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  • Research Papers

How to Write and Publish Your Research in a Journal

Last Updated: February 15, 2024 Fact Checked

Choosing a Journal

Writing the research paper, editing & revising your paper, submitting your paper, navigating the peer review process, research paper help.

This article was co-authored by Matthew Snipp, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Cheyenne Main . C. Matthew Snipp is the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He is also the Director for the Institute for Research in the Social Science’s Secure Data Center. He has been a Research Fellow at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has published 3 books and over 70 articles and book chapters on demography, economic development, poverty and unemployment. He is also currently serving on the National Institute of Child Health and Development’s Population Science Subcommittee. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 692,017 times.

Publishing a research paper in a peer-reviewed journal allows you to network with other scholars, get your name and work into circulation, and further refine your ideas and research. Before submitting your paper, make sure it reflects all the work you’ve done and have several people read over it and make comments. Keep reading to learn how you can choose a journal, prepare your work for publication, submit it, and revise it after you get a response back.

Things You Should Know

  • Create a list of journals you’d like to publish your work in and choose one that best aligns with your topic and your desired audience.
  • Prepare your manuscript using the journal’s requirements and ask at least 2 professors or supervisors to review your paper.
  • Write a cover letter that “sells” your manuscript, says how your research adds to your field and explains why you chose the specific journal you’re submitting to.

Step 1 Create a list of journals you’d like to publish your work in.

  • Ask your professors or supervisors for well-respected journals that they’ve had good experiences publishing with and that they read regularly.
  • Many journals also only accept specific formats, so by choosing a journal before you start, you can write your article to their specifications and increase your chances of being accepted.
  • If you’ve already written a paper you’d like to publish, consider whether your research directly relates to a hot topic or area of research in the journals you’re looking into.

Step 2 Look at each journal’s audience, exposure, policies, and procedures.

  • Review the journal’s peer review policies and submission process to see if you’re comfortable creating or adjusting your work according to their standards.
  • Open-access journals can increase your readership because anyone can access them.

Step 1 Craft an effective introduction with a thesis statement.

  • Scientific research papers: Instead of a “thesis,” you might write a “research objective” instead. This is where you state the purpose of your research.
  • “This paper explores how George Washington’s experiences as a young officer may have shaped his views during difficult circumstances as a commanding officer.”
  • “This paper contends that George Washington’s experiences as a young officer on the 1750s Pennsylvania frontier directly impacted his relationship with his Continental Army troops during the harsh winter at Valley Forge.”
  • Scientific research papers: Include a “materials and methods” section with the step-by-step process you followed and the materials you used. [5] X Research source
  • Read other research papers in your field to see how they’re written. Their format, writing style, subject matter, and vocabulary can help guide your own paper. [6] X Research source
  • If you’re writing about George Washington’s experiences as a young officer, you might emphasize how this research changes our perspective of the first president of the U.S.
  • Link this section to your thesis or research objective.
  • If you’re writing a paper about ADHD, you might discuss other applications for your research.

Step 4 Write an abstract that describes what your paper is about.

  • Scientific research papers: You might include your research and/or analytical methods, your main findings or results, and the significance or implications of your research.
  • Try to get as many people as you can to read over your abstract and provide feedback before you submit your paper to a journal.

Step 1 Prepare your manuscript according to the journal’s requirements.

  • They might also provide templates to help you structure your manuscript according to their specific guidelines. [11] X Research source

Step 2 Ask 2 colleagues to review your paper and revise it with their notes.

  • Not all journal reviewers will be experts on your specific topic, so a non-expert “outsider’s perspective” can be valuable.

Step 1 Check your sources for plagiarism and identify 5 to 6 keywords.

  • If you have a paper on the purification of wastewater with fungi, you might use both the words “fungi” and “mushrooms.”
  • Use software like iThenticate, Turnitin, or PlagScan to check for similarities between the submitted article and published material available online. [15] X Research source
  • Header: Address the editor who will be reviewing your manuscript by their name, include the date of submission, and the journal you are submitting to.
  • First paragraph: Include the title of your manuscript, the type of paper it is (like review, research, or case study), and the research question you wanted to answer and why.
  • Second paragraph: Explain what was done in your research, your main findings, and why they are significant to your field.
  • Third paragraph: Explain why the journal’s readers would be interested in your work and why your results are important to your field.
  • Conclusion: State the author(s) and any journal requirements that your work complies with (like ethical standards”).
  • “We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal.”
  • “All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to [insert the name of the target journal].”

Step 3 Submit your article according to the journal’s submission guidelines.

  • Submit your article to only one journal at a time.
  • When submitting online, use your university email account. This connects you with a scholarly institution, which can add credibility to your work.

Step 1 Try not to panic when you get the journal’s initial response.

  • Accept: Only minor adjustments are needed, based on the provided feedback by the reviewers. A first submission will rarely be accepted without any changes needed.
  • Revise and Resubmit: Changes are needed before publication can be considered, but the journal is still very interested in your work.
  • Reject and Resubmit: Extensive revisions are needed. Your work may not be acceptable for this journal, but they might also accept it if significant changes are made.
  • Reject: The paper isn’t and won’t be suitable for this publication, but that doesn’t mean it might not work for another journal.

Step 2 Revise your paper based on the reviewers’ feedback.

  • Try organizing the reviewer comments by how easy it is to address them. That way, you can break your revisions down into more manageable parts.
  • If you disagree with a comment made by a reviewer, try to provide an evidence-based explanation when you resubmit your paper.

Step 3 Resubmit to the same journal or choose another from your list.

  • If you’re resubmitting your paper to the same journal, include a point-by-point response paper that talks about how you addressed all of the reviewers’ comments in your revision. [22] X Research source
  • If you’re not sure which journal to submit to next, you might be able to ask the journal editor which publications they recommend.

where to publish your research paper

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

Develop a Questionnaire for Research

  • If reviewers suspect that your submitted manuscript plagiarizes another work, they may refer to a Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowchart to see how to move forward. [23] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

where to publish your research paper

  • ↑ https://www.wiley.com/en-us/network/publishing/research-publishing/choosing-a-journal/6-steps-to-choosing-the-right-journal-for-your-research-infographic
  • ↑ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z
  • ↑ https://libguides.unomaha.edu/c.php?g=100510&p=651627
  • ↑ http://www.canberra.edu.au/library/start-your-research/research_help/publishing-research
  • ↑ https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/conclusions
  • ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/writing-an-abstract-for-your-research-paper/
  • ↑ https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/book-authors-editors/your-publication-journey/manuscript-preparation
  • ↑ https://apus.libanswers.com/writing/faq/2391
  • ↑ https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/library/keyword/search-strategy
  • ↑ https://ifis.libguides.com/journal-publishing-guide/submitting-your-paper
  • ↑ https://www.springer.com/kr/authors-editors/authorandreviewertutorials/submitting-to-a-journal-and-peer-review/cover-letters/10285574
  • ↑ http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep02/publish.aspx
  • ↑ Matthew Snipp, PhD. Research Fellow, U.S. Bureau of the Census. Expert Interview. 26 March 2020.

About This Article

Matthew Snipp, PhD

To publish a research paper, ask a colleague or professor to review your paper and give you feedback. Once you've revised your work, familiarize yourself with different academic journals so that you can choose the publication that best suits your paper. Make sure to look at the "Author's Guide" so you can format your paper according to the guidelines for that publication. Then, submit your paper and don't get discouraged if it is not accepted right away. You may need to revise your paper and try again. To learn about the different responses you might get from journals, see our reviewer's explanation below. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Orvium

The 5 Best Platforms to Publish Your Academic Research

Academic research is a central component of scientific advancements and breakthrough innovations. However, your research journey is complex and ever-changing. You must take into consideration funding options, how to securely store your information, choosing where to publish your research, finding manuscript peer reviewers, and many more.

To keep up with the change, you and other researchers require modern, easy-to-navigate research platforms to help you uncover, store, verify, compile, and share content, data, and important insights to continue to carry out breakthrough research.

This article explains how to identify the best platforms for publishing your research and gives you a list of five platforms to help you publish. Towards the end, you’ll also see a mention of how Orvium can further assist you with publishing.

How to Identify the Best Platforms for Publishing

When trying to identify the best platforms for publishing your research, you have to consider several factors, including:

  • Does the platform support your research journey ? Can you collaborate with other authors and researchers, discover public groups and research papers and manuscripts (including Open Access work), view interactive graphs, images, tables, etc., track citations, and build a professional research profile?
  • Is the platform easy to use ? Does it offer rich functionalities that are easy to understand, and if so, which ones?
  • Does it use artificial intelligence and machine learning ? Automated actions (email alerts, etc.) can help you unlock breakthroughs faster and deliver deeper insights.
  • What security and governance does it have ? Platforms must be secure and compliant according to local regulations since researchers often deal with sensitive data.

The 5 Best Platforms to Publish Academic Research

Researchgate.

ResearchGate is a platform hosting over 135 million publication pages with a community of 20 million scientists. The platform allows you to show off your work, access papers and advice from other researchers, make contacts and even find jobs. Some of its more prominent features include:

  • Dedicated Q&A section with searchable keywords to target experts in your particular field or area of study
  • Ability to create a personal profile page where you can display all research-specific details about yourself, including up to five pieces of work (including datasets and conference papers)
  • In-depth stats on who reads your work and the ability to track your citations
  • A private messaging service that allows you to send messages to other researchers
  • A comments section to provide feedback when viewing a paper
  • A “projects” section to tell others about your upcoming work.

where to publish your research paper

In addition, it's completely free to use!

Academia is a research-sharing platform with over 178 million users, 29 million papers uploaded, and 87 million visitors per month. Their goal is to accelerate research in all fields, ensure that all research is available for free and that the sharing of knowledge is available in multiple formats (videos, datasets, code, short-form content, etc.). Some of their more prominent features include:

  • Mentions and search alerts that notify you when another researcher cites, thanks, or acknowledges your work, and automatic reports of search queries
  • Ability to create a personal profile page
  • “Profile visitor” and “readers” features let you know the title and location of those who visit your profile or read your papers so you can learn about their research interests and get in touch
  • A “grants” feature to allow you to find new grants and fellowships in your field
  • Advanced research discovery tools allow you to see full texts and citations of millions of papers.

where to publish your research paper

The platform is based on a “freemium” business model, which provides free access to research for everyone, and paid capabilities to subscribers.

ScienceOpen

ScienceOpen is a discovery platform that empowers researchers to make an impact in their communities. The platform is committed to Open Science, combining decades of experience in traditional publishing, computing, and academic research to provide free access to knowledge to drive creativity, innovation, and development. Some of their more prominent features include:

  • You can publish your most recent paper as a preprint that’s citable and includes a DOI to share with peers immediately and enhance visibility
  • A multidimensional search feature for articles with 18 filters and the ability to sort results by Altmetric scores , citations, date, and rating
  • Ability to create a personal profile with minimal upkeep necessary
  • Access to a suite of metrics (usage, citations, etc.) of your publications
  • Ability to follow other researchers to stay up-to-date on their work and expand your network.

where to publish your research paper

The platform is free to use, although some features (like publishing your preprint) may cost money.

IOPscience is a platform that embraces innovative technologies to make it easier for researchers to discover and access technical, scientific, and medical content while managing their own research content. They participate in several programs that offer researchers in developing countries several ways to gain access to journals at little or no cost. Some of their other features include:

  • An enhanced search filtering feature allows you to find relevant research faster
  • A social bookmarking feature allows you to interact with other researchers and share articles
  • Ability to create a personal profile, customize your alerts, view recently published articles within your field or area of interest, and save relevant papers or articles
  • Ability to receive email alerts and RSS feeds once new content is published.

where to publish your research paper

IOPscience is free to use and functions on an Open Access policy, which you can check here .

Orvium is an open, community-based research platform that allows researchers, reviewers, and publishers to share, publish, review, and manage their research. Orvium protects your work with built-in blockchain integration to ensure that you maintain the copyright of your work and not only. Some of our more notable features include:

  • Access to a modern web platform with Google indexing, notifications, and mobile-ready features
  • Ability to manage your entire publication process, with control over when you submit, receive peer reviews, and publish your paper
  • “Collaboration” and “full traceability” features allow you to track your profile impact, get in touch with other researchers, and have ownership over your work
  • Recognition badges or economic rewards are given when you peer-review.

where to publish your research paper

Orvium is completely free to use.

