How to submit an article

You want to write a research article and submit it to a journal. To do so, you need a plan. Naturally, you decide to write an article when you have found something interesting and valuable to discuss: a problem, theory, new interpretation, and so on. Let’s assume that you do. You now have to reflect on this topic and elaborate on your research question: what is the point of your article? Why is that important? When your research question is clear, you have to decide how you want to engage with it, i.e., the strategy you are going to adopt. You have to think carefully about the general strategy that you are going to employ in your article.

Choosing the right journal

Now you have to choose a target journal for your article. Remember: good articles are tailored for the journals publishing them. The naive conception that you write an article and then submit it wherever you want, well, it’s just naive. How do you choose a journal? There are four main considerations you have to make. They refer to the journal’s domain, aims, ranking, and publication timeline.

Each journal has its scientific domain. Yet sometimes a paper engages with more than one. You might consider submitting a paper in logic to a linguistic journal, or one detailing the historical context of an author to a history journal. But be careful: some evaluators may argue that such publications do not count in certain circumstances (e.g., scientific habilitations). Each journal also has specific goals, methodological approaches, and relevant interests, mostly reflecting the interests of their readers. This information is often available on the journal’s website. Check and think if your article’s theme and method may fit.

Journals are ranked. You will be ranked too, and so will your publications. Rankings are controversial (and mostly designed for hard sciences). Check the ranking before choosing your target journal. Yet, pay attention: the higher the rank, the harder (and lengthier) the process! The most commonly used ranking is SJR Scimago. There are other lists (international and national) that you can consult. Very often, they just signal which journals are acknowledged as “good” scientific journals, with no proper ranking.

The last aspect to consider is the publication timeline. Usually, around 4 to 6 months pass between your submission and the end of the peer-review process. Yet, it can become quite longer, especially if a resubmission is asked. If the journal is very prestigious, it might be that you will have to wait a long time before your article is published. Indeed, due to rankings and impact, the most important journals in the field have very lengthy publication processes. Consider this factor when deciding the journal to which you will submit your paper.

Avoiding the wrong journal

Editors and publishers are very unlikely to contact you to publish with them. If you receive an email asking to submit your manuscript with a journal/publisher, make sure it is not a scam or a predatory journal. In recent years, some journals and even publishers have started to behave predatorily, looking for new articles and books to publish. This led to lower standards and a bad reputation of those journals and publisher. Never be naïve: a bad publication is far worse than no publication at all! The level of predatory journals is very bad. Often, they will publish anything (their point is to get your money). Bohannon’s experiment confirmed this tendency.

Usually, you never pay to publish an article: if they ask you to pay, there must be a problem (i.e., it’s a scam). Yet there are some (reprehensible) tendencies that you need to be aware of. Some publishers may ask you to contribute with some funds to the publication of your book. Usually, the ‘excuse’ is to lower the price of the purchase and maximise the circulation (= impact) or your book. Especially in the eu, there is a tendency to bind your research funds to an open access policy that obliges you to publish your papers (articles, books) in open access. It looks fantastic: knowledge should be accessible to anyone in the world! However there are many pitfalls.

To adhere to the open access policy, you will often have to choose between one of these three options: 1. Publish with a non-predatory open access journal (not so many) or publisher. 2. Pay a standard journal or publisher to have your publication in open access. 3. Upload a non-definitive version of your work, risking to circulate a not-so-reliable version of your article. As a consequence, publishers that make profits from monetising your research will make even more money thanks to your use of research funds to publish in open access.

There are a few cases in which you may get paid to publish your paper (not many). You may get royalties from books (both monographs and volumes). This is written in your contract (always read contracts very carefully). Yet many publishers do not give you royalties while others will give you a una tantum payment. In some cases (e.g., when publishing with some Chinese journals) you may get paid to publish your article: that is not a scam, but a (rare) form of remuneration of your research from the journal that will publish its results. In the west this never happens with articles

Submission and assessment

Your paper is ready. You have carefully proof-read it. It’s time for submission! Before pressing that button, ensure three main things. First, give the paper time to brew: let a few days pass before reading it one last time. Second, check the journal’s formal requirements: you might need to conform your formatting (bibliography, references, etc.) to the journal stylesheet before submission. Third, carefully anonymise your paper and don’t forget the metadata.

