Today sees the final set of notes from last week's session on 'getting published in journals'. Slides of all the presentations, together with a full set of this week's notes, are available on the Grants Factory & ECR Network SharePoint site.
Responding to Referees Comments
Jon Williamson
Before responding to referees, you have to keep in mind what
you want to achieve, namely:
·
To get published;
·
To improve your paper;
·
To defend your paper against changes that will
weaken it.
The comments should be considered in light of these.
Consider each of them, and decide whether making the suggested changes is
crucial (i.e. the article will be rejected if you don’t), improving, or
unnecessary. It may be the case that, once you receive the comments, you decide
that the changes will irrevocably alter your intentions, and that you should
instead try submitting it elsewhere.
In responding to the comments, you will submit three
documents:
·
The altered paper itself. You should try and
make all the changes suggested, if you haven’t, explain why not in the letter
(below);
·
Your response, which lists the reviewers’
comments and your changes in light of them. This can be longer than the paper
itself;
·
A covering letter. This provides an opportunity
to talk ‘off the record’ to the editor about any review that was particularly
problematic.
Additional Thoughts
Sally Sheldon
You should always take advantage of advice and help that is
available, either from colleagues within your School, or in other
Schools/institutions that know the field. Never submit anything without having
had some reviews internal, informal feedback first.
If you are uncertain about submitting to a certain journal,
contact the editor. They will be able to advise:
·
If your proposed paper will fit their journal;
·
If your article will be published in time for
the REF (including, importantly, whether the journal pre-publishes on line –
this counts as ‘publication’ for REF purposes);
·
During the review process, what you should do if
any of the referee’s changes are difficult to meet.
Finally, don’t limit yourself to academic publications, but
think more widely about how you can ‘mine’ your paper for different audiences.
Whilst this might not help your academic profile, it will help you to meet the
government’s impact agenda and may bring your research to the attention of
important interested audiences, who might never find it in academic journals.
getting published in reasonably good peer-reviewed journals. Thomas ... Only on the 4th attempt did the paper get published in Quarterly Journal of Economics. The Student Research Journal
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