Today we had a talk conducted on "How to publish in reputed US journal?". I realised how far these two questions stand from each other - "How to do good research" and "How to publish in good journals". The question itself eluded the very sense of doing research. Our speaker unveiled very striking but true facts about the publication process. Some of the highlights for those who missed the talk are:
1. Prior to approaching these journals, presenting your paper in at least two schools/conferences helps
2. One may incorporate (positive) comments earned during these conferences to market the paper
3. Reflect positive and optimistic attitude in your writing style
4. Abstract and Introduction are THE decisive factors. One must provide the gist as well as importance of his/her contribution here.
5. Sophistication in your writing is desirable. (say hi to people who talk addition, multiplication in the language of sets ;) )
6. About Revision
- Make reviewer feel good about himself. You may write letter to him/her explaining how seriously you took his comments.
- Re-submitting too early (you didnt give enough time to comments) or too late (they might loose interest) is fatal. Speaker advised that one should re-submit the paper within six months but not before two months.
- If you feel that reviewer is (terribly) wrong, some of the options (#@%$#^) are:
i. co-author with a US author
ii. present examples from the journal itself in which they have accepted the reviwed mistakes
iii. have patience, apply somewhere else.
Points mentioned above are just the summary of today's talk for those who missed, and wanting to know about it. There are no personal biases involved in these points. Speaker also mentioned about the jargon of "Clean Vitae" and "Dirty Vitae" – it’s a kind of informal-club-making process where people involved in publishing categorise you as clean vitae or dirty vitae author based on you CV.
Fair enough. Now, turn for my personal comments :)
WHERE IS GOD!!!
No, honestly I am not yet such a good scholar that I get this frustrated. But I would like to say - happy researching.