Orvium Makes Choosing a Platform Easy

No matter what platform or community you choose to be a part of, you now know what you need to look for when choosing one. You also learned about five excellent platforms where you can publish your academic research. Orvium will remain your one-stop-shop platform for all your research needs. Do you want to know how Orvium and our communities work? Check out our platform or contact us with any questions you may have.

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Your Guide to Open Access Week 2023

Home → Get Published → How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

Jordan Kruszynski

Jordan Kruszynski

  • January 4, 2024

where to publish your research paper

You’re in academia.

You’re going steady.

Your research is going well and you begin to wonder: ‘ How exactly do I get a research paper published?’

If this is the question on your lips, then this step-by-step guide is the one for you. We’ll be walking you through the whole process of how to publish a research paper.

Publishing a research paper is a significant milestone for researchers and academics, as it allows you to share your findings, contribute to your field of study, and start to gain serious recognition within the wider academic community. So, want to know how to publish a research paper? By following our guide, you’ll get a firm grasp of the steps involved in this process, giving you the best chance of successfully navigating the publishing process and getting your work out there.

Understanding the Publishing Process

To begin, it’s crucial to understand that getting a research paper published is a multi-step process. From beginning to end, it could take as little as 2 months before you see your paper nestled in the pages of your chosen journal. On the other hand, it could take as long as a year .

Below, we set out the steps before going into more detail on each one. Getting a feel for these steps will help you to visualise what lies ahead, and prepare yourself for each of them in turn. It’s important to remember that you won’t actually have control over every step – in fact, some of them will be decided by people you’ll probably never meet. However, knowing which parts of the process are yours to decide will allow you to adjust your approach and attitude accordingly.

Each of the following stages will play a vital role in the eventual publication of your paper:

  • Preparing Your Research Paper
  • Finding the Right Journal
  • Crafting a Strong Manuscript
  • Navigating the Peer-Review Process
  • Submitting Your Paper
  • Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper

Step 1: Preparing Your Research Paper

It all starts here. The quality and content of your research paper is of fundamental importance if you want to get it published. This step will be different for every researcher depending on the nature of your research, but if you haven’t yet settled on a topic, then consider the following advice:

  • Choose an interesting and relevant topic that aligns with current trends in your field. If your research touches on the passions and concerns of your academic peers or wider society, it may be more likely to capture attention and get published successfully.
  • Conduct a comprehensive literature review (link to lit. review article once it’s published) to identify the state of existing research and any knowledge gaps within it. Aiming to fill a clear gap in the knowledge of your field is a great way to increase the practicality of your research and improve its chances of getting published.
  • Structure your paper in a clear and organised manner, including all the necessary sections such as title, abstract, introduction (link to the ‘how to write a research paper intro’ article once it’s published) , methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
  • Adhere to the formatting guidelines provided by your target journal to ensure that your paper is accepted as viable for publishing. More on this in the next section…

Step 2: Finding the Right Journal

Understanding how to publish a research paper involves selecting the appropriate journal for your work. This step is critical for successful publication, and you should take several factors into account when deciding which journal to apply for:

  • Conduct thorough research to identify journals that specialise in your field of study and have published similar research. Naturally, if you submit a piece of research in molecular genetics to a journal that specialises in geology, you won’t be likely to get very far.
  • Consider factors such as the journal’s scope, impact factor, and target audience. Today there is a wide array of journals to choose from, including traditional and respected print journals, as well as numerous online, open-access endeavours. Some, like Nature , even straddle both worlds.
  • Review the submission guidelines provided by the journal and ensure your paper meets all the formatting requirements and word limits. This step is key. Nature, for example, offers a highly informative series of pages that tells you everything you need to know in order to satisfy their formatting guidelines (plus more on the whole submission process).
  • Note that these guidelines can differ dramatically from journal to journal, and details really do matter. You might submit an outstanding piece of research, but if it includes, for example, images in the wrong size or format, this could mean a lengthy delay to getting it published. If you get everything right first time, you’ll save yourself a lot of time and trouble, as well as strengthen your publishing chances in the first place.

Step 3: Crafting a Strong Manuscript

Crafting a strong manuscript is crucial to impress journal editors and reviewers. Look at your paper as a complete package, and ensure that all the sections tie together to deliver your findings with clarity and precision.

  • Begin by creating a clear and concise title that accurately reflects the content of your paper.
  • Compose an informative abstract that summarises the purpose, methodology, results, and significance of your study.
  • Craft an engaging introduction (link to the research paper introduction article) that draws your reader in.
  • Develop a well-structured methodology section, presenting your results effectively using tables and figures.
  • Write a compelling discussion and conclusion that emphasise the significance of your findings.

Step 4: Navigating the Peer-Review Process

Once you submit your research paper to a journal, it undergoes a rigorous peer-review process to ensure its quality and validity. In peer-review, experts in your field assess your research and provide feedback and suggestions for improvement, ultimately determining whether your paper is eligible for publishing or not. You are likely to encounter several models of peer-review, based on which party – author, reviewer, or both – remains anonymous throughout the process.

When your paper undergoes the peer-review process, be prepared for constructive criticism and address the comments you receive from your reviewer thoughtfully, providing clear and concise responses to their concerns or suggestions. These could make all the difference when it comes to making your next submission.

The peer-review process can seem like a closed book at times. Check out our discussion of the issue with philosopher and academic Amna Whiston in The Research Beat podcast!

Step 5: Submitting Your Paper

As we’ve already pointed out, one of the key elements in how to publish a research paper is ensuring that you meticulously follow the journal’s submission guidelines. Strive to comply with all formatting requirements, including citation styles, font, margins, and reference structure.

Before the final submission, thoroughly proofread your paper for errors, including grammar, spelling, and any inconsistencies in your data or analysis. At this stage, consider seeking feedback from colleagues or mentors to further improve the quality of your paper.

Step 6: Dealing with Rejections and Revising Your Paper

Rejection is a common part of the publishing process, but it shouldn’t discourage you. Analyse reviewer comments objectively and focus on the constructive feedback provided. Make necessary revisions and improvements to your paper to address the concerns raised by reviewers. If needed, consider submitting your paper to a different journal that is a better fit for your research.

For more tips on how to publish your paper out there, check out this thread by Dr. Asad Naveed ( @dr_asadnaveed ) – and if you need a refresher on the basics of how to publish under the Open Access model, watch this 5-minute video from Audemic Academy !

Final Thoughts

Successfully understanding how to publish a research paper requires dedication, attention to detail, and a systematic approach. By following the advice in our guide, you can increase your chances of navigating the publishing process effectively and achieving your goal of publication.

Remember, the journey may involve revisions, peer feedback, and potential rejections, but each step is an opportunity for growth and improvement. Stay persistent, maintain a positive mindset, and continue to refine your research paper until it reaches the standards of your target journal. Your contribution to your wider discipline through published research will not only advance your career, but also add to the growing body of collective knowledge in your field. Embrace the challenges and rewards that come with the publication process, and may your research paper make a significant impact in your area of study!

Looking for inspiration for your next big paper? Head to Audemic , where you can organise and listen to all the best and latest research in your field!

Keep striving, researchers! ✨

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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal

  • Open access
  • Published: 30 April 2020
  • Volume 36 , pages 909–913, ( 2021 )

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  • Clara Busse   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0178-1000 1 &
  • Ella August   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5151-1036 1 , 2  

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Communicating research findings is an essential step in the research process. Often, peer-reviewed journals are the forum for such communication, yet many researchers are never taught how to write a publishable scientific paper. In this article, we explain the basic structure of a scientific paper and describe the information that should be included in each section. We also identify common pitfalls for each section and recommend strategies to avoid them. Further, we give advice about target journal selection and authorship. In the online resource 1 , we provide an example of a high-quality scientific paper, with annotations identifying the elements we describe in this article.

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Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Writing a scientific paper is an important component of the research process, yet researchers often receive little formal training in scientific writing. This is especially true in low-resource settings. In this article, we explain why choosing a target journal is important, give advice about authorship, provide a basic structure for writing each section of a scientific paper, and describe common pitfalls and recommendations for each section. In the online resource 1 , we also include an annotated journal article that identifies the key elements and writing approaches that we detail here. Before you begin your research, make sure you have ethical clearance from all relevant ethical review boards.

Select a Target Journal Early in the Writing Process

We recommend that you select a “target journal” early in the writing process; a “target journal” is the journal to which you plan to submit your paper. Each journal has a set of core readers and you should tailor your writing to this readership. For example, if you plan to submit a manuscript about vaping during pregnancy to a pregnancy-focused journal, you will need to explain what vaping is because readers of this journal may not have a background in this topic. However, if you were to submit that same article to a tobacco journal, you would not need to provide as much background information about vaping.

Information about a journal’s core readership can be found on its website, usually in a section called “About this journal” or something similar. For example, the Journal of Cancer Education presents such information on the “Aims and Scope” page of its website, which can be found here: https://www.springer.com/journal/13187/aims-and-scope .

Peer reviewer guidelines from your target journal are an additional resource that can help you tailor your writing to the journal and provide additional advice about crafting an effective article [ 1 ]. These are not always available, but it is worth a quick web search to find out.

Identify Author Roles Early in the Process

Early in the writing process, identify authors, determine the order of authors, and discuss the responsibilities of each author. Standard author responsibilities have been identified by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) [ 2 ]. To set clear expectations about each team member’s responsibilities and prevent errors in communication, we also suggest outlining more detailed roles, such as who will draft each section of the manuscript, write the abstract, submit the paper electronically, serve as corresponding author, and write the cover letter. It is best to formalize this agreement in writing after discussing it, circulating the document to the author team for approval. We suggest creating a title page on which all authors are listed in the agreed-upon order. It may be necessary to adjust authorship roles and order during the development of the paper. If a new author order is agreed upon, be sure to update the title page in the manuscript draft.

In the case where multiple papers will result from a single study, authors should discuss who will author each paper. Additionally, authors should agree on a deadline for each paper and the lead author should take responsibility for producing an initial draft by this deadline.

Structure of the Introduction Section

The introduction section should be approximately three to five paragraphs in length. Look at examples from your target journal to decide the appropriate length. This section should include the elements shown in Fig.  1 . Begin with a general context, narrowing to the specific focus of the paper. Include five main elements: why your research is important, what is already known about the topic, the “gap” or what is not yet known about the topic, why it is important to learn the new information that your research adds, and the specific research aim(s) that your paper addresses. Your research aim should address the gap you identified. Be sure to add enough background information to enable readers to understand your study. Table 1 provides common introduction section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

figure 1

The main elements of the introduction section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap

Methods Section

The purpose of the methods section is twofold: to explain how the study was done in enough detail to enable its replication and to provide enough contextual detail to enable readers to understand and interpret the results. In general, the essential elements of a methods section are the following: a description of the setting and participants, the study design and timing, the recruitment and sampling, the data collection process, the dataset, the dependent and independent variables, the covariates, the analytic approach for each research objective, and the ethical approval. The hallmark of an exemplary methods section is the justification of why each method was used. Table 2 provides common methods section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Results Section

The focus of the results section should be associations, or lack thereof, rather than statistical tests. Two considerations should guide your writing here. First, the results should present answers to each part of the research aim. Second, return to the methods section to ensure that the analysis and variables for each result have been explained.

Begin the results section by describing the number of participants in the final sample and details such as the number who were approached to participate, the proportion who were eligible and who enrolled, and the number of participants who dropped out. The next part of the results should describe the participant characteristics. After that, you may organize your results by the aim or by putting the most exciting results first. Do not forget to report your non-significant associations. These are still findings.

