Professional Way to Publishing Research Papers by Khurshid Alam

As authors and research writers you always look for topics on which you want to create a great paper. Myriad of ideas come to mind. Many of you strive to write on almost all topics you think of. Soon many authors loose away the ideas. But a good strategy can help you write great papers, see the papers through publication to distribution and sharing.

Researching

Conception of idea: As soon as you conceive an idea, note it down. Write a description how you conceived the idea, what it is all about, how you would progress on it, which articles or books you should read for developing your concept and who are the previous authors on this subject. This will leave you not short of the material, which is the biggest killer of an idea.

Create a mini-layout of your article with all the required items such as abstract, keywords, title of your article, main article, subparts of the article, annotation, citation, references and bibliography. As you progress you can expand everything till completion.

Review: No article is finished unless it is reviewed thoroughly. If you are a researcher with an academic institution, share your idea with your supervisors since very beginning and seek their advice. If you are an independent researcher, get it reviewed by a senior or specialist in the field. Do not bother if the title of your article is same or closely similar to someone else’s. Your content, presentation, argument, and annotation must be different to make your paper original.

Get your article reviewed and proofread by some professional editors or those who are expert in language even if you think your language is very excellent. Only a third eye can detect grammatical errors that you might have left. Howsoever your article is professional, if the language is not of good standard it can fail you sooner or later.

Register your article: You must protect your idea. When you are finished with your article, register it with some research organizations. There are many research organizations that register your material for free such as Open Researcher & Contributor ID or ORCiD in short. Typically, you can register even the abstract of your article and get it published with some scholarly journal such as Contemporary Literary Review India.

If you have written a creative piece such as a poem, story or a book, register it with Works Copyright. There are many other organizations where you can register your creation for a fee also.

Publication

Shun away from certain journals: Publication is a big step forward to your career. There are a good number of journals around. Do thorough research which journals publish your kind of material. Do not submit your material anywhere you come across.

Publishing on blogs and on own website is not considered genuine publication. Though they may be good to start with, universities and research departments generally do not give credit to such platforms. Shun the journals or anthologies which publish for a fee.

Create a list of professional journals: Create a list of professional journals, magazines, or anthologies which bring out research papers in your discipline. Check if they have ISSN number – it is the first step that gives recognition to your publishing credit –if they are registered with digital libraries such as Elsevier, ORCiD, Scopus, JSTOR, Electronic Journals Library and such other entities, and if they have impact factor. Such factors increase your publishing recognition. However, remember that to get listed with such entities, a journal has to be in the publishing field for a certain number of years. A comparatively new journal may not be registered with many such entities.

With a new journal, check its editorial policy which is more important than any other factors. Check the factors whether it has announced its publishing guidelines, it publishes all the submissions it receives, it publishes for a fee, it follows any editorial process.

Reading fee versus publishing charge: There are journals that ask for a reading fee. But reading fee does not guarantee publication and it should not. All submissions are not selected even if you pay a reading fee. Small publication may be asking for a reading fee to publication cost.

If all the submissions are selected, it means it charges for publishing and it is not a reading fee. Such journals do not follow any editorial process. They do not have a process to check for the authenticity of the submission. Keep away from such journals even if they have ISSN or recognized by any institutions.

Distribution

Share your publication: Once your creation is published, your task is not yet over. Apart from what your publishers do for promoting their publication, you must share your publication on as many platforms as possible. Post it on your blog or website if you have one, share it on social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn or others.

Connect with researchers: Search out researchers in the same field you are working in. You must discuss on the topic you work on. Your idea expands and your thought matures with discussion.

Virtual library: Create a virtual library of your work. There are many such libraries which you can use for promoting your work. Mendeley is one of its examples.