: The everyday practice of being an

editor, a reviewer, and an author

• There is some spin-off in playing this role-set,

especially in simultaneously being a reviewer and
an author (one wants to avoid in one’s writing
what one becomes critical of in others’ writings) –
i.e. learning from others’ mistakes than from one’s
own.

• The benefits of being a reviewer – the topical and

methodological alignments are an added bonus.

POSITIONING THE EDITOR

• The night job!
• Variations across journals, disciplines & publishers
• Gatekeeping
• Mentoring
• Mediating between authors, reviewers, publishers
and readers
• Performance management: the front-stage and
back-stage activities
• Editor’s own specialism
• Shifts in practices in line with technological
affordances

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POSITIONING THE AUTHOR

• Determining the timing of submission, especially

for those undertaking Doctoral research through
the publications route.

• Choosing the target journal, given the overlap

across journals about scope and aims.

• What publications mean for future career and

current job (e.g. tenure, promotion).

• The ‘publish or perish’ culture (key performance

indicators).
• Pressure of publishing in specific journals.
• Pressure of publishing in a wide range of journals.

POSITIONING THE AUTHOR

• Provisions for training/socialisation

• Different forms/formats of publication and

dissemination outlets

• Academic writing [not the focus here] vs. Article

writing [for international journals]

• Academic writing skills are a necessary but not

sufficient resource for successful journal
publishing trajectory.

• The need for exposure to article writing via

workshops and also when reading high quality
journal articles in one’s discipline.

INTRODUCING
THREE JOURNALS

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THE MARKETPLACE OF
INTERNATIONAL JOURNALS

THE JOURNALS MARKETPLACE

• Tiers and rankings

• ISI journals Institute for Scientific Information):

approx. 14,000 journals listed.

• Web of Science: 20,000 journals + books and

conference proceedings (natural sciences, life
sciences, biomedical sciences, health sciences,
engineering, computer science, material sciences,
social sciences, arts & humanities)

• Science Citation Index (SCI) covers more than

8,500 notable and significant journals, across 150
disciplines, from 1900 to the present.

THE JOURNALS MARKETPLACE

• Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) is an

interdisciplinary citation index product from
Thomson Reuters. The database covers approx.
2500 leading social science journals across more
than 50 disciplines.

• Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) is a

citation index, covering more than 1,700 arts and
humanities journals, including some social and
natural science journals.

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THE JOURNALS MARKETPLACE

• Citation index and contested issues within and across
disciplines (its inappropriateness in human and social
sciences).

• Journal Impact Factor: the ratio of the number of

citations to the previous two years of the journal
divided by the number of articles in those years – this
is essentially the average number of recent
citations per article.

• Impact factor vs. Impact of research

• Dubious claims about increase in citations being

linked to Open Access journals

THE JOURNALS MARKETPLACE

• Open access journals vs. Subscription journals –
the rich/poor divide

• The paradox of open/free access via electronic

publishing: the institutional and individual
dimensions (institutional repositories and self-
archiving); (poorer) authors providing web access to
pre-final versions.

THE JOURNALS MARKETPLACE

• Open access spans both peer-reviewed and non-

peer-reviewed journals and other materials.

• Two degrees of open access: gratis open

access, which is online access free of charge, and
libre open access, which is online access free of
charge plus various additional usage rights.

• The gold way (instant access) and the green way

(delayed open access, embargo from publishers)

• The hidden costs of freedom (fee-based open

access per author, per submission vs. no-fee
open access, usually subsidised)

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THE JOURNALS MARKETPLACE

NTNU POLICIES/PRACTICES
• Self-archiving provision in NTNU Open
• NTNU’s publication fund (Article Processing Charge paid
for by NTNU in the case of Gold Open Access); for
Green Open Access, visit www.cristin.no
• All NTNU research publications to be made publicly
available, either as gold or green OA, starting January
2017.
• Preferably, researchers should strive towards publishing
in open channels.
• As a minimum, publications in subscription channels
must be deposited in our institutional repository – this
is easily done in Cristin.
• Work has started on developing OA policies for non-
publication output – data, documentation, software etc.