Tables and figures capture the reader’s attention and efficiently communicate your main findings [ 3 ]. Each table and figure should have a clear message and should complement, rather than repeat, the text. Tables and figures should communicate all salient details necessary for a reader to understand the findings without consulting the text. Include information on comparisons and tests, as well as information about the sample and timing of the study in the title, legend, or in a footnote. Note that figures are often more visually interesting than tables, so if it is feasible to make a figure, make a figure. To avoid confusing the reader, either avoid abbreviations in tables and figures, or define them in a footnote. Note that there should not be citations in the results section and you should not interpret results here. Table 3 provides common results section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Discussion Section

Opposite the introduction section, the discussion should take the form of a right-side-up triangle beginning with interpretation of your results and moving to general implications (Fig.  2 ). This section typically begins with a restatement of the main findings, which can usually be accomplished with a few carefully-crafted sentences.

figure 2

Major elements of the discussion section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap

Next, interpret the meaning or explain the significance of your results, lifting the reader’s gaze from the study’s specific findings to more general applications. Then, compare these study findings with other research. Are these findings in agreement or disagreement with those from other studies? Does this study impart additional nuance to well-accepted theories? Situate your findings within the broader context of scientific literature, then explain the pathways or mechanisms that might give rise to, or explain, the results.

Journals vary in their approach to strengths and limitations sections: some are embedded paragraphs within the discussion section, while some mandate separate section headings. Keep in mind that every study has strengths and limitations. Candidly reporting yours helps readers to correctly interpret your research findings.

The next element of the discussion is a summary of the potential impacts and applications of the research. Should these results be used to optimally design an intervention? Does the work have implications for clinical protocols or public policy? These considerations will help the reader to further grasp the possible impacts of the presented work.

Finally, the discussion should conclude with specific suggestions for future work. Here, you have an opportunity to illuminate specific gaps in the literature that compel further study. Avoid the phrase “future research is necessary” because the recommendation is too general to be helpful to readers. Instead, provide substantive and specific recommendations for future studies. Table 4 provides common discussion section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Follow the Journal’s Author Guidelines

After you select a target journal, identify the journal’s author guidelines to guide the formatting of your manuscript and references. Author guidelines will often (but not always) include instructions for titles, cover letters, and other components of a manuscript submission. Read the guidelines carefully. If you do not follow the guidelines, your article will be sent back to you.

Finally, do not submit your paper to more than one journal at a time. Even if this is not explicitly stated in the author guidelines of your target journal, it is considered inappropriate and unprofessional.

Your title should invite readers to continue reading beyond the first page [ 4 , 5 ]. It should be informative and interesting. Consider describing the independent and dependent variables, the population and setting, the study design, the timing, and even the main result in your title. Because the focus of the paper can change as you write and revise, we recommend you wait until you have finished writing your paper before composing the title.

Be sure that the title is useful for potential readers searching for your topic. The keywords you select should complement those in your title to maximize the likelihood that a researcher will find your paper through a database search. Avoid using abbreviations in your title unless they are very well known, such as SNP, because it is more likely that someone will use a complete word rather than an abbreviation as a search term to help readers find your paper.

After you have written a complete draft, use the checklist (Fig. 3 ) below to guide your revisions and editing. Additional resources are available on writing the abstract and citing references [ 5 ]. When you feel that your work is ready, ask a trusted colleague or two to read the work and provide informal feedback. The box below provides a checklist that summarizes the key points offered in this article.

figure 3

Checklist for manuscript quality

Data Availability

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Brett M, Kording K (2017) Ten simple rules for structuring papers. PLoS ComputBiol. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005619

Lang TA (2017) Writing a better research article. J Public Health Emerg. https://doi.org/10.21037/jphe.2017.11.06

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Acknowledgments

Ella August is grateful to the Sustainable Sciences Institute for mentoring her in training researchers on writing and publishing their research.

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Busse, C., August, E. How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal. J Canc Educ 36 , 909–913 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z

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Research Method

Home » How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide

How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide

Table of Contents

How to Publish a Research Paper

Publishing a research paper is an important step for researchers to disseminate their findings to a wider audience and contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their field. Whether you are a graduate student, a postdoctoral fellow, or an established researcher, publishing a paper requires careful planning, rigorous research, and clear writing. In this process, you will need to identify a research question , conduct a thorough literature review , design a methodology, analyze data, and draw conclusions. Additionally, you will need to consider the appropriate journals or conferences to submit your work to and adhere to their guidelines for formatting and submission. In this article, we will discuss some ways to publish your Research Paper.

How to Publish a Research Paper

To Publish a Research Paper follow the guide below:

  • Conduct original research : Conduct thorough research on a specific topic or problem. Collect data, analyze it, and draw conclusions based on your findings.
  • Write the paper : Write a detailed paper describing your research. It should include an abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
  • Choose a suitable journal or conference : Look for a journal or conference that specializes in your research area. You can check their submission guidelines to ensure your paper meets their requirements.
  • Prepare your submission: Follow the guidelines and prepare your submission, including the paper, abstract, cover letter, and any other required documents.
  • Submit the paper: Submit your paper online through the journal or conference website. Make sure you meet the submission deadline.
  • Peer-review process : Your paper will be reviewed by experts in the field who will provide feedback on the quality of your research, methodology, and conclusions.
  • Revisions : Based on the feedback you receive, revise your paper and resubmit it.
  • Acceptance : Once your paper is accepted, you will receive a notification from the journal or conference. You may need to make final revisions before the paper is published.
  • Publication : Your paper will be published online or in print. You can also promote your work through social media or other channels to increase its visibility.

How to Choose Journal for Research Paper Publication

Here are some steps to follow to help you select an appropriate journal:

  • Identify your research topic and audience : Your research topic and intended audience should guide your choice of journal. Identify the key journals in your field of research and read the scope and aim of the journal to determine if your paper is a good fit.
  • Analyze the journal’s impact and reputation : Check the impact factor and ranking of the journal, as well as its acceptance rate and citation frequency. A high-impact journal can give your paper more visibility and credibility.
  • Consider the journal’s publication policies : Look for the journal’s publication policies such as the word count limit, formatting requirements, open access options, and submission fees. Make sure that you can comply with the requirements and that the journal is in line with your publication goals.
  • Look at recent publications : Review recent issues of the journal to evaluate whether your paper would fit in with the journal’s current content and style.
  • Seek advice from colleagues and mentors: Ask for recommendations and suggestions from your colleagues and mentors in your field, especially those who have experience publishing in the same or similar journals.
  • Be prepared to make changes : Be prepared to revise your paper according to the requirements and guidelines of the chosen journal. It is also important to be open to feedback from the editor and reviewers.

List of Journals for Research Paper Publications

There are thousands of academic journals covering various fields of research. Here are some of the most popular ones, categorized by field:

General/Multidisciplinary

  • Nature: https://www.nature.com/
  • Science: https://www.sciencemag.org/
  • PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): https://www.pnas.org/
  • The Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/
  • JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama

Social Sciences/Humanities

  • Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/psp
  • Journal of Consumer Research: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/jcr
  • Journal of Educational Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/edu
  • Journal of Applied Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/apl
  • Journal of Communication: https://academic.oup.com/joc
  • American Journal of Political Science: https://ajps.org/
  • Journal of International Business Studies: https://www.jibs.net/
  • Journal of Marketing Research: https://www.ama.org/journal-of-marketing-research/

Natural Sciences

  • Journal of Biological Chemistry: https://www.jbc.org/
  • Cell: https://www.cell.com/
  • Science Advances: https://advances.sciencemag.org/
  • Chemical Reviews: https://pubs.acs.org/journal/chreay
  • Angewandte Chemie: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15213765
  • Physical Review Letters: https://journals.aps.org/prl/
  • Journal of Geophysical Research: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/2156531X
  • Journal of High Energy Physics: https://link.springer.com/journal/13130

Engineering/Technology

  • IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=5962385
  • IEEE Transactions on Power Systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=59
  • IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=42
  • IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=87
  • Journal of Engineering Mechanics: https://ascelibrary.org/journal/jenmdt
  • Journal of Materials Science: https://www.springer.com/journal/10853
  • Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/jcej
  • Journal of Mechanical Design: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/mechanicaldesign

Medical/Health Sciences

  • New England Journal of Medicine: https://www.nejm.org/
  • The BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal): https://www.bmj.com/
  • Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama
  • Annals of Internal Medicine: https://www.acpjournals.org/journal/aim
  • American Journal of Epidemiology: https://academic.oup.com/aje
  • Journal of Clinical Oncology: https://ascopubs.org/journal/jco
  • Journal of Infectious Diseases: https://academic.oup.com/jid

List of Conferences for Research Paper Publications

There are many conferences that accept research papers for publication. The specific conferences you should consider will depend on your field of research. Here are some suggestions for conferences in a few different fields:

Computer Science and Information Technology:

  • IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM): https://www.ieee-infocom.org/
  • ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Data Communication: https://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/
  • IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP): https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP/
  • ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS): https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/
  • ACM Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI): https://chi2022.acm.org/

Engineering:

  • IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA): https://www.ieee-icra.org/
  • International Conference on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (ICMAE): http://www.icmae.org/
  • International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering (ICCEE): http://www.iccee.org/
  • International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE): http://www.icmse.org/
  • International Conference on Energy and Power Engineering (ICEPE): http://www.icepe.org/

Natural Sciences:

  • American Chemical Society National Meeting & Exposition: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/meetings/national-meeting.html
  • American Physical Society March Meeting: https://www.aps.org/meetings/march/
  • International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology (ICEST): http://www.icest.org/
  • International Conference on Natural Science and Environment (ICNSE): http://www.icnse.org/
  • International Conference on Life Science and Biological Engineering (LSBE): http://www.lsbe.org/

Social Sciences:

  • Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA): https://www.asanet.org/annual-meeting-2022
  • International Conference on Social Science and Humanities (ICSSH): http://www.icssh.org/
  • International Conference on Psychology and Behavioral Sciences (ICPBS): http://www.icpbs.org/
  • International Conference on Education and Social Science (ICESS): http://www.icess.org/
  • International Conference on Management and Information Science (ICMIS): http://www.icmis.org/

How to Publish a Research Paper in Journal

Publishing a research paper in a journal is a crucial step in disseminating scientific knowledge and contributing to the field. Here are the general steps to follow:

  • Choose a research topic : Select a topic of your interest and identify a research question or problem that you want to investigate. Conduct a literature review to identify the gaps in the existing knowledge that your research will address.
  • Conduct research : Develop a research plan and methodology to collect data and conduct experiments. Collect and analyze data to draw conclusions that address the research question.
  • Write a paper: Organize your findings into a well-structured paper with clear and concise language. Your paper should include an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. Use academic language and provide references for your sources.
  • Choose a journal: Choose a journal that is relevant to your research topic and audience. Consider factors such as impact factor, acceptance rate, and the reputation of the journal.
  • Follow journal guidelines : Review the submission guidelines and formatting requirements of the journal. Follow the guidelines carefully to ensure that your paper meets the journal’s requirements.
  • Submit your paper : Submit your paper to the journal through the online submission system or by email. Include a cover letter that briefly explains the significance of your research and why it is suitable for the journal.
  • Wait for reviews: Your paper will be reviewed by experts in the field. Be prepared to address their comments and make revisions to your paper.
  • Revise and resubmit: Make revisions to your paper based on the reviewers’ comments and resubmit it to the journal. If your paper is accepted, congratulations! If not, consider revising and submitting it to another journal.
  • Address reviewer comments : Reviewers may provide comments and suggestions for revisions to your paper. Address these comments carefully and thoughtfully to improve the quality of your paper.
  • Submit the final version: Once your revisions are complete, submit the final version of your paper to the journal. Be sure to follow any additional formatting guidelines and requirements provided by the journal.
  • Publication : If your paper is accepted, it will be published in the journal. Some journals provide online publication while others may publish a print version. Be sure to cite your published paper in future research and communicate your findings to the scientific community.

