Kuidas pääseda löögile rahvusvahelistes ajakirjades?

Abstract

The number of Estonian historians who publish regularly in international journals is fairly small. The aim of this article is to encourage historians to take this step and to give tips on how to succeed in the increasingly competitive world of international publishing. The tips are based on the lectures presented at the summer school “How to get published?” (organised by Tallinn University in 2019) alongside the author’s experiences and conversations with other colleagues. The topics considered include how to select a journal, compose an article and its key parts, impress editors and please peer-reviewers. Special attention is paid to the importance of language and style. Having a native speaker read the draft is essential.
 The article provides both general guidelines as well as specific suggestions for how to publish on Estonian history. The paper describes the main characteristics of what has been called the “Anglo-American model of academic writing”. The colleagues interviewed for the article agreed that, in principle, it would be possible to publish on most topics of Estonian history and there is no need to pick a globally attractive and currently trending topic. For that, the research question has to be linked to global or European developments, events or phenomena and to discussions in the respective field of research. The colleagues, however, disagreed on the issue of whether it is more important to follow the conventional style and format of the journal or to present novel ideas. There was a consensus that surprising source material, intriguing results, and high-quality English certainly increase the article’s chances of getting published.