NTNU – USEFUL LINKS

• NTNU’s policies on Open Access:

http://www.ntnu.no/publiseringspolitikk
• Our site on publishing:
https://innsida.ntnu.no/publisering
• Directory of Open Access Journals: www.doaj.org
• Norwegian registry for publication channels:
https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/Forside.
action?request_locale=en
• Questions?
– Help from the library regarding the publication
fund: publishing@ub.ntnu.no
– Help from Henrik the friendly bibliometrician:
henrik.karlstrom@ub.ntnu.no

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THE JOURNALS MARKETPLACE

• Publishing in the electronic age: Traditional vs.

online journals; Electronic publishing and the
quality issue

• Reconfiguration of competencies/literacies for

authors, reviewers and editors (e.g. online
submission format)

• Tensions surrounding local/national journals

and international journals

• The peer review system as the key variable for

quality assurance

THE PEER REVIEW MECHANISM

• Peer review is the cornerstone of scientific

research – ‘one of the sacred pillars of the
scientific edifice’ (Goodstein 2000).

• It’s a double-edged sword: while blocking out

junk research, it may stifle innovative research.

• ‘If peer review was a drug it would not get onto

the market because we have no convincing
evidence of its benefits but a lot of evidence of
its flaws’. (Drummond Rennie, Deputy Editor of
the Journal of the American Medical Association)

THE PEER REVIEW MECHANISM

• Regarding peer review, there is ‘more evidence of

harm than benefit … Studies so far have shown
that it is slow, expensive, ineffective, something
of a lottery, prone to bias and abuse, and
hopeless at spotting errors and fraud’. (Richard
Smith 2006)

• Sharp rise in retraction of articles in certain

disciplines.

• Because of a lack of a better alternative…

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THE PEER REVIEW MECHANISM

Two types of review mechanism:

• Anonymous Peer Review (also called [double]

blind review)

fairness; a licence to be rude; only editor knows

all and takes on a key mediator role (including
selective editing of reviewer comments)

• Open peer review

Bias and familiarity; mitigation strategies;

reduced editorial intervention

THE PEER REVIEW MECHANISM

• How anonymous is anonymous?

• The revealed identities
 authors through self-references, especially
unpublished work
 referees through recommendation of their
work
 Use of tracking method on manuscript
• The bias factor: positive and negative
orientations
• Instances of request for disclosure of identity
• Some reviewers refuse anonymity
• An unresolved issue

THE PEER REVIEW MECHANISM

• Selection of reviewers is somewhat arbitrary,
including elements of luck and politics (Roy 2012:
Cracked Reflection. Times Higher Education No. 2047,
26 April – 2 May)

• ‘Citation dictation’: ‘dictating the terms of

acceptance on the basis of inclusion of references to
their own (not-so-anonymous) work’ (p.28)

• Note that reviewers do not dictate acceptance of mss.

• If one were to follow the citation dictation, it is likely

that the revised version may turn out to be worse
than the original ms.

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THE PEER REVIEW MECHANISM

• Need for training of reviewers – how to conduct

review using the frames of reference of the ms,
not based on own bias/preference.

• On editorial practice… no specific ethical

guidelines.

• Outright rejection can amount to not allowing

authors the benefit of peer review.

• Editors sending rejection letters to authors

without forwarding reviewers’ reports – violating
the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Roy 2012)

PUBLISHING AS MEDIATED,
COMMUNICATIVE JOURNEY

PUBLISHING AS MEDIATED, COMMUNICATIVE JOURNEY

• Publishing in international journals is a

MEDIATED JOURNEY – sometimes the
experience is isolated and at other times,
crowded.

• The different phases of the publishing process

involve different configurations of editor-
author-reviewer communicative trajectories
(mainly communicating with ‘professional
strangers’) – also communication involving co-
authors and other colleagues/peers.