How to Publish a Research Paper for Students

Here are some steps you can follow to publish a research paper as an Under Graduate or a High School Student:

  • Select a topic: Choose a topic that is relevant and interesting to you, and that you have a good understanding of.
  • Conduct research : Gather information and data on your chosen topic through research, experiments, surveys, or other means.
  • Write the paper : Start with an outline, then write the introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion sections of the paper. Be sure to follow any guidelines provided by your instructor or the journal you plan to submit to.
  • Edit and revise: Review your paper for errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Ask a peer or mentor to review your paper and provide feedback for improvement.
  • Choose a journal : Look for journals that publish papers in your field of study and that are appropriate for your level of research. Some popular journals for students include PLOS ONE, Nature, and Science.
  • Submit the paper: Follow the submission guidelines for the journal you choose, which typically include a cover letter, abstract, and formatting requirements. Be prepared to wait several weeks to months for a response.
  • Address feedback : If your paper is accepted with revisions, address the feedback from the reviewers and resubmit your paper. If your paper is rejected, review the feedback and consider revising and resubmitting to a different journal.

How to Publish a Research Paper for Free

Publishing a research paper for free can be challenging, but it is possible. Here are some steps you can take to publish your research paper for free:

  • Choose a suitable open-access journal: Look for open-access journals that are relevant to your research area. Open-access journals allow readers to access your paper without charge, so your work will be more widely available.
  • Check the journal’s reputation : Before submitting your paper, ensure that the journal is reputable by checking its impact factor, publication history, and editorial board.
  • Follow the submission guidelines : Every journal has specific guidelines for submitting papers. Make sure to follow these guidelines carefully to increase the chances of acceptance.
  • Submit your paper : Once you have completed your research paper, submit it to the journal following their submission guidelines.
  • Wait for the review process: Your paper will undergo a peer-review process, where experts in your field will evaluate your work. Be patient during this process, as it can take several weeks or even months.
  • Revise your paper : If your paper is rejected, don’t be discouraged. Revise your paper based on the feedback you receive from the reviewers and submit it to another open-access journal.
  • Promote your research: Once your paper is published, promote it on social media and other online platforms. This will increase the visibility of your work and help it reach a wider audience.

Journals and Conferences for Free Research Paper publications

Here are the websites of the open-access journals and conferences mentioned:

Open-Access Journals:

  • PLOS ONE – https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
  • BMC Research Notes – https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/
  • Frontiers in… – https://www.frontiersin.org/
  • Journal of Open Research Software – https://openresearchsoftware.metajnl.com/
  • PeerJ – https://peerj.com/

Conferences:

  • IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) – https://globecom2022.ieee-globecom.org/
  • IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) – https://infocom2022.ieee-infocom.org/
  • IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) – https://www.ieee-icdm.org/
  • ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) – https://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/
  • ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) – https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2022/

Importance of Research Paper Publication

Research paper publication is important for several reasons, both for individual researchers and for the scientific community as a whole. Here are some reasons why:

  • Advancing scientific knowledge : Research papers provide a platform for researchers to present their findings and contribute to the body of knowledge in their field. These papers often contain novel ideas, experimental data, and analyses that can help to advance scientific understanding.
  • Building a research career : Publishing research papers is an essential component of building a successful research career. Researchers are often evaluated based on the number and quality of their publications, and having a strong publication record can increase one’s chances of securing funding, tenure, or a promotion.
  • Peer review and quality control: Publication in a peer-reviewed journal means that the research has been scrutinized by other experts in the field. This peer review process helps to ensure the quality and validity of the research findings.
  • Recognition and visibility : Publishing a research paper can bring recognition and visibility to the researchers and their work. It can lead to invitations to speak at conferences, collaborations with other researchers, and media coverage.
  • Impact on society : Research papers can have a significant impact on society by informing policy decisions, guiding clinical practice, and advancing technological innovation.

Advantages of Research Paper Publication

There are several advantages to publishing a research paper, including:

  • Recognition: Publishing a research paper allows researchers to gain recognition for their work, both within their field and in the academic community as a whole. This can lead to new collaborations, invitations to conferences, and other opportunities to share their research with a wider audience.
  • Career advancement : A strong publication record can be an important factor in career advancement, particularly in academia. Publishing research papers can help researchers secure funding, grants, and promotions.
  • Dissemination of knowledge : Research papers are an important way to share new findings and ideas with the broader scientific community. By publishing their research, scientists can contribute to the collective body of knowledge in their field and help advance scientific understanding.
  • Feedback and peer review : Publishing a research paper allows other experts in the field to provide feedback on the research, which can help improve the quality of the work and identify potential flaws or limitations. Peer review also helps ensure that research is accurate and reliable.
  • Citation and impact : Published research papers can be cited by other researchers, which can help increase the impact and visibility of the research. High citation rates can also help establish a researcher’s reputation and credibility within their field.

About the author

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Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper in 7 Steps

What comes next after you're done with your research? Publishing the results in a journal of course! We tell you how to present your work in the best way possible.

This post is part of a series, which serves to provide hands-on information and resources for authors and editors.

Things have gotten busy in scholarly publishing: These days, a new article gets published in the 50,000 most important peer-reviewed journals every few seconds, while each one takes on average 40 minutes to read. Hundreds of thousands of papers reach the desks of editors and reviewers worldwide each year and 50% of all submissions end up rejected at some stage.

In a nutshell: there is a lot of competition, and the people who decide upon the fate of your manuscript are short on time and overworked. But there are ways to make their lives a little easier and improve your own chances of getting your work published!

Well, it may seem obvious, but before submitting an academic paper, always make sure that it is an excellent reflection of the research you have done and that you present it in the most professional way possible. Incomplete or poorly presented manuscripts can create a great deal of frustration and annoyance for editors who probably won’t even bother wasting the time of the reviewers!

This post will discuss 7 steps to the successful publication of your research paper:

  • Check whether your research is publication-ready
  • Choose an article type
  • Choose a journal
  • Construct your paper
  • Decide the order of authors
  • Check and double-check
  • Submit your paper

1. Check Whether Your Research Is Publication-Ready

Should you publish your research at all?

If your work holds academic value – of course – a well-written scholarly article could open doors to your research community. However, if you are not yet sure, whether your research is ready for publication, here are some key questions to ask yourself depending on your field of expertise:

  • Have you done or found something new and interesting? Something unique?
  • Is the work directly related to a current hot topic?
  • Have you checked the latest results or research in the field?
  • Have you provided solutions to any difficult problems?
  • Have the findings been verified?
  • Have the appropriate controls been performed if required?
  • Are your findings comprehensive?

If the answers to all relevant questions are “yes”, you need to prepare a good, strong manuscript. Remember, a research paper is only useful if it is clearly understood, reproducible and if it is read and used .

2. Choose An Article Type

The first step is to determine which type of paper is most appropriate for your work and what you want to achieve. The following list contains the most important, usually peer-reviewed article types in the natural sciences:

Full original research papers disseminate completed research findings. On average this type of paper is 8-10 pages long, contains five figures, and 25-30 references. Full original research papers are an important part of the process when developing your career.

Review papers present a critical synthesis of a specific research topic. These papers are usually much longer than original papers and will contain numerous references. More often than not, they will be commissioned by journal editors. Reviews present an excellent way to solidify your research career.

Letters, Rapid or Short Communications are often published for the quick and early communication of significant and original advances. They are much shorter than full articles and usually limited in length by the journal. Journals specifically dedicated to short communications or letters are also published in some fields. In these the authors can present short preliminary findings before developing a full-length paper.

3. Choose a Journal

Are you looking for the right place to publish your paper? Find out here whether a De Gruyter journal might be the right fit.

Submit to journals that you already read, that you have a good feel for. If you do so, you will have a better appreciation of both its culture and the requirements of the editors and reviewers.

Other factors to consider are:

  • The specific subject area
  • The aims and scope of the journal
  • The type of manuscript you have written
  • The significance of your work
  • The reputation of the journal
  • The reputation of the editors within the community
  • The editorial/review and production speeds of the journal
  • The community served by the journal
  • The coverage and distribution
  • The accessibility ( open access vs. closed access)

4. Construct Your Paper

Each element of a paper has its purpose, so you should make these sections easy to index and search.

Don’t forget that requirements can differ highly per publication, so always make sure to apply a journal’s specific instructions – or guide – for authors to your manuscript, even to the first draft (text layout, paper citation, nomenclature, figures and table, etc.) It will save you time, and the editor’s.

Also, even in these days of Internet-based publishing, space is still at a premium, so be as concise as possible. As a good journalist would say: “Never use three words when one will do!”

Let’s look at the typical structure of a full research paper, but bear in mind certain subject disciplines may have their own specific requirements so check the instructions for authors on the journal’s home page.

4.1 The Title

It’s important to use the title to tell the reader what your paper is all about! You want to attract their attention, a bit like a newspaper headline does. Be specific and to the point. Keep it informative and concise, and avoid jargon and abbreviations (unless they are universally recognized like DNA, for example).

4.2 The Abstract

This could be termed as the “advertisement” for your article. Make it interesting and easily understood without the reader having to read the whole article. Be accurate and specific, and keep it as brief and concise as possible. Some journals (particularly in the medical fields) will ask you to structure the abstract in distinct, labeled sections, which makes it even more accessible.

A clear abstract will influence whether or not your work is considered and whether an editor should invest more time on it or send it for review.

4.3 Keywords

Keywords are used by abstracting and indexing services, such as PubMed and Web of Science. They are the labels of your manuscript, which make it “searchable” online by other researchers.

Include words or phrases (usually 4-8) that are closely related to your topic but not “too niche” for anyone to find them. Make sure to only use established abbreviations. Think about what scientific terms and its variations your potential readers are likely to use and search for. You can also do a test run of your selected keywords in one of the common academic search engines. Do similar articles to your own appear? Yes? Then that’s a good sign.

4.4 Introduction

This first part of the main text should introduce the problem, as well as any existing solutions you are aware of and the main limitations. Also, state what you hope to achieve with your research.

Do not confuse the introduction with the results, discussion or conclusion.

4.5 Methods

Every research article should include a detailed Methods section (also referred to as “Materials and Methods”) to provide the reader with enough information to be able to judge whether the study is valid and reproducible.

Include detailed information so that a knowledgeable reader can reproduce the experiment. However, use references and supplementary materials to indicate previously published procedures.

4.6 Results

In this section, you will present the essential or primary results of your study. To display them in a comprehensible way, you should use subheadings as well as illustrations such as figures, graphs, tables and photos, as appropriate.

4.7 Discussion

Here you should tell your readers what the results mean .

Do state how the results relate to the study’s aims and hypotheses and how the findings relate to those of other studies. Explain all possible interpretations of your findings and the study’s limitations.

Do not make “grand statements” that are not supported by the data. Also, do not introduce any new results or terms. Moreover, do not ignore work that conflicts or disagrees with your findings. Instead …

Be brave! Address conflicting study results and convince the reader you are the one who is correct.

4.8 Conclusion

Your conclusion isn’t just a summary of what you’ve already written. It should take your paper one step further and answer any unresolved questions.

Sum up what you have shown in your study and indicate possible applications and extensions. The main question your conclusion should answer is: What do my results mean for the research field and my community?

4.9 Acknowledgments and Ethical Statements

It is extremely important to acknowledge anyone who has helped you with your paper, including researchers who supplied materials or reagents (e.g. vectors or antibodies); and anyone who helped with the writing or English, or offered critical comments about the content.

Learn more about academic integrity in our blog post “Scholarly Publication Ethics: 4 Common Mistakes You Want To Avoid” .

Remember to state why people have been acknowledged and ask their permission . Ensure that you acknowledge sources of funding, including any grant or reference numbers.

Furthermore, if you have worked with animals or humans, you need to include information about the ethical approval of your study and, if applicable, whether informed consent was given. Also, state whether you have any competing interests regarding the study (e.g. because of financial or personal relationships.)

4.10 References

The end is in sight, but don’t relax just yet!

De facto, there are often more mistakes in the references than in any other part of the manuscript. It is also one of the most annoying and time-consuming problems for editors.

Remember to cite the main scientific publications on which your work is based. But do not inflate the manuscript with too many references. Avoid excessive – and especially unnecessary – self-citations. Also, avoid excessive citations of publications from the same institute or region.

5. Decide the Order of Authors

In the sciences, the most common way to order the names of the authors is by relative contribution.

Generally, the first author conducts and/or supervises the data analysis and the proper presentation and interpretation of the results. They put the paper together and usually submit the paper to the journal.

Co-authors make intellectual contributions to the data analysis and contribute to data interpretation. They review each paper draft. All of them must be able to present the paper and its results, as well as to defend the implications and discuss study limitations.

