Ten Simple Rules for Getting Published in Peer-reviewed Journals

After recently writing about a paper on grant writing, I discovered another similar paper by the same author on getting scientific research published. Like grant writing, writing scientific journal articles destined for peer-reviewed journals can take a lot of time, effort, and patience to go through the whole process. The paper I'm covering below offers suggestions for making the peer-reviewed publishing process as painless as possible.

The 10 Rules

Rule 1: Read Plenty of Papers

Reading papers gives you experience with a range of research methods, techniques, and writing styles, helping you understand what works and what doesn't. Extensive reading can also help you be more objective about your own work as you work through research projects and try to get them published.

Rule 2: Be Objective With Your Own Work

Learn how to be objective with your own work. While there is bias in all of us, try to look at your own work objectively; you’ll better understand how other scientists will see it as a reviewer.

Rule 3: Improve your Manuscript Before Submitting

Put substantial effort into improving your manuscript before submitting to a peer-reviewed journal. While you will undoubtedly get critical feedback from reviewers, having your manuscript as polished as possible will give the reviewers a good baseline to start from and allow them to provide better suggestions for improvement.

Rule 4: Learn to Write in English

Papers written in good English that are grammatically correct and convey complex ideas clearly are more likely to be accepted by journals. Poor writing requires more copyediting and will take longer to publish. Artificial intelligence tools can make translation to English less laborious, but strong English skills are still valuable for the writing process.

Rule 5: Accept Rejection

Your papers will get rejected. The best response to rejection is to consider the reviewers’ comments and respond to them objectively in your cover letter. You don’t have to agree with every comment; if you disagree, write your rebuttal as clearly, concisely, and without emotion as possible.

Rule 6: Be Honest About Your Work

Be objective about the ingredients of a good paper: organization, descriptive tables and figures, and concise writing targeted to the audience of the journal. Getting a review from a colleague who is not connected to your work can help identify issues you have become oblivious to.

Rule 7: Start Writing Early

Begin the writing process early when you know what questions you will pursue. Your manuscripts slated for a peer-reviewed journal should be concise, not verbose like a thesis or dissertation. Keep your bibliographic database updated in dedicated software like Zotero.

Rule 8: Become a Reviewer

Being a reviewer will help you write better papers. You’ll better understand the review process, how to critique papers, and write better papers as a result. Look at the reviews others have written for ideas on how to write reviews and the types of issues that appear in your field of study. All of this experience allows you to see your work more objectively and become a better writer.

Rule 9: Decide on an Outlet Early

Deciding where to publish your work will help you plan and write it properly. Each journal has its own guidelines and writing style; following that journal’s style and structure from the beginning can save substantial time later.

Rule 10: Focus on Quality over Quantity

Publish in journals that have as high an impact factor as possible. Potential employers may look at your Google Scholar page to understand the impact of your work. Publishing in high-impact journals will give your research more visibility and credibility and potentially help with employment.

References

Bourne, P. E. 2005. Ten simple rules for getting published. PLOS Computational Biology 1:e57. https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.0010057