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PUBLISHING AS MEDIATED, COMMUNICATIVE JOURNEY

Three challenges (possibly, three-in-one)

• The novice dimension: Socialisation into

‘other’ genres and the role of the
editorial/review process in facilitating socialisation
(author-specific differences in dealing with
reviewers’ and editors’ concerns).

• The non-native dimension: writing in another

language, especially when undertaking qualitative
research.

• Crossing disciplinary boundaries: genre-

specific challenges (structure and style).

PROCEDURAL MATTERS

• How to choose the right journal –

institutional and scholarly imperatives.

• In terms of Open Access, as this becomes an

institutional requirement.

• In terms of tier structure of journals at

institutional and national levels.

• Usually high ranking journals are also Open

Access journals.

PROCEDURAL MATTERS
• Open access journals are not the norm in
human and social sciences.

• Note that even if a journal in itself is not Open

Access, they all publish openly accessible
articles for a designated fee.

• Disciplinary peer pressure – which journals are

valued more when seeking jobs, promotions,
research grants.

• In terms of readership and engagement in

critical scholarship.

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PROCEDURAL MATTERS
• Some authors contact the editor prior to
submission to clarify

 Fit with the journal in theoretical and

methodological terms (usually based on
an enclosed abstract)
 Rerouting submissions unsuccessful
elsewhere
 Permissible length
 Possible publication schedule

• Proposal for Special Issues

• Editors may encourage potential submissions
(e.g., based on conference presentations)

PROCEDURAL MATTERS

• Strictly follow journal guidelines for

submission (e.g., abstract, keywords, word
limit)

• Check language and style (many journals require

NS language check)

• Avoid giving indication of recycling papers

submitted/rejected elsewhere.

• Where possible try and get some feedback on the

article from the peer-group, including comments
on readability.

PROCEDURAL MATTERS

• Maximise the chances of reaching the

target reviewers.

• Check relevant literature published in the

journal of your choice as a way of
contextualising the present study (previously
published authors in the same journal are most
likely to be reviewers).

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PROCEDURAL MATTERS

• Delay in the processing phase for not following

guidelines (e.g. going excessively beyond word
limits; missing abstracts or keywords etc.)

• Avoid putting negative, avoidable comments in

reviewers’ mouths (such as overly long
introduction/background; avoid extended
review of literature that has no bearing on the
research questions posed and the level of
analysis offered).

PROCEDURAL MATTERS

• The sin of simultaneous submission (to different

journals):
 based on ignorance?
 Lack of knowledge of journal’s remit?
 Playing a dangerous game?
 Genuine overlaps in coverage (given that there
are many journals with similar theoretical and
analytic interests)

• Re-routing rejection/resubmission decisions from

other journals; why one would rather not revise
along the suggested lines for the original journal.

TRANSLATING
DOCTORAL/POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH
INTO JOURNAL ARTICLES

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PhD-linked PUBLICATIONS

• Doctoral researchers’ attitude towards

disseminating/publishing their research.

• The social responsibility to share research

findings, especially when doctoral research is
publicly funded.

• The institutional mandate to publish, especially

within the articles-based PhD programmes. More
generally, Publish or Perish!

• What counts as pre-publishing preparation?:

participation in workshops, conferences etc.

PhD-linked PUBLICATIONS

• Dissemination of article-length PhD research at

conferences/workshops as a step towards
publishing in high ranking journals. Avoid the
tendency to present the PhD project in its entirety.

• Strategically consider correspondence between

conferences (audiences) and journals
(readerships).

• In search for critical constructive feedback on

ongoing work beyond one’s supervisory team.

PhD-linked PUBLICATIONS

• When is the right time to seriously consider

journal submissions based on PhD research?