Do not leave out authors who should be included or add “gift authors”, i.e. authors who did not contribute significantly.

6. Check and Double-Check

As a final step before submission, ask colleagues to read your work and be constructively critical .

Make sure that the paper is appropriate for the journal – take a last look at their aims and scope. Check if all of the requirements in the instructions for authors are met.

Ensure that the cited literature is balanced. Are the aims, purpose and significance of the results clear?

Conduct a final check for language, either by a native English speaker or an editing service.

7. Submit Your Paper

When you and your co-authors have double-, triple-, quadruple-checked the manuscript: submit it via e-mail or online submission system. Along with your manuscript, submit a cover letter, which highlights the reasons why your paper would appeal to the journal and which ensures that you have received approval of all authors for submission.

It is up to the editors and the peer-reviewers now to provide you with their (ideally constructive and helpful) comments and feedback. Time to take a breather!

If the paper gets rejected, do not despair – it happens to literally everybody. If the journal suggests major or minor revisions, take the chance to provide a thorough response and make improvements as you see fit. If the paper gets accepted, congrats!

It’s now time to get writing and share your hard work – good luck!

If you are interested, check out this related blog post

where to publish your research paper

[Title Image by Nick Morrison via Unsplash]

David Sleeman

David Sleeman worked as Senior Journals Manager in the field of Physical Sciences at De Gruyter.

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English Editing Research Services

where to publish your research paper

Where Should You Publish Your Research?

Edanz–BioMedCentral white paper

The Internet has changed the way people publish and share their research, not only in terms of formats (webpage, e-reader, PDF), but also in terms of products (online articles, books, blogs, preprints) and processes (collaborative writing, more precise journal selection, different types of formal/informal review, text-matching checks, different online publishing models).

What publishing venues and pathways are now available? Here are the many ways you can publish regularly and make sure you’re always being competitive and active.

Conferences

The Internet has not stopped traditional face-to-face meetings via conferences. Going to conferences is invaluable for you to network and learn who is who, and what is happening, in your field. If you present a talk or poster , the feedback can be used to improve your study or manuscript before submission to a peer-reviewed journal.

Journals worldwide allow prior appearance of research as conference posters and as abstracts in peer-reviewed conference proceedings (even though they are formally published).

Many journals, however, will not allow you to republish a paper after already publishing a full or partial version in conference proceedings. It would be best to check the online journal guidelines or ask the editorial office (preferably before arranging to present at a conference that publishes full reports).

Some journals may ask for a substantial amount of new content to be added before journal submission, and you may need to enclose copies of all related works with your submission and obtain copyright permission from the publisher of the conference proceedings.

Some journals also have rules about not giving additional information to the mass media at or after a conference and before journal publication. Based on the Ingelfinger Rule , not reporting research to the public or news media before official publication in a peer-reviewed journal protects the public from misinformation and allows journals to be the first place to publish the full report.

The guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors explain that some countries and journals have a media embargo (delayed news publication) system to allow time for accurate news writing and wider news distribution.

The coordination of journal publication with, say, medical news reporting in the mass media allows health care professionals to access, verify, and use the original journal article. News embargo systems rely on trust; the Embargo Watch website monitors instances of broken embargoes.

(An extreme example of what not to do is to turn a manuscript into a newspaper advertisement .)

Unfortunately, the Internet has made it easy for fake conferences and conference proceedings to be organized; AuthorAid gives some advice for avoiding “predatory conferences” .

Blogs, social platforms, and own websites

Blogs, general social media, scholarly collaboration networks (e.g., ResearchGate , Academia ), researchers’ own websites, and institutional websites are popular for sharing research ideas and findings widely, especially as nontechnical summaries after formal publication.

However, whether the full text of a published journal article can be shared directly on those sites depends on the copyright and licensing arrangements of the journal.

Postpublication promotion of your research in the form of lay summaries and news stories can also be done on dedicated news sites such as EurekAlert! and AlphaGalilieo , and other platforms such as Kudos and OurResearch .

A problem for people who share research findings in websites and social media before formal publication is that these postings are not peer reviewed , may constitute prior publication, and could be plagiarized by others but not be detected by text-matching software because they may not be included in the comparison database.

Two cases reported to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) have involved a research paper that plagiarized blog content and an author who posted the accepted version of a paper on a website without permission .

Again, it’s best to check with the journal what they deem as prior publication and what versions of a paper can be self-archived and when.

Trial registries

Reputable journals that publish prospective human trials require the advance online registration of the study protocol in a clinical trials database/registry (e.g., www.clinicaltrials.gov ), before the actual study started.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors does not consider trial registration and certain registry declarations of the results to be prior publication. The norm is for interventional (experimental) clinical trials to be registered, but some journals also encourage human observational (nonexperimental) studies to be registered.

Data repositories

Online repositories such as Dryad , Figshare , and Zenodo accept data files, slidesets , papers, media files, posters, and other research outputs. Some repositories, including the three named examples, are integrated with ORCID , where you can keep a complete research record under a unique personal number.

The objects that you self-archive are not peer reviewed but receive digital object identifiers ( DOIs ) and are hence persistently findable and linkable. Files are citable, can be freely shared, and can be used as supplementary files during journal submissions. Some repositories may be partnered with journals.

Preprints (or “working papers”) are drafts of manuscripts that authors may upload/post/deposit to general or discipline-specific preprint servers, or to own websites or institutional or commercial/noncommercial data repositories.

Preprints have not been formally peer reviewed and must not have been formally published by a peer-reviewed journal. Using preprint servers, authors can usually post revisions of preprints but previous versions are retained for reference.

The arXiv site is the most well known preprint server and was established in 1991 for physics, mathematics, computer science, and other disciplines. Newer preprint servers include bioRxiv (for biology), PsyArXiv (for psychology), SocArXiv (for social sciences) and engrXiv (for engineering).

In some preprint servers, all preprints receive DOIs and readers can directly post informal feedback, rather like the peer feedback given at conferences.

Some funding agencies (e.g., Wellcome and the Medical Research Council in the UK and the National Institutes of Health in the US) allow preprints to be cited as research outputs in grant and award applications and in project reports. Many publications and journals also allow preprints to be cited in the reference list of submitted papers; to be sure, please check the relevant author guidelines.

Some journals do not regard preprints as prior publication, as long as authors do not promote their work to the public and media. If a preprint is subsequently peer reviewed and published in a journal, the author may be asked to indicate on the preprint that the paper has now been published and also to link the preprint to the DOI of the published article.

Some journals allow, and some require, the preprint to be replaced by the accepted version (or “ postprint “) of the manuscript, which has been peer reviewed, revised according to peer review advice, and perhaps also copy edited. The timing of this replacement will be stated in the journal guidelines.

Some journals, however, do regard preprints as prior publication. Be sure to check the SHERPA/RoMEO database and individual journal websites before uploading a preprint, and declare any relevant preprints at the time of journal submission for full transparency.

Because preprints are publicly available, some journals have modified their embargo policies — for example, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) asks authors not to post the accepted version of a manuscript to a repository until after an embargo period. If a draft had been posted as a preprint before acceptance by PNAS , then the journal’s news/media embargo does not apply .

The establishment of preprint servers is still a relatively new development, and COPE invited comments on this topic .

Open access repositories

Some funders require that research outputs be made freely available, so “green open access” journals may allow authors to self-archive preprints and accepted versions – but not the final published article (“version of record”). “Gold open access” journals allow self-archiving of the final version, for noncommercial use or also commercial use. Please consult individual journal policies for special arrangements to comply with open access mandates of research funders.

For example, if research was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, publishers or authors would need to upload relevant accepted manuscripts or final published articles to the PubMedCentral repository.

Theses and dissertations

Although not formally published, student theses and dissertations may be available online via university libraries or national repositories. Generally in the UK, theses are what PhD candidates write and dissertations are what Master students write, but in the US, the terms are switched around. In some countries, the terms are interchangeable.

Most journals allow manuscript submissions that have been derived from degree work, but be sure by checking journal guidelines and by declaring the origin of the work in your cover letter .

Beware of unethical vanity presses and print-on-demand/print-to-order services that may invite you to self-publish your thesis as a book without peer review or editing, and maybe after copyright transfer and payment.

Some researchers, especially in the humanities and social sciences, formally publish their work as book chapters, books, and monographs rather than journal articles. After obtaining necessary permissions, some authors publish books containing all or parts of previously published journal articles. Academic books of reputable publishers undergo peer review, but books tend not to be cited as much as journal articles .

Formal publication of research is most often done in peer-reviewed journals of publishers, companies, societies, and universities. There is more to selecting the best target journal than simply looking at the Journal Impact Factor. Some institutions, publishers, organizations, and individuals have signed the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) statement and are moving away from tracking journal bibliometrics .

Many types of journals exist — for example, by topic and readership, by article type (e.g., review journals and some methodology journals do not publish original research), by mode of peer review, by medium (print, online, or both), and by publishing model (open access, subscription, pay-per-view).

A major difference between some journals is their selection criteria. In addition to assessing academic/scientific quality (which could be called objective or technical peer review), some journals emphasize potential importance or impact, or newsworthiness (which could be called subjective, nontechnical, or journalistic peer review).

New types of online journals include “ overlay journals ” that organize formal peer review of preprints and their subsequent formal publication. Several journals use post-publication peer review (pioneered by F1000Research ) and are not strictly preprint servers but some have been included in the search.bioPreprint and  PrePubMed preprint search engines.

Your goal is to publish in a quality journal that is relevant to your work and your intended audience, so that you gain readers’ interest, trust, and future citations and perhaps collaborations. In this article, we thoroughly cover when and how to select appropriate journals to save you time, increase your chances of acceptance, and increase the visibility of your research.

Finally, remember that the policies of journals vary regarding what you can self-archive and share online, and those policies are related to open access status . You may be allowed to upload a preprint, accepted version (with or without an embargo), or final version (with or without an embargo), and you may be able to post it on your own website, a public or private institutional repository, or some other website or sharing platform. To find out the open access status and preprint/ postprint policy of your target journal, please check the journal’s website or the SHERPA/RoMEO database.

You can also look up sharing permissions of specific articles (via their DOIs ) from journals of publishers participating in the How Can I Share It website.

Unfortunately, the popularity of online open access journals has also led to the development of journals that cheat authors. To test if a publication is a reputable one, you can use the ThinkCheckSubmit guidelines.

Note: Edanz Group is a corporate associate member of COPE

ScienceDirect Support Center

To post social content, you must have a display name. The page will refresh upon submission. Any pending input will be lost.

How do I publish my article with Elsevier?

Follow these steps to submit your article using our online submission system Editorial Manager:

  • This option may not always be available as some journals do not accept submissions.
  • Sign in to Editorial Manager, or register if you are a first-time user.
  • Follow the steps to submit your article. 

Helpful tools and pages

These helpful tools and pages available can help you navigate the publication process.

Finding the right journal

  • Browse Calls for papers
  • JournalFinder

Help with submitting and tracking your article

  • Publishing with Elsevier: step-by-step — provides a good overview of the publication process for first-time authors.
  • Track your accepted article — tool to track your submitted article after it has been accepted.
  • Journal Article Publishing Support Center — support portal for any questions related to publishing with Elsevier (e.g., open access, publication costs, fees, submission timelines) and contact information.

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  • At least one author must have or previously had Horizon 2020 funding (for details, see our Publication criteria ).
  • The reported study meets all applicable research and publication standards . We strongly recommend that you consult our editorial policies for more detail on reporting guidelines and ethical requirements.
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  • Your article includes full author and affiliation information, and a conflict of interest statement.

where to publish your research paper

  • ORCID allows identification beyond names. Globally, names can be very common, they can change, they can be transliterated into other alphabets and so reliably linking researchers with their research and organizations can be difficult - this is solved through a unique ORCID iD.
  • An ORCID iD also allows you to keep a constantly updated digital curriculum vitae. Individuals decide to register, which research activities to connect to their ID, which organizations to allow access, what information to make publicly available, what to share with trusted parties, and what to keep private. Individuals can control their profiles and can change these settings and permissions at any time.
  • we collect and store authenticated ORCID iDs for authors and reviewers
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  • we connect to the user's ORCID record and update it with new published works

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How to find the right journal for your research (using actual data)

where to publish your research paper

Joanna Wilkinson

Want to help your research flourish? We share tips for using publisher-neutral data and statistics to find the right journal for your research paper.

