Post 8 in the Navigating Academic Publishing series
12–18 minutes
For the last (currently planned) post of the series Navigating Academic Publishing, I offer a FAQ-style help section for quick reference questions Lastly, a small pep talk closes it out.
I have also prepared this Exhaustive Checklist that takes you through the full submission process.
Fast Help
Akin to FAQs, here are some quick questions/answers and tips for various parts of the writing and publishing process.
- What do I write about?! I’ve only ever written seminar papers.
- Whatever you want. You’re the scholar now. As long as you find something that is interesting and/or important to you, apply sound rationale to its analysis, and have an idea of what it brings to the field, you’re ⅔ of the way to a publishable idea.
- Turn to other people’s conclusions. Most of them have “avenues of future research” aside. Take those avenues.
- Go to Google and type “news” or “pop culture” or “social movement” or “health communication,” etc., file results to News and newest first. What’s happening right now that is headline worthy? Write about it. Analyze it. You don’t have to pick something you’ve had a long investment in/with to begin writing. Sometimes the investment comes alongside the project, not prior.
- What was a class you didn’t get to take or wish you had taken? What would you have written about in that class? Write about that.
- What’s a pattern you’ve noticed in scholarship (e.g., artifacts or theories) that’s stuck out to you? Why? Write that.
- I have this idea, but I don’t think it’s ready for publication, but I’m not in coursework. How do I explore it?
- Conference submissions, department colloquia, podcast interviews, class lectures, writing groups/retreats. All great places to germinate ideas.
- I don’t know how to find an intervention in the scholarship! Help!
- Gap-spotting is the practice of finding holes in the literature. It is not always productive, as Dr. Pacheco-Vega has discussed. That said, it can be a productive entry point. Here are some tips:
- Look at a different time period. When I was starting my 911 research, I learned some of the earliest Comm research on 911 came in the late 1980s, so I started with the origins in the 1960s.
- Look at a different population. Much of scholarship will be focused on a single group/identity, usually white. How does looking to non-white, or other non-hegemonic identities affect the ideas? Do they hold?
- This can get slippery if you’re applying, for example, racist ideas to non-white groups. Be conscientious.
- Bring in another discipline. If you’re writing for a Communication journal, what does Ethnic Studies have to say? or WGST? This may be expected practice depending on the journal (e.g., Communication & Race will require engagement with Ethnic/Critical Race Studies on some level.)
- Gap-spotting is the practice of finding holes in the literature. It is not always productive, as Dr. Pacheco-Vega has discussed. That said, it can be a productive entry point. Here are some tips:
- I don’t know what journal to submit to! or [This journal] rejected the essay, and now I don’t know where else to send it. or I want to write this paper as if it’s for a journal, but I’m not sure which one to pick.
- Personally, I aim high at first. I usually go for the flagship, big dogs of the discipline first.
- There is a tendency to think that if an essay gets rejected from a journal of “lower” impact/status, it can only be submitted “down,” to smaller or more niche journals. That’s a lie. But even if it were true, why not start at the “top” and work your way “down”?
- And, what’s the worst that could happen if you submit to a “top-tier journal” as an emerging scholar? A desk rejection? Or, maybe it goes out for review, and you get fourteen pages of feedback ripping the paper apart? You just got feedback from the “top-tier” peer reviewers to move the paper forward for a different journal. Sounds like a win to me.
- From there, look at your references, which three journals appear the most frequently? Or, which scholars appear the most frequently? Do they currently edit any journals?
- If you’re already engaging those sources, venues, and thinkers, it makes it far more likely that your argument is a fit for those same venues and thinkers.
- Conversely, is there a journal that has not discussed this topic? You can likely make an intervention there to open that venue to the topic, assuming it makes sense/fits.
- Personally, I aim high at first. I usually go for the flagship, big dogs of the discipline first.
- I have the ideas, but I can’t get them on the page or I can’t get momentum writing; I keep editing myself as I write. Help!
- Put the text into a font you cannot read (e.g., Wingdings or a particularly complex script font). The words will be on the page, but you won’t have the capacity to read them as easily. Can’t edit what you can’t read.
- Similarly, if you’re sighted, close your eyes and type.
- Or change spell check to another language. It will underline everything, likely making it harder to police individual spots/phrases while writing.
- Will things be misspelt? Will it run the risk of not making sense later? Probably, but you’ll have gotten it out.
- Editing is always easier than drafting, mostly because, as scholars, we’re conditioned to be critical of ideas. If there are already words on the page, it will be easier to revise later.
- To get over the hump you can complete a “Shitty First Draft” or a “Zero Draft” so then the task moves from drafting to editing.
- Put the text into a font you cannot read (e.g., Wingdings or a particularly complex script font). The words will be on the page, but you won’t have the capacity to read them as easily. Can’t edit what you can’t read.
- Oh no! I need to cut [300+] words from my essay to meet the word count! What do I do?
- Take out words like: very, just, only, extremely, most -ly words, like.
- Next in editing, look for introductory phrases to sentences (example in this sentence). Most can be revised to be taken out/incorporated into the sentence.