‘First PhD, then publish’

vs.
‘First publish, then PhD’
vs.
‘Publishing while PhDing’ (even when
writing monographs)
vs.
Planning post-doctoral publications

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PhD-linked PUBLICATIONS
• In parts of Europe, a general shift from
monograph-based PhD to articles-based PhD.

• Guidelines and expectations vary – the number of

articles (3-4), their status (published, publishable,
submitted) and their placement (peer-reviewed
journals, edited books, conference proceedings)

• The provision of PhD at Aalborg … Option ‘c’ being

withdrawn

PhD-linked PUBLICATIONS

• PhD students generally do not think about

publications early on.

• The topic may be too narrow to fit into existing

journals; might be high-risk taking (being too meta-
methodological) or low risk taking (lacking
originality, innovativeness).

• A lack of preparation to cope with the aftermath of

rejection from journals.

• How does rejection reflect on supervisors as co-

authors and on institutions?; how does one
prevent/minimise rejections?

PhD-linked PUBLICATIONS

• How do supervisors and institutions offer

scaffolding and training for research students
pursuing different PhD and publication routes,
including co-authorship, access to publishing
workshops?

• Does the PhD research lend itself to article-length

publications in specialised journals?

• Cutting the PhD animal: The butcher’s knife and

the anatomist’s knife, both requiring an audience
orientation.

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PhD-linked PUBLICATIONS

• Anticipating stand-alone journal-length

publications when designing and implementing
PhD research (e.g. distributing literature review
across empirical chapters).

• The near impossibility of achieving published

outputs in high ranking journals in a short
timeline (if the publication agenda only takes
off after data collection).

• Targeting articles on systematic literature

review; theoretical/methodological contributions
etc. prior to empirically grounded studies.

PhD-linked PUBLICATIONS

A trajectory of articles-based PhD: Kristin

Halvorsen (NTNU, Trondheim, Norway)

• Thesis title: Interactional dynamics of team

decision making. A discourse analytic
study of operational planning meetings in
the petroleum industry

• 1st article: Halvorsen, K. (2010) Team decision

making in the workplace: A systematic review
of discourse analytic studies. Journal of Applied
Linguistics and Professional Practice 7 (3): 273–
296.

PhD-linked PUBLICATIONS
• 2nd article: Halvorsen K. and Sarangi, S. (2015)
Team decision-making in workplace meetings: The
interplay of activity roles and discourse roles.
Journal of Pragmatics 76: 1-14.

• The value of experience gained in jointly writing

empirically based studies.

• 3rd article: Halvorsen, K. (2015) Questions as an

interactional resource in team decision making.
International Journal of Business Communication 1–
25.

• 4th article: Halvorsen, K. (2016) Participation across

distance: Claiming the floor in multiple-location
video meetings. Journal of Applied Linguistics and
Professional Practice 10 (1): 45–67.

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PhD-linked PUBLICATIONS

• Post-defence (February 2015): opponents suggest

focus on risk talk and team decision-making,
possibly extendable to healthcare settings.

• More recent publication: Halvorsen, K. (2016)

Rhetorical accounts of risk: interprofessional risk
assessment in operational planning meetings.
Journal of Risk Research.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2016.1247379

EXAMPLES OF DOCTORAL RESEARCH OUTPUTS

• The purpose of the virtual issue of JALPP is to

showcase a selection of papers that have been
published in both JAL and JALPP over the years – all
arising from doctoral research, either completed or
ongoing. We have excluded articles co-written by
doctoral researchers and their supervisors – which
seem to be a common trend in some institutional
environments.

• These articles are free to download and may serve

as exemplars that other researchers can consider.

https://www.equinoxpub.com/journals/index.
php/JALPP/issue/view/1379

EXAMPLES OF DOCTORAL RESEARCH OUTPUTS

• JALPP, C&M and T&T invite submissions in different

categories in variable lengths which are particularly
suited when translating doctoral research into
publishable outputs.