The right journal helps your research flourish. It puts you in the best position to reach a relevant and engaged audience, and can extend the impact of your paper through a high-quality publishing process.

Unfortunately, finding the right journal is a particular pain point for inexperienced authors and those who publish on interdisciplinary topics. The sheer number of journals published today is one reason for this. More than 42,000 active scholarly peer-reviewed journals were published in 2018 alone, and there’s been accelerated growth of more than 5% in recent years.

The overwhelming growth in journals has left many researchers struggling to find the best home for their manuscripts which can be a daunting prospect after several long months producing research. Submitting to the wrong journal can hinder the impact of your manuscript. It could even result in a series of rejections, stalling both your research and career. Conversely, the right journal can help you showcase your research to the world in an environment consistent with your values.

Keep reading to learn how solutions like Journal Citation Reports ™ (JCR) and Master Journal List   can help you find the right journal for your research in the fastest possible time.

What to look for in a journal and why

To find the right journal for your research paper, it’s important to consider what you need and want out of the publishing process.

The goal for many researchers is to find a prestigious, peer-reviewed journal to publish in. This might be one that can support an application for tenure, promotion or future funding. It’s not always that simple, however. If your research is in a specialized field, you may want to avoid a journal with a multidisciplinary focus. And if you have ground-breaking results, you may want to pay attention to journals with a speedy review process and frequent publication schedule. Moreover, you may want to publish your paper as open access so that it’s accessible to everyone—and your institution or funder may also require this.

With so many points to consider, it’s good practice to have a journal in mind before you start writing. We published an earlier post to help you with this: Find top journals in a research field, step-by-step guide . Check it out to discover where the top researchers in your field are publishing.

Already written your manuscript? No problem: this blog will help you use publisher-neutral data and statistics to choose the right journal for your paper.

First stop: Manuscript Matcher in the Master Journal List

Master Journal List Manuscript Matcher is the ultimate place to begin your search for journals. It is a free tool that helps you narrow down your journal options based on your research topic and goals.

Find the right journal with Master Journal List

Pairing your research with a journal

Manuscript Matcher, also available via EndNote™ , provides a list of relevant journals indexed in the Web of Science™ . First, you’ll want to input your title and abstract (or keywords, if you prefer). You can then filter your results using the options shown on the left-hand sidebar, or simply click on the profile page of any journal listed.

Each journal page details the journal’s coverage in the Web of Science. Where available, it may also display a wealth of information, including:

  • open access information (including whether a journal is Gold OA)
  • the journal’s aims and scope
  • download statistics
  • average number of weeks from submission to publication, and
  • peer review information (including type and policy)

Ready to try Manuscript Matcher? Follow this link .

journal for labout market research

Identify the journals that are a good topical fit for your research using Manuscript Matcher. You can then move to Journal Citation Reports to understand their citation impact, audience and open access statistics.

Find the right journal with Journal Citation Reports

Journal Citation Reports   is the most powerful solution for journal intelligence. It uses transparent, publisher-neutral data and statistics to provide unique insight into a journal’s role and influence. This will help you produce a definitive list of journals best-placed to publish your findings, and more.

where to publish your research paper

Three data points exist on every journal page to help you assess a journal as a home for your research. These are: citation metrics, article relevance and audience.

Citation Metrics

The Journal Impact Factor™ (JIF) is included as part of the rich array of citation metrics offered on each journal page. It shows how often a journal’s recently published material is cited on average.

Learn how the JIF is calculated in this guide .

It’s important to note that the JIF has its limitations and no researcher should depend on the impact factor alone when assessing the usefulness or prestige of a journal. Journal Citation Reports helps you understand the context of a journal’s JIF and how to use the metric responsibly.

The JCR Trend Graph, for example, places the JIF in the context of time and subject category performance. Citation behavior varies across disciplines, and journals in JCR may be placed across multiple subject categories depending on the scope of their content. The Trend Graph shows you how the journal performs against others in the same subject category. It also gives you an understanding of how stable that performance is year-on-year.

You can learn more about this here .

The 2021 JCR release introduced a new, field-normalized metric for measuring the citation impact of a journal’s recent publications. By normalizing for different fields of research and their widely varying rates of publication and citation, the Journal Citation Indicator provides a single journal-level metric that can be easily interpreted and compared across disciplines. Learn more about the Journal Citation Indicator here .

Article relevance

The Contributing Items section in JCR demonstrates whether the journal is a good match for your paper. It can also validate the information you found in the Manuscript Matcher. You can view the full list in the Web of Science by selecting “Show all.”

JCR helps you understand the scholarly community engaging with a journal on both a country and an institutional level. This information provides insight on where in the world your own paper might have an impact if published in that particular journal. It also gives you a sense of general readership, and who you might be talking to if you choose that journal.

Start using Journal Citation Reports today .

Ready to find the right journal for your paper?

The expansion of scholarly journals in previous years has made it difficult for researchers to choose the right journal for their research. This isn’t a good position to be in when you’ve spent many long months preparing your research for the world. Journal Citation Reports , Manuscript Matcher by Master Journal List  and the Web of Science  are all products dedicated to helping you find the right home for your paper. Try them out today and help your research flourish.

Stay connected

Want to learn more?  You can also read related articles in our Research Smarter series,  with guidance on finding the relevant papers for your research  and how you can save hundreds of hours in the writing process . You can also read about the 2022 JCR release here . Finally, subscribe to receive our latest news, resources and events to help make your research journey a smart one.

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  • How to Publish a Research Paper: A Complete Guide
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How to Publish a Research Paper: A Complete Guide

Publishing a research paper in a reputable journal is a significant achievement for any academic researcher. It not only showcases your expertise in a particular field but also contributes valuable insights to the scientific community. However, the process of publication can be daunting, especially for early-career researchers. In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the essential steps on how to publish a research paper successfully. From selecting the right journal to addressing reviewer feedback, we have you covered!

Read:  Learn How to Write & Craft a Compelling Villain for Your Story.

Here’s a list of steps to keep in mind before publishing a research paper :

  • Step 1: Identifying the Right Journal
  • Step 2: Preparing Step 3: Your Manuscript

Step 3: Conducting a Thorough Review

Step 4: Writing a Compelling Cover Letter

Step 5: Navigating the Peer Review Process

Step 6: Handling Rejections

Step 7: Preparing for Publication

Step 8: Promoting Your Published Paper

Step 1: Identifying the Right Journal 

The first step in publishing a research paper is crucial, as it sets the foundation for the entire publication process. Identifying the right journal involves carefully selecting a publication platform that aligns with your research topic, audience, and academic goals. Here are the key considerations to keep in mind during this step:

  • Scope and Focus : Assess the scope and focus of your research to find journals that publish articles in your field of study. Look for journals that have previously published papers related to your topic or research area.
  • Readership and Impact Factor : Consider the target audience of the journal and its readership. Higher-impact factor journals typically attract a broader readership and can enhance the visibility and credibility of your research.
  • Publication Frequency : Investigate the publication frequency of the journal. Some journals publish issues monthly, quarterly, or annually. Choose a journal that aligns with your timeline for publication.
  • Indexing and Reputation : Check if the journal is indexed in reputable databases, such as Scopus or PubMed. Indexed journals are more likely to be recognized and accessed by researchers worldwide.
  • Journal Guidelines : Familiarise yourself with the journal’s submission guidelines, available on their website. Pay attention to manuscript length limits, reference styles, and formatting requirements.
  • Open Access Options : Consider whether the journal offers open access publishing. Open-access journals allow unrestricted access to your paper, potentially increasing its visibility and impact.
  • Ethical Considerations : Ensure the journal follows ethical publication practises and abides by industry standards. Verify if the journal is a member of reputable publishing organisations, such as COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics).
  • Publication Fees : Check if the journal charges any publication fees or article processing charges (APCs). These fees can vary significantly among journals and may influence your decision.
  • Target Audience : Consider the journal’s target audience and the level of technical detail appropriate for that audience. Some journals cater to a more specialised readership, while others aim for a broader appeal.
  • Journal Reputation : Research the reputation of the journal within your academic community. Seek advice from colleagues or mentors who have published in similar journals.

By carefully considering these factors, you can make an informed decision on the most suitable journal for your research paper. Selecting the right journal increases your chances of acceptance and ensures that your work reaches the intended audience, contributing to the advancement of knowledge in your field.

Step 2: Preparing Your Manuscript

After identifying the appropriate journal, the next step is to prepare your manuscript for submission. This stage involves meticulous attention to detail and adherence to the journal’s specific author guidelines. Here’s a comprehensive guide to preparing your manuscript:

  • Read Author Guidelines : Carefully read and understand the journal’s author guidelines, which are available on the journal’s website. The guidelines provide instructions on manuscript preparation, the submission process, and formatting requirements.
  • Manuscript Structure : Follow the standard structure for a research paper, including the abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion sections. Ensure that each section is clear and well-organised.
  • Title and Abstract : Craft a concise and informative title that reflects the main focus of your research. The abstract should provide a summary of your study’s objectives, methods, results, and conclusions.
  • Introduction : The introduction should introduce the research problem, provide context, and state the research objectives or questions. Engage readers by highlighting the significance of your research.
  • Methodology : Describe the research design, data collection methods, and data analysis techniques used in your study. Provide sufficient detail to enable other researchers to replicate your study.
  • Results : Present your findings in a clear and logical manner. Use tables, graphs, and figures to enhance the presentation of data. Avoid interpreting the results in this section.
  • Discussion : Analyse and interpret your results in the discussion section. Relate your findings to the research objectives and previously published literature. Discuss the implications of your results and any limitations of your study.
  • Conclusion : In the conclusion, summarise the key findings of your research and restate their significance. Avoid introducing new information in this section.
  • Citations and References : Cite all sources accurately and consistently throughout the manuscript. Follow the journal’s preferred citation style, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago.
  • Proofreading and Editing : Thoroughly proofread your manuscript to correct any grammatical errors, typos, or inconsistencies. Edit for clarity, conciseness, and logical flow.
  • Figures and Tables : Ensure that all figures and tables are clear, properly labelled, and cited in the main text. Follow the journal’s guidelines for the formatting of figures and tables.
  • Ethical Considerations : Include any necessary statements regarding ethical approval, conflicts of interest, or data availability, as required by the journal.

By meticulously preparing your manuscript and adhering to the journal’s guidelines, you increase the likelihood of a successful submission. A well-structured and polished manuscript enhances the readability and impact of your research, ultimately increasing your chances of acceptance for publication.

The process of conducting a thorough review of your research paper is a critical step in the publication journey. This step ensures that your work is polished, accurate, and ready for submission to a journal. A well-reviewed paper increases the chances of acceptance and demonstrates your commitment to producing high-quality research. Here are the key aspects to consider during the review process:

  • Grammatical Errors and Typos : Start by carefully proofreading your paper for any grammatical errors, typos, or spelling mistakes. Even minor errors can undermine the credibility of your research and distract readers from your main points. Use grammar-checking tools, but also read your paper line by line to catch any issues that zated tools might miss.
  • Consistency and Clarity : Ensure that your writing is consistent throughout the paper. Check that you have used the same terminology, abbreviations, and formatting consistently. Additionally, pay attention to sentence structure and coherence, making sure that each paragraph flows logically into the next.
  • Accuracy of Data, Graphs, and Tables : Review all the data presented in your research, including figures, graphs, and tables. Verify that the data is accurate, correctly labelled, and represented in a clear and understandable manner. Any errors in data representation can lead to misinterpretations and undermine the reliability of your findings.
  • Citation and Referencing : Verify that all the sources you have cited are accurate and properly formatted according to the citation style required by the target journal. Missing or incorrect citations can lead to accusations of plagiarism and harm the integrity of your work.
  • Addressing Feedback : If you have received feedback from colleagues, mentors, or peer reviewers during the pre-submission process, carefully consider their suggestions and address any concerns raised. Engaging with feedback shows your willingness to improve and strengthen your paper.
  • Objective Evaluation : Try to read your paper with a critical eye, as if you were a reviewer assessing its merits. Identify any weaknesses or areas that could be improved, both in terms of content and presentation. Be open to rewriting or restructuring sections that could benefit from further clarity or depth.
  • Seek Feedback : To ensure the highest quality, seek feedback from colleagues or mentors who are knowledgeable in your research field. They can provide valuable insights and offer suggestions for improvement. Peer review can identify blind spots and help you refine your arguments.
  • Formatting and Guidelines : Review the journal’s specific formatting and submission guidelines. Adhering to these requirements demonstrates your attention to detail and increases the likelihood of acceptance.

