Getting published.

Abstract

Publications remain an important part of the currency of academia; they are intimately related to your professional standing, advancement and funding. Ethically, it is also important to publish to let people know what you have done and prevent unnecessary replication (as opposed to necessary replication – we publish Replication Studies – see the Instructions for Authors for more information) and consequent risk or stress to participants. The truth is, it is not difficult to get your work published; the greater challenge is to get it published in an established, high-quality journal. At Experimental Physiology, we receive ∼350 research submissions each year in different disciplines, of which we accept ∼30% (Figures 1 and 2). Amongst the presentations I was involved in during 2017, by far the most popular were those on ‘How to get published in good journals’. I gave this presentation in various forms in South America, the UK and Japan. For some of these presentations my co-presenters/authors were Kim Barrett (Editor-in-Chief, The Journal of Physiology), Martin Frank (Executive Director, American Physiological Society) and David Grundy (Senior Ethics Editor, The Journal of Physiology). On each occasion, the room was packed with junior as well as more senior researchers. There is clearly a hunger to gain an insight into the process of publishing and what to do to maximize chances of success (on that note, well done The Journal of Physiology for their Editorial Board Fellowships initiative; visit The Journal of Physiology’s website for more information). There is no hidden formula for getting published, no secret to be revealed. However, an effective strategy is to avoid making the errors that give reviewers cause to reject or query a manuscript. In order to identify these reasons, and in preparation for the presentations noted above, I undertook a review of the major reasons given for rejecting a manuscript in Experimental Physiology in 2017, a sort of ‘diagnosis of exclusion’. The results, in no particular order are presented in Table 1. Each of the reasons for rejection presented in Table 1 can be avoided. Indeed, the striking thing about most of them is that they can be mitigated at the planning stage, when formulating the research question and hypotheses (Table 2). The message seems pretty clear: think about what you will need for a good publication when formulating your experimental question and hypotheses and when designing your experiment. This will not only help you to get published in a good journal, it may also improve your experiments. Experimental Physiology publishes research papers that report novel insights into homeostatic and adaptive responses in health and pathophysiological mechanisms in disease. We welcome papers that embrace the journal's orientation of translation and integration… If all else fails, and you are unsure whether your manuscript ‘fits’, ask the Editor of the journal; contrary to popular belief, Editors are generally approachable and keen to help! One further comment. At each of the presentations I gave on this topic in 2017, I asked those in the audiences how many had been onto a journal website without wanting to either read a paper or submit one. Not one person responded positively! This is a real shame and a missed opportunity; many journals have a range of tools on their website to help authors, reviewers and editors and to help with promoting your publication and offering different editing services (Figure 3). ‘A good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science, criticism is the height and measure of friendship.’