• At one end of the continuum lies the Research

Note category (between 2000-3000 words) which
is less demanding on the researcher’s time and can
act as a placeholder for future research. Klemp’s
(2010) practice-oriented study which focuses on
student teachers’ writing logs is an example of work-
in-progress which reports preliminary findings.

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EXAMPLES OF DOCTORAL RESEARCH OUTPUTS

• Another form is the Systematic Literature

Review category.

• Unlike the science disciplines, it is quite

uncommon in humanities and social sciences to
attempt the systematic literature review genre for
publication purposes. This is a very good way for
doctoral researchers to get started on the
publication ladder when they are in the early
stages of the research process.

THE ANATOMY OF
A JOURNAL ARTICLE

THE ANATOMY OF A JOURNAL ARTICLE

• [Sub]Discipline-specific differences:
human/social sciences vs. natural sciences (e.g.
review format, review style, decision making
processes and outcomes).

• Principles of adequacy: what counts as title,

abstract, introduction, theoretical and contextual
background, (systematic) literature review, choice
of methodology and analytical framework, level of
analysis, findings, discussion, conclusion etc.

• Maxims of quantity, quality, manner and

relevance apply to the whole ms and to different
parts.

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WHAT’S IN A TITLE?
• Importance of titles for an article’s scope, structure
and focus, as well as its fit within the target journal

– Bland titles (e.g., “Discourse analysis and

psychotherapy” as a submission for C&M)

– A string of key words (“Media, power,

representation”; “Talent attraction, shrinking
cities, sense of place, human capital, place
branding, regional development”

– Sexy titles (“Communicating with Gromers and

Crocks: how physicians respond to ‘difficult’
patients” [how wise is it to use such a highly
pejorative title – perhaps the sub-title alone would
be better?]

WHAT’S IN A TITLE?

Complex and long titles; Two-part titles

(balancing the general and the specific)

“Participation of patients and companions in

information-providing sequences: An
alternative framework evaluating the
companion effect in geriatric triads”

VS.

“Who Gets to Talk?: An alternative

framework evaluating companion effects in
geriatric triads”

WHAT’S IN A TITLE?

 Word/character restrictions on titles [as in

funding applications]?

 Distinction between topic(s) and title;

 Relationship between title and sub-title

and title and keywords;

 Framing of title to anticipate research

questions/focus (research question as
title?)

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CONTENT & STRUCTURE OF AN ABSTRACT

• The composition of abstracts: balance between

details and overarching argument; between
structure and substance.

• The practice of echoing the introduction as abstract:

the abstract needs to be more than the introduction.

• The practice of stringing together exact words in the

main text as an abstract, which lacks coherence and
flow of argumentation.

• “First, and rather trivially, the Abstract is all wrong.

It is in fact a compressed review of the literature.
There should be no references in an Abstract. It also
does too little to summarise the actual findings
reported in the body of the paper.”.

CONTENT & STRUCTURE OF AN ABSTRACT

Structure of Abstracts

1. Background (including findings from and absences

in previous literature)
2. Aims/Objective (including research question)
3. Methodology (research design, type of data,
participants, analytical framework)
4. Results/Findings
5. Conclusion (including practical relevance)

• Note: The ordering of 1 and 2 can be reversed.

• The above categories are often explicitly signalled in
science disciplines.

CONTENT & STRUCTURE OF AN ABSTRACT

Criteria for assessment of abstracts

• Appropriateness and relevance of theme

• Organisation and clarity
• Contextualisation of research
• Theoretical orientation (if relevant)
• Research design in case of empirical studies
(research questions, data corpus, participants,
analytic procedures, findings etc.)
• Conceptual framework in case of
theoretical/reflective articles (exposition of
other positions; historical perspective; topicality
of the debate etc.)

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WHAT’S IN AN INTRODUCTION?

• Creating A Research Space (CARS)

• Orienting the reader

• Broad framing and background material

• Motivation for research

• Nominating the Research Question(s)

• Outlining the structure

WHAT’S IN AN INTRODUCTION?

