Publish or Perish

Last update: October 2010,
by Maureen Bell

Below are some resources which you may find helpful if you decide to brave the highly competitive world of academic publishing.

Section 1. General Resources

How to Get Published
This Powerpoint presentation by John Beard, with tips from two editors - Simon Chapman ( Tobacco Control) and Barry Pless (Injury Prevention), was given at the inaugural Northern Rivers University Department of Rural Health – University of Sydney postgraduate symposium, conducted in Byron Bay from 7-8 December 2006. It gives a clear overview of the process of getting your work published. Also available as a .pdf file

How to Write a Medical Paper to Get It Published in a Good Journal
A short talk (video and transcript available) by Dr. George Lundberg, Editor-in-Chief of MedGenMed.

Instructions on How to Write a Paper for Publication in a Medical Journal
Dr. Bill Tierney of Indiana University has created a table of basic instructions. (Paper writing 101).

Nurse Author & Editor Newsletter
Nurse Author & Editor is an international publication dedicated to nurse authors, editors and reviewers. It is published by Wiley- Blackwell as a free quarterly online publication. Each issue consists of articles offering advice on writing quality manuscripts, avoiding rejection, finding publishing opportunities, editing and reviewing. In order to view issues of Nurse Author & Editor (from 2006) and to sign up for a table of contents alert, you will need to register.

Some recent articles:-

Stone, T., Levett-Jones, T., Harris, M., Sinclair, P.M.
The genesis of 'the Neophytes': A writing support group for clinical nurses
Nurse Education Today, 2010; 30 (7), pp. 657-661
School of Nursing and Midwifery, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
Abstract
This paper profiles the establishment and evaluation of the Neophyte Writers' Group, run by nurse academics in collaboration with clinical nurses. The growing demand for nurses to write, publish and present their work had inspired the introduction of a series of workshops designed to develop and improve writing and presentation skills, which eventuated in formation of the Neophytes. The group was founded on the basis of Bandura's theory of self-efficacy (1997), a concept which has been discussed extensively in social psychology literature to explain motivation and learning theory. People with high assurance in their capabilities regard difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided (Bandura, 1994). The Neophytes' group employs a collaborative approach intended to increase and reinforce members' self-confidence; the underlying philosophy is to promote and enhance writers' motivation, capacity and self-efficacy in order to achieve future publication goals confidently and independently. Support which engenders these strengths through a program relevant to participants' needs is likely, as this group found, to increase publication productivity. Additional unexpected outcomes resulted, such as engagement by clinical nurses' in academic work, and an increase in research higher degree enrolments.

Northam, S., Yarbrough, S., Haas, B., Duke, G.
Journal editor survey: Nformation to help authors publish
Nurse Educator, 2010; 35 (1), pp. 29-36
College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Texas at Tyler, 3900 University Blvd, Tyler, TX 75799, United States
Abstract
Faculty are expected to publish but often do not know how to write a manuscript that avoids major reasons for subsequent rejection. The authors share the results of a survey of 63 journal editors who reported journal characteristics and reasons for rejection of manuscripts. Suggestions to improve the acceptance rate of faculty publications are offered.

Keen, A.
Writing for publication: Pressures, barriers and support strategies
Nurse Education Today, 2007; 27 (5), pp. 382-388
School of Health and Social Care, University of Chester, Parkgate Road, Chester, CH1 4BJ, United Kingdom
Abstract
This paper details the increasing pressure that exists on academic and clinical staff to publish in the context of personal and professional development. Numerous barriers to writing for publication are considered along with suggested strategies for encouraging staff to work towards publication. Although the paper identifies a wealth of literature describing how to go about writing for publication, it is argued that this is of limited use in the support of individual authors, and that most authors learn academic writing skills through a process of trial and error. The paper is intended to encourage those wanting to write for publication, whilst trying to persuade those with influence on developing academic writing to think more broadly in regards to the support provided and need for research.

Albarran, J.W., Scholes, J.
How to get published: seven easy steps.
Nursing in critical care, 2005; 10 (2), pp. 72-77
Critical Care Nursing, Faculty of Health and Social Care, University of the West of England, Glenside Campus, Bristol.
Abstract
As a professional group, nurses, whether as academics or practitioners, are increasingly expected to contribute to the development of quality nursing care and service provision by disseminating the findings of research, sharing innovations in clinical practice or examples of best practice. Yet, many individuals find it difficult to write informatively about their practice or to translate the outputs of academic studies into accessible publications. However, in most instances, a lack of confidence remains a key obstacle as is the lack of familiarity with processes required in preparing a paper for publication. The aim of this paper is to discuss a series of progressive steps that must be followed when preparing a paper for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.The main body of the paper provides a detailed analysis on the importance of deciding what to write about, selecting a suitable journal, organizing the content and structure of a paper and using appropriate language to make the article more accessible to the audience. The discussion also explores the concepts of authorship order, peer-review process and how to respond to written reviewer's comments once the paper has been returned by the publishers. The paper concludes by stressing that success requires undertaking the necessary preparatory work, time, commitment and enthusiasm.

Section 2. The Literature Review

Tips for searching the literature without getting in a tangle.