- Block quotes. Do you really need it? (I personally say only artifacts get block quotes. Unless you know the scholarly text is out of print.)
- As a note: different word processors can sometimes give different word counts. Microsoft Word is the standard and in my experience gives the lowest counts.
- I don’t know how to write an abstract! Help?
- Join the party! I find abstracts to be the hardest part to write for an article, but here are some tips:
- Look at abstracts from the most recent issue. This will give you an idea of the norms of what the journal expects/is accepting; use it as a model.
- At base, your abstract should answer: What is this article doing, how is it doing it, and why should the reader/discipline care?
- Forefront the paper’s contributions—e.g., the original theory or method—and be sure to at least gesture to, if not name, your methods. Also, tee-up your artifact/archive.
- I will often draft a partial (or even extended) abstract at various points in drafting. Then, I update as the argument coheres.
- Join the party! I find abstracts to be the hardest part to write for an article, but here are some tips:
- I submitted my article and haven’t heard anything for 4 weeks! What do I do?
- If it was the first submission and it hasn’t made it past the “desk reject” stage, you can reach out to the journal (usually via the submission portal) and politely ask if there is a projected timeline for that decision.
- If it was already sent out for peer review, give them at least four more weeks before you begin to worry. Reviewers are always late, and they’re usually given 6 weeks minimum. However, if it has been more than 12 weeks without word, you can reach out to the journal and politely ask when the reviewers might be due back with feedback.
- If it’s post-review and/or in-press. Reach out to the journal via the submission portal. Sometimes, page proofs can come through other services and might go to spam folders. Politely ask what the next steps needed on your end are. Also be patient here, this tends to be a process of “hurry up and wait.”
- Miscellaneous advice:
- Don’t call anything a “paper” anymore. They are “essays,” “articles,” “manuscripts,” or anything but a paper. (The fastest way to predispose a reviewer to the seminar paper vs article critique is to call the essay a paper.)
- When you’ve selected a journal, search within its archives for the major keywords in your essay. Have you engaged/cited these articles?
- If you’re at the stage of drafting a dissertation or thesis, think of each chapter as a discrete journal article as you begin drafting. You will necessarily/likely go over journal word limits given the different medium, but thinking about a journal up top can help 1) restrict part of your bibliography (to that journal) and 2) offer a “finish line” word count.
- The capacity to write and generate ideas is directly related to reading ideas. If you’re stuck (or even if not), reading scholarship can be helpful.
- As you’re reading, always ask yourself how you would explain the same idea, argue the same point, etc. Doing even an informal litmus test with your ideas and impulses against published scholarship can be helpful as you build that practice.
- Fiction can be so valuable in helping generate writing thoughts. Science Fiction and Fantasy can be especially helpful as they often build entire worlds and explain them to an outside audience.
- Think about titles and keywords through the lens of search engine optimization, together. Try not to unnecessarily repeat terms in the title and keywords, as both are queried within most database searches.
- Treat titles like a mad-libs exercise:
- [central contribution or short phrase from artifact or even an effective pun] : [top keywords possibly rephrased] + [methodological or theoretical gesture] + [naming archive]
- examples:
- “Establishing 911″ is a double entendre of indexing 911’s creation as well as indexing the article being the first history in comm. “Media infrastructures of” (keyword) “affective” (method/theory) ”anti-Black, pro-police dispositions” (keywords, method/theory). This one does not end with the archive given the pre-colon wording.
- “Caucasity’s affective inertia” is the central contribution. “Gender and Property in” (keywords) “Scenarios of” (method/theory) “emboldened whiteness” (artifact). This artifact is also oblique since caucasity is emboldened whiteness and the artifact.
- Treat titles like a mad-libs exercise:
Helpful Resources
These are various sources, many free, that aid in different parts of brainstorming and writing. Everything here is focused on the writing side of the publishing process as the publishing side will occur in journals’ specific portals and services.
- Your University or College’s Writing Studio/Lab!
- This is not just for undergraduate students, it’s not just for students—graduate students and faculty can take advantage of the services as well!
- Some centers even offer dissertation boot camps, writing retreats, or one-on-one accountability partnerships—worth asking about even if they’re not advertised.
- Some will also help faculty create and facilitate new writing groups.
- Even if for just a sounding board for someone unfamiliar with your research, the faculty, staff, and volunteers of the Writing Studio/Lab will be excellent places to begin. (They’ll likely also be excited for something more involved than a sophomore’s last-minute book report.)
- This is not just for undergraduate students, it’s not just for students—graduate students and faculty can take advantage of the services as well!
- Citation Managers
- There are a million and seven, with new ones popping up every month. Check your school’s library/IT pages to see if any are offered to grads/faculty. The most commonly used are:
- Many of these also have web browser plug-ins to help with data scraping of sources. It’s not always accurate, though, so be sure to double-check the imported data.
- Some have whole ecosystems of plug-ins or everything from research, note-taking, to drafting. Ask your colleagues what they’re using!
- There’s also citation formatters like KnightCite, DOI Citation Formatter.