• Framing of Introduction without making it read

like literature review. Ideally the Introduction
should have a para or so each on (i) general
background, including the research niche/gap; (ii)
overall motivation for the study; (iii) research
questions framed broadly which can be revisited
again at the end of literature review; and (iv)
structure of the article.

• A common problem of conflating Introduction with

Literature review in terms of generality and
specificity of information.

LITERATURE REVIEW

• Difference between literature review and

literature search.

• Need for systematic review along a set of criteria

for clustering studies – across data settings,
analytical frameworks, findings, limitations.

• Literature review should not only report findings

but also to include critical commentary on
methodology.

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LITERATURE REVIEW
• Literature review is more streamlined and
systematic in natural sciences than in the human
and social sciences.

• If not systematic, clustering/stranding is to be

preferred to listing.

• Literature reviewed must be part of Data analysis

and Discussion section following analytical
findings.

• Two-part literature review in science disciplines –

at the outset very lean; invoking further relevant
literature as part of Discussion based on findings.

SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

• Designing a review protocol

• Formulating a question

• Identifying and selecting relevant studies

• Systematic data extraction and collection

• Synthesis and analysis of the data

• Writing up and reporting systematic reviews

METHODOLOGY
• Distinction between methodology and methods.

• Methods of data collection, including participants,

sampling procedure, ethical considerations etc.

• If relevant, methods section can be sub-divided in

to sub-sections [Quite often reviewers ask for
more information].

• Description in methods section should be

accompanied by justifications.

• Analytical framework can be included in

methodology.

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RESULTS/FINDINGS

• How does one report results and findings? In

what sequence?

• What counts as result and what counts as

finding in qualitative research? Is this
distinction sustainable?

• How do results and findings bear upon analysis

(of data)?

• Is it really about claim-making, with

appropriate disclaimers?

PARAPHRASING OR ANALYSING?

• This relates to levels of engagement with the

data – especially within the qualitative paradigm.

• Paraphrasing/summarising data extracts is often

viewed as lacking/inadequate.

• Data analysis needs to be in line with the

analytical framework announced – systematic
and necessarily selective.

• Cross-references to relevant sources as

discussed in the literature review section may be
preferred in some traditions.

DISCUSSION AND/OR CONCLUSION

• What counts as discussion?

• How does one separate discussion from data

analysis?

• Interpretation of data vs. Interpretation of

results and findings.

• What counts as conclusion? What aspects are

selected to be highlighted in a conclusion (key
findings; practical relevance; limitations; future
research trajectories etc.)? How is the conclusion
integrated into the overall study design?

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THE AUTHOR’S STANCE IN THE

REVISION PROCESS

COMMUNICATION WITH EDITOR

Some Key Questions that authors ask:

• The expertise of the reviewers: knowledge and

reading practices

• Seeking clarifications about reviewers’ comments

• How to interpret contradictions within and across

reviewer reports

• How to decide what is mandatory and what is

optional during the revision process.

• To please or not to please all reviewers!

AUTHOR’S STANCE IN REVISION PROCESS

The Art of Writing the Cover Letter

• What is done and what is not done.

• How are these actions accounted for?

• Justifications and excuses (extreme cases and

routine cases; space does not allow vs. it would be a
distraction)

• Work to be undertaken in the future

• Where possible, actions have led to useful insights,

based on re-engagement with theory/concept and
data; clarification of terminology/expression.

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AUTHOR’S STANCE IN REVISION PROCESS

• Addressing reviewers’ critical comments suitably (as
evidenced in one’s cover letter when resubmitting
the revised ms) is one of the key determinants in
getting or not getting published.

• Expertise is needed in trading between

submissiveness and defensiveness (with a dash of
argumentativeness).

– Adopting a submissive stance – accept

shortcomings, leading to addition, elaboration,
clarification, deletion, re-engagement

– Adopting a defensive stance – leading to

explication

AUTHOR’S STANCE IN REVISION PROCESS

• Health warning: Reviewers’ reports, taken

together, point at different and even contradictory
directions. Trying to please all reviewers can result
in a worse revised version than the original,
making it impossible to be published.