We live in an age where, in many areas of research, there is a huge body of literature to be navigated. Even the range of specialist databases available for this purpose has grown dramatically in the past decade. Being organised, however painful, will make your life a lot easier, save you time and avoid confusion. I have some hints on the essentials of database searching, as well as some advanced help for postgraduates and researchers.

Databases I think may be useful for searching the nursing literature are listed here.
PubMed (Medline), CINAHL, the Cochrane Library, and Health Source: Nursing, are the most important. Scopus, although not specifically a health science database, has some excellent features which allow you to explore cited references. It includes all Medline and Embase data from 1996, but lacks the sophisticated subject search capability of Medline.

Section 3. Writing Your Paper

Tips on crafting a readable, well structured paper.

Here are the results of a brief PubMed search on writing and publishing for nurses.
Check individual journals' and publishers' sites for details of style and content which they require.

A selection of the Library's books on medical writing is listed below. You can find additional titles by looking up medical writing as a subject heading in our catalogue.

Wolcott, Harry F.
Writing up qualitative research / Harry F. Wolcott.
3rd ed. Los Angeles : SAGE, c2009.
Contents: 1. On Your Mark -- 2. Get Going -- 3. Keep Going -- 4. Linking Up -- 5. Tightening Up -- 6. Finishing Up -- 7. Getting Published -- Appendix. Applications.

Matthews, Janice R.
Successful scientific writing : a step-by-step guide for the biological and medical sciences.
3rd ed. Cambridge ; Melbourne : Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Contents; 1. Preparing to write -- 2. Composing a first draft -- 3. Visual support for the written word -- 4. Visual support for the spoken word -- 5. Revising to increase coherence -- 6. Improving word choice, and syntax style -- 7. Attending to grammar, numbers and other mechanics -- 8. The rest of the story.

Fondiller, Shirley H.
Health professionals style manual, by Shirley Fondiller and Barbara J. Nerone.
New York, NY : Springer Pub., c2007.
Contents: Style and substance : the dynamic duo -- From principles to practice : the art of effective writing -- Understanding usage : an alphabetical guide to specific writing tips and pitfalls -- Be clear and direct: how to avoid redundancies, euphemisms, and cliches -- Harness the potential of computers and the Internet.

Goodman, N. W.
Medical writing : a prescription for clarity / Neville W. Goodman, Martin B. Edwards ; and with cartoons by Andy Black.
3rd ed. New York ; Melbourne : Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Contents: Pt. I. Problem : the illness. 1. Introduction -- 2. The malaise of medical manuscripts -- Pt. II. Solution : symptomatic relief. 3. Guidelines to clearer writing -- 4. Is there a better word? -- 5. Superfluous words -- 6. Imprecise words and phrases -- 7. Superfluous phrases -- 8. Trouble with short words -- 9. Use of the passive voice -- 10. Consistency : number and tenses -- 11. Circumlocution, metaphor and cliche´ -- 12. Word order and pronouns -- 13. Punctuation -- 14. Constructing sentences -- 15. Drawing clear graphs -- Pt. III. Practice : recuperation. 16. Some examples rewritten -- 17. Do the experts agree?

Section 4. Finding an Appropriate Journal

There are a number of possible approaches which can be used independently, or in combination.

4.1 Check for Relevance

Try doing a search on the subject area of your article on some of the databases, to see in which journals articles on this topic appear frequently.

• PubMed lets you limit your search to nursing journals. Just add AND jsubsetn at the end of your search.
• Scopus provides a breakdown of all search results journal by journal, with the journals in which the largest numbers of results appear at the top of the list.

4.2 Check for Exposure

Check to see how many different international databases cover the journal(s) you are considering. To do this use Ulrich's Periodicals Directory.

For example Journal of Advanced Nursing is indexed in the online databases listed below. You can see from the size of the list that this will give huge exposure to the contents of this journal across a broad range of disciplines. It's indexed in the major English language medical and nursing databases - CINAHL, Medline, Health Source: Nursing, British Nursing Index - as well as Scopus, and many other broader based databases.

4.3 Check for Quality (Journal Impact Factors)

So what's a journal impact factor? The journal impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a particular year. The impact factor is used to compare and rank different journals within a certain field. It was devised by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), now part of Thomson Reuters, and is described in an essay originally published in the Current Contents print editions June 20, 1994. A very lucid explanation of impact factors can be found in Wikipedia.

Impact factors are calculated yearly for those journals that are indexed in Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

Ranked Journals and Conferences - Australian Research Council (ARC)
This page allows you to access the ERA journal and conference ranking lists.

4.4 And if your ego needs a boost

The H-index, sometimes called the Hirsch Index or Hirsch number, is based on the distribution of citations received by a given researcher's publications. The index was originally proposed by Jorge Hirsch in 2005.

H Index – A New Measure to quantify the Research Output of Individual Scientists (Lutz Bornmann)

h-index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Section 5. Instructions to Authors

Other useful web sites are:-
Instructions to Authors in the Health Sciences and nursing editors and authors pages at Nurse Author & Editor.

Section 6. Randomised Controlled Trials and Systematic Reviews

I have a separate page with information about the Cochrane Collaboration, and evidence based medicine. On it you will find links to information on how to report a randomised controlled trial, and how to conduct a systematic review - not for the faint hearted.