- Don’t forget ol’ faithful: The Purdue OWL.
- Research Aids
- SUBJECT LIBRARIANS! I’m still using sources from an incredible bibliography a subject librarian made for me while in my graduate studies. They will know all the secrets and shortcuts, and, unlike us, they haven’t built up unconscious habits that lead to the same resources and research. They’ll bring a new perspective.
- COMAbstracts is a great way for farming swathes of comm-specific articles on a topic. It is a little bit buggy in my experience, and my current library does not have access. But it’s great.
- LibKey Nomad is an excellent plug-in if your library subscribes; it will help find access to any academic article you come across (like the ones in a Wikipedia article’s references or those mentioned on social media).
- Unpaywall is an extension/database that can also garner access to articles that might be outside your library’s subscriptions.
- Remember Interlibrary Loans for access as well!
- Drafting Aids
- Sometimes the hardest part of writing is the Blank Page™, but there are ways to combat that.
- Programs like Scrivener give you a different (& customizable) interface for drafting. This one is paid.
- Helpful for multi-part projects like theses, dissertations, and books. But not at all necessary. Slightly geared toward fiction and creative writing, but supports some citation managers, etc.
- Reedsy is a program that’s web-based and has a free version that is similar to Scrivener.
- Websites like Written? Kitten! allow for some positive reinforcement by rewarding word counts with kitten pictures.
- The Most Dangerous Writing App ups the ante by deleting everything if you stop typing. This can be a helpful (albeit loaded) jumpstart if you’re feeling stuck.
- Apps for focus/blocking out distractions can be helpful, but can also become a way to punish/shame yourself, so use them conscientiously.
- Writing and the Writer Resources
- Apps like Stretchly or even the Apple Watch movement reminders ensure regular breaks in writing.
- Body-doubling became very popular during the pandemic. There will be TikTok and YouTube lives dedicated to co-working. Focusmate is a platform for finding co-workers.
- For differently- or dis/abled writers, voice-to-speech tools like Otter.ai can be helpful as well.
- All Purpose Resources
- Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega’s blog has everything from templates and methodologies to anecdotal advice and professionalization. Excellent resource beyond writing.
- Dr. Ibrahim Kendi’s How to Be Anti-Racist is an excellent resource, and much of the book is contextualized within academia.
- Wendy Laura Belcher’s How to Write Your Article in 12 Weeks.
- I have not read this, but have heard great things. There’s also a number of resources.
- Dr. Kerry Ann Rockquemore’s “Every Summer Needs a Plan” webinar video. Very helpful for understanding how to routinize a research plan outside of a seminar.
- The Craft of Researchby Booth et al. Any edition, really. This is excellent for a deep dive onto all the stages of the research and writing processes. It’s focus on research is more holistic.
- Grammarly can be helpful to an extent in academic writing. If you have trouble with sentence-level writing issues (e.g. grammar, punctuation), this is an extremely helpful aid.
- They have a plug-in and a website.
A Final Pep Talk
While I believe in you, I cannot make you believe in you. That’s on you. But I can tell you how to build that belief in yourself: by doing the damn/hard/big thing. Will you falter occasionally? Yes. But you’ll also learn what went wrong and how to fix it. Talk to your mentors and colleagues; I can assure you that even those who seem to sail through publishing have struggles, doubts, road-blocks, and horror stories.
Manifestation rhetorics would tell you that because you have the thought for the article, you can achieve it. I’ll say, “Maybe.” But more concretely, you don’t just have the thought: you have the education and experience that inform the thought and provide you with a solid foundation to build from.
The biggest aid I can offer is to prompt you not to view publishing and peer review as negative or scary. Can it be? Sure, but on the whole, it is not. More times than not, reviewers and editors are not approaching a submission as “Is this worthy of publication in this venue?” but rather from the position of “What does this submission need to maximize its contribution?” or “How can this submission be improved even further?”
Even when I’ve had reviewers reject an essay, for any number of reasons, they still are offering the means to strengthen the essay and/or how the arguments they did review can evolve further. In all my experiences with publishing, I have only ever received one (1) wholly unhelpful review—and even then the editor offered supplemental feedback.
Graduate school and the job market, on some implicit level, are also evaluations of the scholar and scholarship that can feel incredibly value-laden. You’re also pursuing something much more concrete (a degree or job offer) with much clearer parameters (degree and job reqs) than the peer review process. For better or worse, publishing is not that.
The credibility that is being cultivated and vetted in grad school and job searching is already assumed in publishing. Everyone along the way in peer review is rooting for you and your work. You’re not “proving” you can produce scholarship, you’re joining a conversation in which you already belong. That small shift of mindset can make the experience and process of publishing much more approachable.
As an author, you will always find reasons to not submit something once it’s ready. You end up standing in your own way, getting lost in the minutiae of trying to guess what will make the essay “publishable.” However, the only way to ever know what reviewers want is by submitting the essay and getting peer-reviewed. As the sage advice states:
“‘You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take’
—Wayne Gretski.”
—Michael Scott, The Office
Myles W. Mason, PhD 
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