• The act of ‘appropriate’ submissiveness must be

balanced with covert defensiveness. Responding
to reviewers is an exercise in metacommunication
and argumentative reflexivity (apart from playing
the gatekeeping game).

COMMUNICATION with EDITOR

• Negotiating the scale of revisions needed.

• Undertaking detailed revisions and accounting for
actions taken and not taken: the significance of
the cover the letter accompanying the revised
version.
• The possibility of disagreeing with specific
reviewer comments
• Letters of protest: unfair, biased reviews
• Requesting additional reviews: the fifth avenue!
• Cases of withdrawal

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COMMUNICATION with EDITOR

• The risks involved in comparing different referees’

feedback and settling on the lowest denominator
(e.g., Reviewer A mentions lack of focus, since
Reviewer B and Reviewer C do not mention it,
ignore this???)

• It is better not to compare Reviewers’ feedback,

but go back to the text to see what made a
particular reviewer raise an issue.

• Different reviewers highlight different weaknesses/

strengths.

COMMUNICATION with EDITOR

• A lack of focus can mean several things…

 Focus not flagged explicitly

 Title may be misleading (especially two-part
titles)
 Research questions are not followed strictly
 There are tangential points made in the text
 Conclusion is not tight and does not reiterate
the focus

EXAMPLES OF
EDITORIAL INTERVENTION

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EDITORIAL INTERVENTION

Three key phases

• Following submission, allocation of ms to

reviewers

• Following receipt of reviewers’ reports,

communicate editorial decision (revision or
rejection) to authors

• Mediate during the revision phase and make final

editorial decision about acceptance/rejection

3-PART REVIEWER REPORT

Part 1: Overall Evaluation:

• Publish as is
• Publish with minor revisions*
• Publish with major revisions*
• Revise and resubmit**
• Reject
• Suitable for submission elsewhere
*Note: what counts as major vs minor revision
remains a constant problem, in relation to 4
week revision period
**Note: if revise/resubmit is selected by more than
one reviewer then the ms may lead to either
rejection or a new submission

3-PART REVIEWER REPORT

Part 2

• Reviewer’s confidential report which is NOT

meant for the author(s)

 Managing face-wants with authors

 Input for editorial decisions
 Reviewers may choose not to add anything
specific
 Reviewers may simply repeat some or whole
of the comments made in the third part

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3-PART REVIEWER REPORT

Part 3
• Reviewer’s confidential report which is
addressed to the author(s)
 Open-ended
 Varies substantially in content and detail
(including tracked comments in text)
 Some reports are more constructive than others
 Need for clarification and editorial intervention
 Rarely three reviewers unanimously agree, but
two of them often overlap in their decisions
although for different reasons.

COMMUNICATING EDITORIAL DECISION

• Summarise reviewers’ main concerns and
suggestions; interpret summative evaluation in
light of reviewers’ standing.

• Given the differences among reviewers, try to

weigh the various requirements and prioritise (if
possible) what are essential revision points and
what may be regarded as optional.

• Usual revision time-scale is 4 weeks, but this is

negotiable on the basis of the degree of revisions
needed (some authors decide not to pursue in
light of strict time-scale and their other
commitments)

TRENDS IN ACCEPTANCE/REJECTION

• Most papers (95%) go through the review process

for T&T and C&M, but considerably less for JALPP

• About 5% papers for T&T and C&M are rejected

without review (it’s almost 30%-40% for JALPP)

• Where relevant, suggestions are made about

alternative publication outlets

• About 20%-25% of original submissions get

accepted for publication after revisions

• Very rarely (less than 1%) a paper is accepted as is

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FORMAL ACCEPTANCE

Types of acceptance

• The unlikely event of accept as is

• Unanimous agreement on minor revisions
• Editorial intervention in light of specific referee
comments and journal’s need
• Conditional acceptance
• Transfer scenarios
• The tedious process of producing the final
version (non-native and novice dimensions)

