Getting Ready To Publish? Peer Review, Journal Selection,

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Getting Ready To Publish?Peer Review, Journal
Selection, Available Tools

• Howard Goldstein Ardis Hanson
• College of Behavioral Community Sciences

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Outline

• Publishing and Peer Review
• Questions Editors Reviewers Ask
• Publication-related tools
• Guidelines
• Selecting journals
• Impact factors

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Why publish?

• Key indicator of scholarly contributions
• Prerequisite for grant funding
• Developing a national reputation
• Personal impact versus journal impact
• Scientific obligation

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Peer Review

• 1732 in England by the Royal Society of Edinburgh
  and Royal Society of London.
• Considered an essential and integral part of
  consensus building.
• Used more for intellectual status than
  intellectual necessity.
• Blind (anonymous) peer review attempts to improve
  the quality of reviews by removing bias.
• Problems with peer review are widely
  acknowledged.

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I have just finished a Memoir for the Royal
Society, which has taken me a world of time,
thought, and reading, and is, perhaps, the best
thing I have done yet. It will not be read till
May, and I do not know whether they will print it
or not afterwards that will require care and a
little manoeuvering on my part. You have no
notion of the intrigues that go in this blessed
world of science. Science is, I fear, no purer
than any other region of human activity though
it should be. Merit alone is very little good it
must be backed by tact and knowledge of the world
to do very much.

• Thomas Huxley, p. 106. In Huxley, L. (1901). Life
  and Letters of Thomas H. Huxley, Vol. II. New
  York, NY D. Appleton and Co

• For instance, I know that the paper I have just
  sent in is very original and of some importance,
  and I am equally sure that if it is referred to
  the judgment of my particular friend_____ that
  it will not be published. He wont be able to say
  a word against it, but he will pooh-pooh it to a
  dead certainty
• So I must manoeuvre a little to get my poor
  memoir kept out of his hands.

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Peer Review Caveats

• Can vary greatly by journal
• procedures, confidentiality, and
  comprehensiveness of review.
• Reject without external review
• Requires a delicate balance between social
  scientific processes
• Every journal, editor, and reviewer is different
• The questions each asks is different and each
  question is important
• Interesting video on problems with the review
  process (833)
• See also the list of questions that editors and
  reviewers ask on the Research Forum Series
  website.

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What Authors Should Do

• Minimize "presentation defects"
• Ask colleagues to critically review the
  manuscript draft
• Incorporate the reviewer comments and suggestions
• Keep a list of writing and editorial changes
• Serving as a reviewer will strengthen your skills
  as an author

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Available tools

• Commonly Accepted Guidelines
• Journal Citation Reports
• UlrichsWeb Global Serials Directory
• WorldCat

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Commonly Accepted Quantitative Guidelines

• Epidemiological Studies
• Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies in
  Epidemiology (MOOSE)
• STROBE initiative (Strengthening the Reporting of
  Observational Studies in Epidemiology)
• Clinical Trials
• CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting
  Trials)
• Meta-analyses and Systematic Reviews
• PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic
  reviews and Meta-Analyses)
• Diagnostic Tests
• STARD (Standards for the Reporting of Diagnostic
  Accuracy Studies)
• Quality Improvement Reports
• SQUIRE (Standards for Quality Improvement
  Reporting Excellence)
• Statistical Biomedical Studies
• SAMPL (Statistical Analyses and Methods in the
  Published Literature)

Available from http//equator-network.org or
from CBCS Research Forum Series website
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Commonly Accepted Qualitative Guidelines

• Guidelines for Critical Review Form Qualitative
  Studies 2.0
• COREQ (Consolidated Criteria for Reporting
  Qualitative Research)
• interviews focus groups)
• ENTREQ (Enhancing transparency in reporting the
  synthesis of qualitative research)
• RATS (Relevance Appropriateness Transparency)
• BioMedCentral

Available on Research Forum intranet website
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Journal Selection

• Basic selection questions

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Getting Started

• Audience matters
• Scientists should disseminate to different
  audiences
• Investigate a number of journals.
• Know the pecking order of journals in your field.
• Questions you might investigate about journals
  under consideration.

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Basic Selection Questions
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Decisions, Decisions

• 360 perspective important
• Discipline/ subject area
• Data sources and comparative data
• Visibility
• Acceptance/rejection information
• Top ten lists
• Lit reviews are useful to find them
• Decision points currency, selection criteria,
  intention, and relevance to you
• Impact factors

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Impact Factors

• True of false?Any journal with an impact factor
  is a good journal.
• Social science journals rank lower in impact than
  science journals.The higher the IF, the more
  valued the journal.

