PUBLISHING IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALSDr. Vanchai AriyabuddhiphongsMay 11, 2012A talk to faculty members ofRajabhat Suandusit University

A WORD OF WARNING

Not an expert in getting papers published. Still get rejections. Used to feel dejected when getting reviews

and rejections. Now look forward to reviewers’ comments. Writing skills improved because of reviewers’

comments.

PRESENTATION ORDER

Phases of writing a paper: Before During After

BEFORE

Type “How to get your published in peer-reviewed journals,” and you get many sites of advice.

The advice is for researchers who have identified their areas of expertise.

Before you write a paper, ask: What is your area of expertise?

BEFORE

An important step: Decide upon your area of expertise.

A better step: Decide upon the area of expertise of two or three colleagues.

The best step: Decide upon the area of expertise of your school.

BEFORE

1. Find your niche. Determine what you will be good, really good, at.

2. Survey your field. Know who is doing what.

3. Review the literature. (You need more databases than you now have. Suandusit does not have enough databases. Swap access to databases with researchers in other universities.)

BEFORE

4. Find a topic that nobody has done a research.

5. Find a theory to apply your topic. 6. Write a research proposal. 7. Ethics Review Board (ERB) or a grant

committee must approve your research project.

8. Conduct your research.

DURING

9. Write your paper in English. Use personal tone.

10. Select a format most used in your field, e.g. APA format.

11. Use Endnote to manage your references. DOI numbers are also required.

DURING

12. Structure of a paper: a. Title (No “Factors …” or “Relationships; if

you know them spell them out.) b. Abstract (4 parts—problem, method,

results, and application. All in 150 words.)

DURING

c. Introduction (Say what you are going to do in your paper, its contribution to theory, and practical application. All within two pages.)

c. Variables (Review each variable in sufficient and relevant details, one to two pages each.)

DURING

d. Relationship among variables (A figure is worth a thousand words—use a model. A move toward multivariate models. SEM. Mediation or moderation models.)

e. Method: Participant Characteristics (Use a table) Sampling Procedures (How you went about

collecting data.)

DURING

Sample size, Power, and Precision (Use GPOWER; sample size tables tend to oversample).

Measures and Covariates: Demographic information (Any thing

special about your participants.)

DURING

Measures—independent variable, dependent variable, mediating/moderating variable (Use measures already in literature. Translate

and back translate. Alternatively, you may get away with three language experts to back up your translation.)

DURING

If you develop your own scales you will have show content, construct, convergent and divergent validities.

DURING

Research Design (What kind of analysis you will use.)

f. Results Preliminary Analyses Evaluating the hypothesized relationships between independent, mediator/moderator variable,

dependent variable

DURING

g. Discussion (The results of your analysis. How your results add to the literature.)

h. Limitations (Put in major limitations of your study. If you do not, the reviewers will help you and reject the paper.)

i. Conclusion: A recap is ok. An innovative conclusion is better.

AFTER

13. Ask a colleague whose mother tongue is English to read your paper. Some journals require this.

14. Send your paper to a conference. No poster.

15. Attend the conference, present your paper, and gather comments.

AFTER 16. Come back from the conference and

identify a journal for your paper. 17. Read the journal’s instructions for

authors and follow closely. Important: Your paper must not contain any mistake.

18. Submit your paper.

AFTER

19. Journals usually (a) reject outright (happens 9 out of 10 times), (b) request major revision, (c) request minor revision, or (d) accept without revision (rarely happens).

20. Use reviewers’ suggestions to improve your writing.

AFTER

21. If you get rejection, do not be discouraged. See if reviewers have any suggestions. If they do, use their suggestion to redo your paper for another journal.

Good Luck.