Choosing the right journal and publication of your research findings
Publications are the top metric the world will use to measure your success as a researcher. Publishing the research papers in high impact and peer-reviewed scholarly journals is the ultimate target for most of the researchers.
One of the commonest mistakes that researchers do is submission of their research paper to a random or unsuitable journal and hence forcing the editors to reject the paper in the technical check stage. Therefore, selecting a suitable journal makes the difference between acceptance and rejection.
There are certain suggestions which can be considered when selecting the right journal for your research article:
- Examine the nature of the journal before submitting your valuable paper to them. Check if they are legit or predatory.
- The scope of the journal must be considered before submitting the paper to the target journal.
- The quality of any journal is assessed on the basis of how many abstracting and indexing services cover that journal.
- Impact factor of a journal is used as an indicator of the significance of a journal in its category (field).
- Rapid but authentic publication which can shorten the peer-review process.
Increasing visibility of your research paper
Each year, millions of research articles are getting accepted for publication in the journals and that number is significantly improving. Hence, it is becoming necessary to formulate different methods to make the research articles significant among others. Improving the visibility and audience reach of your article should not be restricted to only the post-publication of the manuscript; rather, it should begin from the time the research paper is drafted.
Pre-publication activities
- Writing a convincing and effective article
- Writing a brief and yet comprehensive abstract with use of keywords for indexing purposes
- Selecting a list of potential keywords (the keywords used must be popular among researchers in your field)
- Making your research article accessible to all scholarly readers through Open Access publication service which is now provided by almost all reputed publishers, moreover, if the option is not available, you can still post your pre- or post-publication prints to a repository or server such as SHERPA/RoMEO database, Brock Digital Repository, etc
- Participating in conferences and meetings and discuss about your under review research or the research synopsis
- Sharing the synopsis of the research (on sites such as Research Gate)
- Self engagement in ongoing discussion or starting a new about the relevant ongoing research projects with colleagues or researchers from different labs or universities
Post-publication activities
- Talking about your recent publication with researchers even if they are not directly related to your field, this includes emailing the copies of your published research paper to researchers.
- Creating a personal website or blog dedicated for your research and sharing regular updates on it
- Using platforms such as Research Gate account to circulate your research paper among specific group of researchers and following their updates as well
Finding few social media applications which match you and your purposes, some of the wide spread social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Create an audience of scholars and researchers and share all of your research papers and upcoming projects. Keep the connections engaged with blogs and research synopses.