Of the 67 journals ranked in Health Policy
Services, the top ranked journal is Milbank
Quarterly at 4.644, the lowest is Sciences
Sociales Et Sante at 0.176.
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Sample search

• Woehle, R. (2013). Visualizing the invisible
  college Community among authors in top social
  work journals. Journal of Social Work
  Education,48(3), 537-552.2012
• Willcocks, L., Whitley, E. A., Avgerou, C.
  (2008). The ranking of top IS journals a
  perspective from the London School of Economics.
  European Journal of Information Systems,
  17(2)163-168.
• Wong, E. L. et al. (2013). Citation classics in
  nursing journals The top 50 most frequently
  cited articles from 1956 to 2011. Nursing
  Research, 62 (5)344-351.
• Rosen, D. et al. (2013). Just say know An
  examination of substance use disorders among
  older adults in gerontological and substance
  abuse journals. Social Work in Public Health,
  28(3-4), 377-387.
• Jennings, W.G., Gibson, C.L., Ward, J.T.,
  Beaver, K.M. (2008). Which group are you in? A
  preliminary investigation of group-based
  publication trajectories of criminology and
  criminal justice scholars. Journal of Criminal
  Justice Education, 19, 227-250.
• Jennings, W.G., Higgins, G.E., Khey, D.N.
  (2009). Exploring the stability and variability
  of impact factors and associated rankings in
  criminology and criminal justice journals,
  1998-2007. Journal of Criminal Justice Education,
  20, 157-172.

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Journal Citation Reports

• Two editions Science and Social Science
• Always check both editions for your journal.
• Journals are placed in Subject Categories.
• Journals have one impact factor but may be ranked
  in multiple subject categories in one or both
  editions.
• Provide additional journals to consider as well
  as widening an audience base
• Available through Web of Science (USF libraries)

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Impact Factors and Immediacy

• Developed by Eugene Garfield in the 1950s
• Reflects average of number of citations to recent
  articles published in journals JCR tracks
• Proxy measure for importance of journal in the
  field
• Impact Factor
• Current and 5-year IFs
• Immediacy Index
• Cites in 2012 to items published in 2012

Formula A the number of times that articles
published in that journal in 2006 and 2007, were
cited by articles in indexed journals during
2008. B the total number of "citable items"
published by that journal in 2006 and 2007. 2008
impact factor A/B.
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Subject Categories Disciplines

• May affect who your audience is, the expected
  theoretical or epistemological frameworks, and
  the emphasis of scientific vs. practical
  implications.

Social Science Science
1 EPIDEMIOLOGY 5.738 1 EPIDEMIOL REV 9.269
13 HEALTH SERV RES 49 PAEDIATR PERINAT EP
14 HEALTH QUAL LIFE OUT 51 HIGH ALT MED BIOL
15 HEALTH ECON 52 J EPIDEMIOL
16 VALUE HEALTH 53 HEALTH EXPECT
17 QUAL HEALTH RES 54 INT ARCH OCC ENV HEA
18 AM J MANAG CARE 55 BMC PUBLIC HEALTH
19 HEALTH EXPECT 55 ENVIRON GEOCHEM HLTH
20 EUR J HEALTH ECON 57 GLOBAL HEALTH ACTION
21 HUM RESOUR HEALTH 58 STAT MED
26 PSYCHIAT SERV 59 PSYCHIAT SERV
136 ZDRAV VARST 0.163 161 ENVIRON RISQUE SANTE 0.307
Impact Factor Social Science Social Science Science Science
2.013 Rank Quartile Rank Quartile
HLTH POLICY SERV 22/67 Q2 -- --
PSYCHIATRY 70/13 Q3
PUB, ENV OCC H 26/136 Q1 59/161 Q2
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• Category Name Science
• Public, Environmental Occupational Health
  Category DescriptionPublic, Environmental
  Occupational Health covers resources dealing with
  epidemiology, hygiene, and health parasitic
  diseases and parasitology tropical medicine
  industrial medicine occupational medicine
  infection control and preventive medicine. Also
  included are resources on environmental health
  cancer causes and control aviation, aerosol, and
  wilderness medicine.
• Category Name Science
• PsychiatryCategory DescriptionPsychiatry
  covers resources on clinical, therapeutic,
  research, and community aspects of human mental,
  emotional, and behavioral disorders.
• Category Name Social Science
• Health Policy ServicesCategory
  DescriptionHealth Policy Services covers
  resources on healthcare systems, including
  healthcare provision and management, financial
  analysis, healthcare ethics, health policy, and
  quality of care.
• Category Name Science
• Health Care Sciences ServicesCategory
  DescriptionHealth Care Sciences Services
  covers resources on health services, hospital
  administration, health care management, health
  care financing, health policy and planning,
  health economics, health education, history of
  medicine, and palliative care.

