How to publish?
It’s the end of July, and I have finally submitted my first manuscript for publication under my current MSCA Widening Fellowship. This journey has taken me over a year.
Actually, it is a project I started thinking about more than 2 years ago. It started with a discussion with the research team I am associated with. It then took some learning, programming, analysing, re-programming, and re-analysing. The results were somewhat cool, but the story to tell why the results could be interesting to others took some more thinking.
Nevertheless, some external pressure and two years later, the story is complete and submitted to a journal. The journal will make a special issue about ‘Past, present and future of mountain and island systems’ - which aligns perfectly with my research. Amazing. These special issues are always welcomed as they provide a comprehensive overview of the latest advancements in a specific field, all in one concise publication. This significantly increases the chances that others will come across and appreciate your work.
So, what happens after submitting a research work to a journal? First, an initial check ensures that the formatting and minimum requirements are met, and that the abstract is captivating to the journal editor. Journals with high impact factors, the more popular journals, might also reject your manuscript outright as they find the topic not intersting enough for their readers. If this barrier is passed, the handling editor will search for experts in your specific research field to evaluate the adherence to scientific standards. They consider factors such as the clarity, reproducibility, and contextualization of the research. Additionally, they assess whether the work will be of interest to the readership of the journal. After receiving the review, and if a revision is accepted by the editor, the manuscript is resubmitted after improvements. It goes back to the reviewer to assess if all recommendations have been implemented or if arguments why not are valid. Finally, when all parties are satisfied, the manuscript undergoes final checks for typesetting, proofreading, and is ultimately published. Despite sounding like a quick process, it can still take a year or longer until the submitted work becomes publicly available.
Let’s talk about ‘open-access’ journals. According to Wikipedia “Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers.” When I first entered academia, open access was a relatively new concept, at least within my field. Non-open access journals cover their publishing costs through subscriptions, pay-per-view options, and charges to authors for figures or per page. Often, these articles are funded by public money, requiring universities to purchase subscriptions so that their employees can access the work after publishing. This essentially results in double payment for work already financed with government funds. On the other hand, open-access journals can be freely read, with publishing costs covered by the authors, their universities, or research grants and these open-access publishing fees can vary dramatically - depending on the specific journal. Nevertheless, it is now required if funded by EU money, to publish open-acess. However, open access has faced criticism for various reasons, such as the potential publication of low-quality work in order to generate more revenue. Also, for authors from low-income institutions or countries the processing charges can be a barrier.