EDITOR’S VERDICT: REJECTION DECISION

Types of rejections
• Straightforward editorial desk rejections (poor
quality, lack of fit etc.)
• Rejection in consultation with specialist board

• Rejection following review process where referees

detect prior publication of the same paper in exact
or somewhat similar form

• Very negative feedback from 2 of 3 reviewers

• Borderline cases – between revise and resubmit,

major revisions
• Suitable elsewhere with minimal revision rather
than undertake major revisions

EMERGENT THEMES & CONCLUSION

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DIFFERENT LEVELS OF KNOWLEDGE

DISCIPLINARY/
SUBJECT
KNOWLEDGE

N
O
N
N
A
T
GENRE I
KNOWLEDGE NOVICE
V PUBLISHING-SPECIFIC
E
(OF JOURNAL ARTICLES) N CONTEXTUAL/
E PROCEDURAL KNOWLEDGE
S
S

LINGUISTIC/
COMMUNICATIVE
KNOWLEDGE

COMMON WEAKNESSES IDENTIFIED BY REVIEWERS

• Missing focus (in title, abstract, research question)

• Absence of theoretical orientation, if applicable

• Lacking analytic sophistication (paraphrase vs

analysis)

• Mismatch between theory and data analysis

• Poor contextualisation of relevant research in the

field; unsystematic review of literature (in terms of
themes, study settings, theoretical, methodological
and analytical frameworks)

COMMON WEAKNESSES IDENTIFIED BY REVIEWERS

• Weak evidence for making generalised claims

• Lacking clarity of expression and organisataional

structure

• Lack of originality (covering familiar territory)

• Written in a textbook style; reads like a PhD thesis

chapter; a coursework/assignment

• Not worthy of publication in the journal concerned

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INITIATING THE NOVICE

• Managing the tensions between reporting new

knowledge and the genre/format of writing
(including use of evidence and claims-making);
special needs of scholars from different disciplinary
backgrounds.

• Beginning with Research Notes (cf. JALPP, C&M,

T&T).

• Co-writing with competent, experienced writers.

• Becoming part of a special issue endeavour with

experienced researchers.

INITIATING THE NOVICE

• Taking on a reviewer role where possible, so as to
have access to other reviewers’ insights.

• The human face of the editorial process: From

gatekeeping to scaffolding/mentoring.

• Rethinking institutional affordances & professional

ethos, including provision of in-house peer reading
groups, working papers, publishing workshops.

• Establishing publishing café/club/forum

• Accessing ‘academic discourse consultants’,

independently or via publishers.

IMPERATIVES, OPPORTUNITIES & CHALLENGES

• Imperatives

 Publish or perish
 Pressure of publishing in high-ranking journals
 Expectations about interdisciplinary
research/publications
 Specific types of publication outputs count
towards Key Performance Indicators
 Differential values accorded to single/joint
authorships across disciplines

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IMPERATIVES, OPPORTUNITIES & CHALLENGES

• Opportunities
 Access to increasing numbers of journals
 Coming of age of electronic journals
 Prevalence of edited books and Handbooks
 Appeal of conference proceedings as publication
outlets
 Ease of access to locally produced books and
journals (e.g. university-based journals)
 Fostering new research areas, interdisciplinary
approaches and collaborations

IMPERATIVES, OPPORTUNITIES & CHALLENGES

• Challenges
 Research/publication activities taking a back seat
in light of teaching and administrative workloads
(even for doctoral students)
 Being in the backwater of the international
publishing scene (English-non-English divide)
 Co-authorships and
indifference/opportunism/marriage of convenience
 Co-authorships and divisions of labour
 Interdisciplinary approaches are not matched by
available journal outlets
 Low morale following rejection(s)
 Absence of adequate mentoring/training

HAPPY PUBLISHING!

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