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Related Journals

• Journal Relatedness is based on the strength of
  cited and citing relationships.
• The same calculation measures the relatedness of
  journals to a subject category.

• The number of citations from the citing journal
  to the cited journal
• The total number of articles in the related
  journal
• The total number of citations from the citing
  journal

• The number of citations from journals in the
  subject category to the related journal.
• The total number of articles in the related
  journal.
• The total number of citations from journals in
  the subject category.

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Science Citation Index
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Social Science Citation Index
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Psychiatric Services 1075-2730 is an
international interdisciplinary journal published
monthly by the American Psychiatric Association.
Formerly known as Hospital and Community
Psychiatry and Mental Hospitals, the journal
provides comprehensive coverage of all aspects of
psychiatric care, treatment, and service
delivery. It has a strong clinical focus but also
offers in-depth coverage of administrative,
legal, economic, and public policy issues. With
its emphasis on research to practice to policy,
Psychiatric Services was rated as one of the top
ten health services research journals by the
Institute for Scientific Information for over ten
years. UlrichsWeb Global Serial Directory classes
Psychiatric Services as a refereed,
academic/scholarly journal. The current editor,
Howard H. Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of
Psychiatry at the University of Maryland School
of Medicine. A blind peer review process is
used, obtaining 3 reviews on average, including
one from an editorial board member. The average
length of brief reports are 1200-1600 words with
only a single table or figure. The average
length of regular articles is 3000 words. An
average of 600 manuscripts are submitted yearly.
Seventy percent of submissions are rejected.
Twenty percent end up published as research
reports. Another 10 submitted as research
reports end up published in some other format
such as letters or columns.
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UlrichsWeb Global Serials Directory
Like one-stop shopping. I can pull up and select
the reviews I want, then download them as .pdf,
.txt, .csv or .xls files with specific
data BasicSubject ClassificationsAdditional
Title DetailsHistoryPublisher Ordering
DetailsPriceOnline AvailabilityAbstracting
IndexingOther AvailabilityDemographicsReviewsR
elated Titles
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Psychiatric Services has an impact factor of
2.481. In the 2012 Journal Citation Reports
Science Edition, Psychiatric Services is ranked
48th of 101 journals in the PSYCHIATRY class and
28th of 105 journals in the PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH class. In Social Science
Edition, Psychiatric Services is ranked 10th of
41 journals in the HEALTH POLICY SERVICES
class and 10th of 76 journals in the PUBLIC,
ENVIRONMENTAL OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH class.
Psychiatric Services is indexed and/or
abstracted by the following vendors Adis
International Ltd. (Pharmacoeconomics Outcomes
News, Reactions Weekly), British Library Board
(Allied Complementary Medicine), EBSCOhost
(Allied and Complementary Medicine, Chicano
Database, Child Development Adolescent Studies,
CINAHL, Current Abstracts, Family Society
Studies Worldwide, Poetry Short Story Reference
Center, PsycINFO, Public Affairs Index, RILM
Abstracts of Music Literature, SocINDEX, Social
Work Abstracts, TOC Premier, Violence Abuse
Abstracts), Elsevier BV (EMBASE, Scopus),
MetaPress (Abstracts in Anthropology), National
Library of Medicine (PubMed, Medline, Excerpta
Medica), OCLC (ArticleFirst, PsycFIRST), Ovid
(Allied Complementary Medicine, PsycINFO,
Personal Alert), ProQuest (ProQuest Central, 5000
International, Health and Medical Complete,
Health Management, Medical Library, Nursing and
Allied Health Source, Psychology Journals,
Research Library, Psychology Module, PsycINFO,
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature),  Thomson
Reuters (AH, Science, Social Science Citation
Indices, Current Contents, and Web of Science).
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h- and g-indexes

• Another way to look at journal impact.
• h-index
• grows as citations accumulate, i.e., the
  academic age of a researcher.
• g-index
• g is expected to be a good correlation with the
  total number of citations an author has received.
• h correlates with the highest number of citations
  which the most quoted paper brings to his author.
  
• Accordingly g is often greater than h.

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Things to consider

• A journal may have a medium to high impact factor
  yet have a low h- and g-index.
• Conversely, a journal may have a high h- and
  g-index and not be ranked at all in JCR.
• There is no standard ranking for journals using
  the h- and g-index.
• Social sciences rank lower than sciences.

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Closing Thoughts

• Use Ulrichs as a quick overview of the journal.
• Look at JCR for impact and subject categories.
• Then check out the journal website if you are
  still interested.
• Keep a record of the journals in which you are
  interested -- tracking impact, publisher info,
  audience, focus, etc.
• Because one day you may need it to advise new
  professionals or colleagues about where to
  publish or for your promotion/tenure package ...