Demystifying the Publication Process, Part 1

At the ASA Student Forum Workshop "Demystifying the Publication Process: Editors of Sociology Journals Speak With Students," panelists Gary Alan Fine (Social Psychology Quarterly), Dana M. Britton (Gender & Society), and Karen Cerulo (Sociological Forum) gave sage advice and insider tips. Some of the topics covered were how to get published, what to do when you get an R&R, what to do when you get rejected, and how to navigate the job of being a blind reviewer. Here's an overview of what they said:

Ten Tips for Getting Your Paper Published:

1. Share your paper with your colleagues before sending it out. If the paper sucks, it's better to hear it from people who know and like you. Presumably, they will be less likely to beat your paper (and ego, since these two are intimately tied) to a pulp and stomp on its ruins. Also, they can catch any glaring errors or problems with the paper before you send it to a journal.
   
2. Try to include people in the acknowledgments. It shows that you did tip #1, and gives the editor reason to trust that this isn't the first time your paper has seen the light of day.
3. Relatedly, anyone you name in the acknowledgments will NOT be called upon to serve as a blind reviewer. That statement may sound obvious, but think about it this way: if there is anyone you DON'T want reviewing your paper (nemesis, archenemy, etc), acknowledge their brilliant advice on an earlier version of your manuscript.
4. Target your paper to a specific journal. Take some time to search the existing journals and find the one that seems to be the best fit for your paper, then tailor your paper to that journal. What you don't want to do is write a paper in isolation, then randomly start sending it out to journals that sound right based on their title, or the fact that you have heard of them, until some journal accepts your paper. Dana Britton creatively calls this ill-founded approach the "pasta model"--throw it on the wall and see if it sticks.
   
5. Pay attention to the MISSION of the journal. Don't send your gender and sexuality manuscript to a political sociology journal. That may be an obvious example, but read the mission statement of the journals you are considering. Pay attention to their nuances. Better yet, peruse the last 6 or 7 editions of the journal.
6. Reign in the SCOPE of your paper. Try to limit your ressearch to 3-4 major points or hypotheses.
7. Relatedly, pay attention to page limit requirements. If you go substantially over, the editor will likely send the behemoth right back to you.
8. Get a good HOOK. Your introduction to the paper should be no more than 1-1 1/2 pages, and should include information regarding why your article matters. Does it contribute to the existing literature on the topic? Fill a gap in research? Refute past findings? Weigh in on an ongoing scholarly debate with a new and interesting perspective? Can your findings be applied to the "real world" somehow?
   
9. Write for your AUDIENCE. Your paper should be understandable to your potential reviewers as well as your readers. A good way to find out who might be reviewing your paper is to see who the journal has called upon in the past. Especially those you have cited.
   
10. Scan the list of editors, reviewers, and anyone else closely connected to the journal and make sure that you are citing those whose work is relevant to your own research. Do this partly because it strokes their egos, but it also just shows you know what you are doing. If you really know a research area, you will know who writes in it. And if you really know the journal you are targeting, you will know who reviews for it. It's not really sucking up; it's just good sense. Really! (An interesting tidbit: I am working on an R&R in which the editor emphasizes a point made by a blind reviewer questioning my reasoning for making a particular assertion. So, I went to the research to see how others have framed it. Turns out, the editor has written on that very topic. I did not cite the editor in my manuscript. Oops.)

The wonderful editors had much more to say about the publication process, but I think this post is long enough as it is. Plus, I am still in that grand city New York, and I'll be damned if I'm going to waste all my time sitting in front of a computer. So, stay tuned. In the second installment of "Demystifying the Publication Process," I will relay what advice was given about what to do after the editor has made a decision regarding your manuscript.