Publication strategies

1
Publication strategies

• Thomas Suddendorf

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Post PhD

• Postdoctoral fellow
• Lectureship
• Score board
• Publication record
• Impact
• Grants
• Awards
• Service teaching

3
The big question

• What time effort to spend on what projects?
• Foremost DO GOOD RESEARCH
• Publications merely report that work
• Learn to run projects in parallel
• Take opportunities to work on projects that
  present themselves, but..
• Focus on what you are passionate about
• Carefully develop coherent research program

4
Publications types

• Empirical articles
• Theories
• Reviews
• Book Chapters
• Other
• Commentaries
• Book reviews
• Conference proceedings
• etc

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Quality vs Quantity

• Articles impact
• Check Web of Science
• ISI Web of Knowledge citation index
• Much SS research never gets cited
• Waste of time effort
• Good work should lead others to learn something
  and cite your contribution
• Know your journals
• Impact Factors
• Web of Science citation reports
• Psychology Tier 1,2,3, 4
• http//www.psy.uq.edu.au/noticeboard/index.html?Ca
  tId1
• Special considerations
• Special issues, invited commentaries etc.

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Publication Strategies

• Major publications
• Top generalist journals such as
  Science or Nature (IF gt 25)
• Tier 1 highest impact journals in
  your specific field (IFgt2)
• Review vs empirical journals
• What gets published there
• definite set of experiments
• major review
• new theory
• Make sure you get one of these early
• Aim high, but re-evaluate your paper
• Be persistent, keep improving (learn from
  reviewers comments) resubmitting
• but dont let it distract you entirely from

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Quantity

• Bread butter
• Tier 2-3 (IF0.5-2), basic experiments
• Produce a regular quantity of good quality
  research
• Aim for 2-3 per year
• Consider building up different collaborative
  research programs
• Tier 4 (IFlt0.5)
• High quantity of low impact work may mark you as
  productive, but
• Generally avoid, unless work is aimed at specific
  audience or is invited
• but sometimes

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Book Chapters

• Can be a good recognition
• Different Tiers (1,2,3,4) for publishers
• http//www.psy.uq.edu.au/noticeboard/index.html?Ca
  tId1
• Consider editor, distribution, audience
• Allows you to expand and even speculate more than
  an article does
• However, often they are rather pointless
• Repetition of previously published ideas
• The stuff I could not get into a decent journal
• Not compulsory reading for your peers
• Very long time to publication
• Avoid books that are written for writers rather
  than readers (a la Who is who)

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More quantity

• Conferences
• Regularly present your work at major
  international meetings
• Proceedings are no substitute to peer reviewed
  journal articles.
• Abstracts that repeatedly appear in conference
  proceedings, but do not make it into a journal,
  may indicate something
• Other non-refereed publications
• book reviews,
• commentaries,
• letters etc.

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Outlet summary

• Aim to get some high impact (Tier 1 papers) for
  your best work!
• Regularly produce solid work (Tier 2-3)
• Re-evaluate your articles and carefully choose
  where to send it next
• Consider other ways of publishing to increase
  output
• Chapters, book reviews, commentaries
• Find a balance between the extremes of
• Few high impact publications versus
• Many low impact publications

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Authorship

• Collaborations are good, but
• Single authored papers are better
• Shows that you can do it.
• Two author papers can be similarly strong
• both will be spelled out in citations
• Multiple authors
• Safer and easier to get out
• Tit for tat often ensures higher number of papers
  for large research groups, but
• DEST points are proportional to number of authors
• E.g., with 5 co-authors, you receive 1/6th of a
  publication credit and Peers will see it
  similarly
• First author tends to get the credit (Smith et
  al., 2006)
• But, sometimes the last author does too
• Big names will be recognized and readers may
  attribute creative part to that person
• Consistently publishing with the same group of
  people will make it difficult to determine what
  your contribution has been and if you can pull it
  off by yourself

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Authorship

• Be conscious about your pattern of authorship
• Try to find a balance (i.e., single authored,
  first authored collaborations, and different
  multi-authored papers)
• Be generous and people will be generous to you
• Get an early start at single authored papers
• Again, consider reviews and book reviews

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Other

• Identify and apply for grants
• Identify and apply for awards
• Be a good departmental citizen
• But be careful with your limited time
• Focus on what you are passionate about, what you
  are interested in, and what you want to become a
  world expert on
• You have to drive your research career yourself
  so have some fun