In conclusion, conducting a thorough review of your research paper is an essential step before submission. It involves checking for grammatical errors, ensuring clarity and consistency, verifying data accuracy, addressing feedback, and seeking external input. A well-reviewed paper enhances its chances of publication and contributes to the overall credibility of your research.

The cover letter is your opportunity to make a strong first impression on the journal’s editor and to persuade them that your research paper is a valuable contribution to their publication. It serves as a bridge between your work and the editor, highlighting the significance and originality of your study and explaining why it is a good fit for the journal. Here are the key elements to include in a compelling cover letter:

  • Introduction : Start the letter with a professional and cordial greeting, addressing the editor by their name if possible. Introduce yourself and provide your affiliation, including your academic title and institution. Mention the title of your research paper and its co-authors, if any.
  • Brief Summary of Research : Provide a concise and compelling summary of your research. Clearly state the research question or problem you addressed, the methodology you employed, and your main findings. Emphasise the significance of your research and its potential impact on the field.
  • Highlight Originality : Explain what sets your study apart from existing research in the field. Highlight the original contributions your paper makes, whether it’s a novel approach, new insights, or addressing a gap in the literature. Demonstrating the novelty of your work will capture the editor’s attention.
  • Fit with the Journal : Explain why your research is a good fit for the target journal. Refer to recent articles published in the journal that are related to your topic and discuss how your research complements or extends those works. Aligning your paper with the journal’s scope and objectives enhances your chances of acceptance.
  • Addressing Specific Points : If the journal’s author guidelines include specific requirements, address them in your cover letter. This shows that you have read and followed their guidelines carefully. For example, if the journal requires you to highlight the practical implications of your research, briefly mention these in your letter.
  • Previous Engagement : If you have presented your research at a conference, workshop, or seminar, or if it has been previously reviewed (e.g., as a preprint), mention it in the cover letter. This indicates that your work has already undergone some scrutiny and may strengthen its appeal to the journal.
  • Declaration of Originality : State that the paper is original, has not been published elsewhere, and is not under simultaneous consideration by any other publication. This declaration reassures the editor that your work meets the journal’s submission policies.
  • Contact Information : Provide your contact details, including email and phone number, and express your willingness to address any queries or provide additional information if needed.
  • Expression of Gratitude : Thank the editor for their time and consideration in reviewing your submission.

In conclusion, a well-crafted cover letter complements your research paper and convinces the journal’s editor of the significance and originality of your work. It should provide a succinct overview of your research, highlight its relevance to the journal’s scope, and address any specific points raised in the author guidelines. A compelling cover letter increases the likelihood of your paper being seriously considered for publication.

The peer review process is a crucial step in scholarly publishing, designed to ensure the quality, accuracy, and validity of research papers before they are accepted for publication. After you submit your manuscript to a journal, it is sent to peer reviewers who are experts in your field. These reviewers carefully assess your work, providing feedback and recommendations to the editor. Navigating the peer review process requires patience, open-mindedness, and a willingness to engage constructively with reviewers. Here’s a detailed explanation of this step:

  • Submission and Assignment : Once you submit your paper, the journal’s editorial team performs an initial screening to check if it aligns with the journal’s scope and guidelines. If it does, the editor assigns peer reviewers who have expertise in the subject matter of your research.
  • Reviewing Process : The peer reviewers evaluate your paper’s methodology, data analysis, conclusions, and overall contribution to the field. They may assess the clarity of your writing, the strength of your arguments, and the relevance of your findings. Reviewers also look for potential flaws or limitations in your study.
  • Reviewer Feedback : After the reviewers have thoroughly examined your paper, they provide feedback to the editor. The feedback usually falls into three categories: acceptance, revision, or rejection. In the case of a revision, reviewers may specify the changes they believe are necessary for the paper to meet the journal’s standards.
  • Editor’s Decision : Based on the reviewers’ feedback, the editor makes a decision about your paper. The decision could be acceptance, conditional acceptance pending minor revisions, major revisions, or rejection. Even if your paper is rejected, remember that the peer review process provides valuable feedback that can help improve your research.
  • Responding to Reviewer Comments : If your paper requires revisions, carefully read the reviewer comments and suggestions. Address each comment in a respectful and diligent manner, providing clear responses and incorporating the necessary changes into your manuscript.
  • Revised Manuscript Submission : Submit the revised version of your paper along with a detailed response to the reviewers’ comments. Explain the changes you made and how you addressed their concerns. This demonstrates your commitment to enhancing the quality of your research.
  • Reiteration of the Review Process : Depending on the revisions, the editor may send your paper back to the same reviewers or to new reviewers for a second round of evaluation. This process continues until the paper is either accepted for publication or deemed unsuitable for the journal.
  • Acceptance and Publication : If your paper successfully navigates the peer review process and meets the journal’s standards, it will be accepted for publication. Congratulations on reaching this milestone!

In conclusion, the peer review process is an essential part of academic publishing. It involves expert evaluation of your research by peers in the field, who provide valuable feedback to improve the quality and rigour of your paper. Embrace the feedback with an open mind, respond diligently to reviewer comments, and be patient during the review process. Navigating peer review is a collaborative effort to ensure that only high-quality and significant research contributes to the scholarly community.

Receiving a rejection of your research paper can be disheartening, but it is a common and normal part of the publication process. It’s important to remember that rejection does not necessarily reflect the quality of your work; many groundbreaking studies have faced rejection before finding the right publication platform. Handling rejections requires resilience, a growth mindset, and the willingness to learn from the feedback. Here’s a comprehensive explanation of this step:

  • Understanding the Decision : When you receive a rejection, take the time to carefully read the editor’s decision letter and the feedback provided by the peer reviewers. Understand the reasons for the rejection and the specific concerns raised about your paper.
  • Embrace Constructive Feedback : Peer reviewer comments can provide valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your research. Embrace the feedback constructively, recognising that it presents an opportunity to improve your work.
  • Assessing Revisions : If the decision letter includes suggestions for revisions, carefully consider whether you agree with them. Evaluate if implementing these revisions aligns with your research goals and the core message of your paper.
  • Revising the Manuscript : If you decide to make revisions based on the feedback, thoroughly address the reviewer’s comments and consider making any necessary improvements to your research. Pay close attention to the areas identified by the reviewers as needing improvement.
  • Resubmission or Alternative Journals : After revising your manuscript, you have the option to either resubmit it to the same journal (if allowed) or consider submitting it to a different journal. If you choose the latter, ensure that the new journal aligns with your research topic and scope.
  • Tailoring the Submission : When submitting to a different journal, tailor your manuscript and cover letter to fit the specific requirements and preferences of that journal. Highlight the relevance of your research to the journal’s readership and address any unique guidelines they have.
  • Don’t Lose Hope : Rejections are a natural part of the publication process, and many researchers face them at some point in their careers. It is essential not to lose hope and to remain persistent in pursuing publication opportunities.
  • Learn and Improve : Use the feedback from the rejection as a learning experience. Identify areas for improvement in your research, writing, and presentation. This will help you grow as a researcher and improve your chances of acceptance in the future.
  • Seek Support and Guidance : If you are struggling to navigate the publication process or interpret reviewer comments, seek support from colleagues, mentors, or academic advisors. Their insights can provide valuable guidance and encouragement.

In conclusion, handling rejections is a normal part of the publication journey. Approach rejection with a growth mindset, embracing the feedback provided by reviewers as an opportunity to improve your research. Revise your manuscript diligently, and consider submitting it to other journals that align with your research. Remember that persistence, learning from feedback, and seeking support are key to achieving success in the scholarly publishing process.

After successfully navigating the peer review process and receiving acceptance for your research paper, you are one step closer to seeing your work published in a reputable journal. However, before your paper can be published, you need to prepare it for production according to the journal’s specific requirements. This step is essential to ensuring that your paper meets the journal’s formatting and style guidelines and is ready for dissemination to the academic community. Here’s a comprehensive explanation of this step:

  • Reviewing the Acceptance Letter : Start by carefully reviewing the acceptance letter from the journal’s editor. This letter will outline any final comments or suggestions from the reviewers that need to be addressed before publication.
  • Addressing Reviewer Comments : If there are any outstanding revisions or clarifications requested by the reviewers, address them promptly and thoroughly. Reviewer feedback plays a crucial role in enhancing the quality and clarity of your paper, so it’s essential to give each comment due attention.
  • Adhering to Journal Guidelines : Familiarise yourself with the journal’s production requirements and guidelines for formatting, referencing, and figure preparation. Ensure that your paper adheres to these guidelines to avoid delays in the publication process.
  • Finalising the Manuscript : Once all revisions have been made and the paper aligns with the journal’s requirements, finalise your manuscript. Carefully proofread the entire paper to catch any remaining grammatical errors or typos.
  • Handling Permissions and Copyright : If your paper includes copyrighted material (e.g., figures, tables, or excerpts from other publications), obtain permission from the original copyright holders to reproduce that content in your paper. This is crucial to avoid potential copyright infringement issues.
  • Completing Authorship and Affiliation Details : Verify that all authors’ names, affiliations, and contact information are accurate and consistent. Ensure that the corresponding author is clearly identified for communication with the journal during the publication process.
  • Submitting the Final Manuscript : Follow the journal’s instructions to submit the final version of your manuscript along with any required supplementary materials. This may include high-resolution figures, data sets, or additional supporting information.
  • Waiting for Publication : After submitting the final version, the journal’s production team will work on typesetting, formatting, and preparing your paper for publication. This process may take some time, depending on the journal’s workflow and schedule.
  • Proofing and Corrections : Once the typeset proof is ready, carefully review it for any formatting errors or typographical mistakes. Respond to the journal promptly with any necessary corrections or clarifications.
  • Copyright Transfer : If required by the journal, complete the copyright transfer agreement, granting the publisher the right to publish and distribute your work.
  • Publication Date and DOI : Your paper will be assigned a publication date and a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), a unique alphanumeric string that provides a permanent link to your paper, making it easily accessible and citable.

In conclusion, preparing your research paper for publication involves carefully addressing reviewer comments, adhering to journal guidelines, handling permissions and copyright issues, and submitting the final version for production. Thoroughly reviewing and finalising your paper will ensure its readiness for dissemination to the academic community.

Congratulations on successfully publishing your research paper! Now, it’s time to promote your work to reach a broader audience and increase its visibility within the academic and research communities. Effective promotion can lead to more citations, recognition, and potential collaborations. Here’s a comprehensive explanation of this step:

  • Share on Social Media : Utilise social media platforms to announce the publication of your paper. Share the title, abstract, and a link to the paper on your professional profiles, such as  LinkedIn ,  Twitter , or  ResearchGate . Engage with your followers to generate interest and discussion.
  • Collaborate with Colleagues : Collaborate with your co-authors and colleagues to promote the paper collectively. Encourage them to share the publication on their social media and academic networks. A collaborative effort can increase the paper’s visibility and reach.
  • Academic Networks and Research Platforms : Upload your paper to academic networks and research platforms like Academia.edu, Mendeley, or Google Scholar. This allows other researchers to discover and cite your work more easily.
  • Email and Newsletters : Inform your professional contacts and research network about the publication through email announcements or newsletters. Consider writing a brief summary of your paper’s key findings and significance to entice readers to access the full paper.
  • Research Blog or Website : If you have a personal research blog or website, create a dedicated post announcing the publication. Provide a summary of your research and its implications in a reader-friendly format.
  • Engage with the Academic Community : Participate in academic conferences, workshops, and seminars to present your research. Networking with other researchers and sharing your findings in person can create buzz around your paper.
  • Press Releases : If your research has practical implications or societal relevance, consider working with your institution’s press office to issue a press release about your paper. This can attract media attention and increase public awareness.
  • Academic and Research Forums : Engage in online academic and research forums to discuss your findings and share insights. Be active in relevant discussions to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
  • Researcher Profiles : Keep your researcher profiles, such as those on Google Scholar, ORCID, and Scopus, updated with your latest publications. This ensures that your paper is indexed and visible to other researchers searching for related work.
  • Altmetrics : Monitor the altmetrics of your paper to track its online attention, including mentions, downloads, and social media shares. Altmetrics provide additional metrics beyond traditional citations, giving you insights into your paper’s broader impact.
  • Engage with Feedback : Respond to comments and questions from readers who engage with your paper. Engaging in scholarly discussions can further promote your work and demonstrate your expertise in the field.