Now that you have pressed that button, your paper (now called a “manuscript”) reaches the journal editors. The editors will provide a preliminary desk assessment: they will judge whether your manuscript is suitable for publication according to the formal requirements (language and style) and its scientific content (also considering its alignment with the journal’s aims).

If your manuscript passes the desk assessment, it will undergo a peer-review process. Starck (2017) defines this process as follows: “peer review is the critical assessment of scientific reports by independent experts. It scrutinizes manuscripts, grant proposals, or job applications for (1) the correct application of the principles of science, (2) correct scientific methodology, (3) presentation according to the standards of scientific publishing, (4) the originality of research, and (5) for legal and ethical correctness” (p. 55).

Starck (2017) also emphasises the necessity of this process: “it is the widely accepted safeguarding mechanism aiming to secure that (1) research has been carried out appropriately, (2) that hypotheses are phrased clearly, (3) the methods appropriate, (4) the results presented correctly, and (5) all possible interpretations considered. Peer review gives authors feedback to improve the quality of their research papers before publication and helps editors decide which manuscripts should be published – it represents mutual collegial engagement of scientists, not judgment” (p. 1).

If your manuscript has passed the first checks, it will undergo a process called double-blind peer review. It is (1) double: two types of actors are involved—the author/s and the referees. It is (2) blind: you do not know who the referees are, and they do not know who you are. It also is (3) peer: the referees are academics like you, i.e., your “peers”. And finally, (4) it is a review: they will assess the article checking its scientific validity. These two scholars will dedicate much (unpaid) time to read scrupulously your paper and assess its originality, value, and impact. The referee’s report is often based on standard rubrics (charts) and may include parts that are only at the editors’ disposal (i.e., you will not read them).

The selected referees (the scholars reviewing your paper) will be requested to write a report. Each journal has its own policy about peer-reviews, yet usually these reports have three parts: 1. An evaluation chart. 2. A written analysis commenting on the paper. 3. Some final recommendations to the editors and/or the author, expanding on possible changes and advising the editors on whether the paper should or should not be published.

Once the referees have examined your paper, they will autonomously (i.e., without knowing what the other thinks) write their report summarising their evaluation. The editor(s) will assess the reports and your article. Then, the journal will send you the report and inform you of the decision that has been made. Although the number of possible outcomes differs from journal to journal due to their internal policies, one can count a maximum of five possible outcomes of the peer-review process.

The Wiley Author Services compellingly describes these possible outcomes as follows:

Accept without any changes (acceptance): the journal will publish the paper in its original form.

Accept with minor revisions (acceptance): the journal will publish the paper and ask the author to make small corrections.

Accept after major revisions (conditional acceptance): the journal will publish the paper provided the authors make the suggested changes.

Revise and resubmit (conditional rejection): the journal is willing to reconsider the paper in another round of decision-making after the authors make major changes.

Reject the paper (outright rejection): the journal will not publish the paper or reconsider it even if the authors make major revisions.

Always remember that the referees are helping you to write a good article: they are your allies in that regard, not your enemies. If the referees reject a paper, it (usually) means that it is not good enough. It would have been far worse for you to publish a bad article!

Think of a contingency plan if your article is rejected. If it is desk rejection (e.g., the article is not aligned with the journal’s aims), find another journal. If it is a proper rejection (i.e., by referees), do not resubmit the same paper again without any rethinking and reshaping. This would be scientific misconduct and a foolish move (a bad article is worse than no article at all!).

Final pieces of advice

When experiencing the raging seas of academic publishing, I believe a few pieces of advice can make a real difference. While publishing is always a quite personal experience, remember to consider the following tips:

1. Never submit the same paper to two journals at the same time: it’s a mistake!

2. Never feel defeated after reading the referees’ report: you are a philosopher, relativize it!

3. Never plagiarise anyone (including yourself) in your paper: it is both unethical and illegal!

4. Never take publications too lightly: once they are published, they are out there!

5. Never take publications too seriously: you are free to change your mind!

And remember that asking for help is perfectly acceptable. Academic research is a collaborative endeavour, so feel free to reach out to your colleagues for suggestions and feedback. Don’t forget to acknowledge their contributions in your acknowledgments!

Reference

Peter LaPlaca, Adam Lindgreen, & Joëlle Vanhammed, “How to write really good articles for premier academic journals”, Industrial Marketing Management 68 (2018): 202-209.

J. Matthias Starck, Scientific Peer Review: Guidelines for Informative Peer Review. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2017.

Wiley Author Services (consulted on 18 September 2022).