In conclusion, promoting your published paper is an essential step to increasing its visibility, impact, and potential for further collaboration. Utilise social media, academic networks, collaborations with colleagues, and engagement with the academic community to create interest in your work. Effective promotion can lead to more citations and recognition, enhancing the overall impact of your research.

Read: Here’s a list of 10 best short story books to read in 2023 that you can’t miss.

Publishing a research paper is a rewarding experience that requires dedication, perseverance, and attention to detail. By following this essential guide, you can navigate the publication process successfully and contribute valuable knowledge to your field of study. 

Remember, each publication is a stepping stone in your academic journey, and even rejections provide opportunities for growth. Embrace the process, continue refining your research, and celebrate your contributions to advancing scientific knowledge. Good luck on your journey to academic success!

Publish your book  with  BlueRoseONE  and become a  bestselling author . Don’t let your dream of becoming an author fade away, grab the opportunity now and publish your book – be it fiction, non fiction, poetry or more.

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Faculty Research Guide

Where do i publish my research.

  • About this Guide
  • Grant Writing resources
  • Data Management Plans
  • Get your research noticed!
  • Predatory Publishers
  • Journal acceptance rates
  • Institutional Respositories
  • Citation Management Tools
  • Previous workshops
  • Discipline-Specific Guides for Faculty
  • Office of Research Administration (ORA)

Where can I publish my book

Book publishing , finding the right book publisher can be challenging  here are a few suggested tools :.

  • Directory of Open Access Books  - "indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users to find trusted open access book publishers. All DOAB services are free of charge and all data is freely available" (website March 2021).
  • OAPEN OA Books Toolkit - "This toolkit aims to help book authors better understand open access publishing and increase trust in open access books" (website, March 2021).
  • AskUP  - Commons site on university-press related topics.
  • Understanding and Negotiating Book Publishing Contracts  by The Authors Alliance.   Detailed guide on book negotiation and understanding book contracts.

Questions to ask before submitting your work

  • Is the publisher well known?  What are the experiences of peers with this publisher?
  • Can the intended readership be reached with this publisher? Does the topic of your book fit into the publisher's profile?
  • Does the publisher clearly specify how the quality control of your manuscript would be managed (e.g. peer review, editorial support)?
  • Review the instructions for prospective authors
  • What are the distribution channels?  Are there promotional or marketing plans?
  • How many copies will be printed initially?  Will there be hardback, paperback, e-book versions?
  • What is the copyright situation for the author?
  • Can you easily contact the publisher (e.g. e-mail, website, phone, mail)?
  • Did the publisher contact you?  Quality publishers are unlikely to approach you, so beware of broadcast emails that offer publishing opportunities

(Thanks to   Scholarly Communications: Book Publishing Researcher Guide  and Publishing Academic Research) 

Where do I publish?

Locating a journal to publish your research can be a challenge.  One source is  Article Publishing Discount for Michigan authors.  This provides links to several publishers with discount information for UM affiliates.   

NOTE:  always check with your college or department in case there are specific journals you are required to submit your research.

Find a Journal for your research

Find a Journal in your research area

Is the journal indexed in a reputable subject database?  Examples:

  • ABI/Inform (check the Publications link  for a list of titles)
  • Sociological Abstracts (check the Publications link for a list of titles)
  • MLA International Bibliography (check the Browse Periodicals link)
  • ERIC (click on the View Titles link)
  • APA PsycINFO (check the Browse Periodicals link)
  • ScienceDirect (click on the Journals & Books link for a list of titles. Also, a beta test of Browse Call for Papers)

Search  Find Database by Subject  section on the library's web page.  Start with the Recommended Database  featured in each category.  Most databases have a section with their journal titles and other sources that are indexed or published in the database.   

If you have the name of a journal, try the publisher's website.

Contact your subject librarian for questions about how to locate information on a journal.

Directories 

where to publish your research paper

Elsevier Journal Finder  - Type in the title of your paper, parts of  the abstract, choose a subject area.  Journal title suggestions will appear if your information matches.

Directory of  Open Access Publishers  - Free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. More than 6,250 journals are included in the directory with nearly 3,000 journals searchable at article level. DOAJ aims to cover all subjects and languages.

Manuscript Matcher Database 

Find journals relevant to your research using Manuscript Matcher.  Does the title of your work have at least 10 words, and your abstract has at least 100?  Manuscript Matcher helps you find the most related journals for your manuscript.  Using this information, it will pull the most relevant keywords for matching (from WOS website).

Found your journal?   

Check the "Aims & Scope" and "Editorial Board" sections of the journal.  This can help you determine if your research matches the scope of the journal.

What are Open Access journals?

The key difference between the traditional publishing model and and the open access (OA) publishing model is that the traditional model requires an institutional or personal subscription to access the research, whereas open access research can be accessed without subscription or fee. Instead, many open access publishers charge a publishing fee called an article processing fee (APC)  for each article published. Some journals are completely OA, while others use a hybrid model that includes both APCs and a subscription to access content. 

If you received funding to support your research, it is very likely you will be subject to an open access or public access requirement. Many funding agencies have policies that require recipients publicly share the results of their research (the resulting publications and/or the underlying data).

Unsure if you’re required to share your publications?

  • Data.gov - This is a list of open data available through state, city or county. Locate both non-federal and federal agencies in the spreadsheet links on the site.    
  • SPARC - Browse this  list of data sharing requirements by federal agency .
  • In addition to government agencies, many private funders also have open access or public access policies, including the  Gates Foundation  and  the  Ford Foundation .

(link is external)

Reputable scholarly OA journals can be found in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) , and many of their publishers are also members of COPE  (Committee on Publication Ethics). 

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Deciding which journal to submit your manuscript to for publication is multifaceted. 

Included in this section are links to resources that will help you with your decision, but don't be afraid to ask for advice! Talk to your colleagues, advisors/mentors, librarian , etc.

Who do you want to reach?

Where you publish will affect who can read your work.

Clinicians or Faculty

Typically get access to journals via the institutions with which they work or with which they are members.

Check Ulrichsweb to see whether the most-used databases (like CINAHL, PubMed, or other EBSCO databases) host the journal you are considering submitting to.

You can also use the   Journals in NCBI Databases  site when choosing a journal based on whether its searchable in databases.

However, n ot all clinicians work at institutions that pay for journal subscriptions. If you publish in a journal that places their articles behind a paywall, you may not be able to reach absolutely all professionals.

Look into open access journals in your field on the Directory of Open Access Journals' website if access may be an issue for you audience.

Practitioners at non-profits or non-governmental organizations

Very few practitioners employed for smaller organizations will have access to institutional or personal journal subscriptions, and journal paywalls will be a real barrier keeping them from accessing your work.

Again, look into open access journals in your field on the Directory of Open Access Journals' website .

What if you don't know who your audience is?

Think about:

Who is writing the papers you are citing in your own work, and where are they published?

Who will benefit the most from your work?

For example: Are you actually trying to reach parents of elementary-aged kids? Then try contacting school boards, or publish in their newsletter, rather than an academic journal.

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ISSN (Online): 2582-7898 Impact Factor = 5.59 Cite Factor: 0.81

How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Publish a Research Paper

Publishing a research paper or getting it published in an academic journal can be one of the most fulfilling accomplishments in your academic career. You’ve spent countless hours learning, researching, thinking and writing, and now you get to share your knowledge with others who share your interests and passion for research. This guide on how to publish a research paper will help you choose the best journal for publishing your work, what information to include in your manuscript and how to format it correctly and more!

Publish Paper with IJPRSE

Choose your topic

For many scientists, the goal of their research is publication. Every published paper not only contributes to the body of knowledge in a particular field, but also gives credit and recognition for individual accomplishment. Publishing can be an arduous process, however; take this step-by-step guide to help you get started.

Conduct your Literature Review

Find articles from reputable journals and use them to conduct your literature review. To start, you can conduct an academic search in Google Scholar , read the abstracts, and include these articles in your list of sources. Make sure that all the papers are on an appropriate scholarly level (peer reviewed, etc.) and published within 5 years of when you write your paper. Once you have compiled this list of academic sources, it is time to move on the steps.

Write your Introduction

In the introduction, you’ll summarize the paper’s content and specify its goals. After, you’ll establish a clear research question or problem that your research will try to answer. With this all done, you’ll introduce who your target audience is and outline how your findings will affect them. In short, the introduction must tell people what they’re getting themselves into.

Write your Methodology section

I will use the grading scale as an example of how to write a formal methodology section. I have been using this system in all my research writing classes, and it has been accepted by both instructors and readers. As such, I feel confident in saying that it is both efficient and effective. The steps are as follows: To begin, place the question or problem statement in brackets at the top of the page. For instance:

Write your Results section

1.Sit down and think about your research project from beginning to end; ask yourself, What are the major findings? What are my key messages? Once you have answered these questions, it is important to think about how the audience of your paper will react. Will they understand what you’re trying to say or explain? If not, can you simplify it?

2. It is a good idea to start by outlining your ideas in points and then reordering them into an outline that flows in sequential order.

3. This next step is one of the most crucial: having someone who understands English grammar and has excellent writing skills read over your paper for errors before submitting it for publishing.

Write your Discussion section

After thinking about the purpose of your research and reading related papers, formulate an original research question. Make sure your question is clear and has a single answer with some way to measure it, otherwise your results will be ambiguous. Once you have developed the best research question, start writing out how you are going to answer it by outlining what you need. Next, follow these steps when starting on your experimental procedures:

1. set up necessary materials and equipment;

2. construct study setup;

3. collect data; and finally

4. analyze data.

Be sure not to rush this process because you want everything in place before getting into the analysis step so that you can quickly find any errors or mistakes if they exist.

Write your Conclusion and Recommendations

In conclusion, I recommend that you write your introduction at the end of the paper. Then, work on the methods and results sections and finally the discussion section. Once you finish with those three sections, then write your introduction. I also recommend using reference materials like an index card and your computer during the process of writing. Remember that publishing a research paper can be fun and rewarding!

Get References from Sources

A lot of people ask me how to publish a research paper. Fortunately, this is pretty easy these days if you know where to start. Here’s how it works. You need your references from sources, of course. These should be from respected and reliable sources (e.g., journals with peer review) that are relevant for your topic area. Your reviewers may require them for approval purposes and/or help evaluating the quality of your research. You’ll want at least five good references – more is better, but not all papers need more than five good references, especially those on popular topics in academic circles or within a specific discipline.

Start Writing

The first step is coming up with a research question.

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  • 14 February 2024

Calling all engineers: Nature wants to publish your research

You have full access to this article via your institution.

Wind power turbines under Velebit mountain view, Alkaline pool from abandoned factory, Dalmatia region of Croatia.

This year’s Queen Elizabeth Prize recognized a 40-year partnership between two researchers that has led to an increase in the size of modern wind turbines and the scale of their use. Credit: Alamy

Last month, materials scientist Matic Jovičević-Klug and his colleagues reported how ‘red mud’, an iron oxide waste product generated during aluminium manufacturing, can be repurposed for ‘green’ steelmaking . Their findings 1 have the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from steelmaking by using a circular-economy approach.

Had an article reported the implementation of this same process on a larger, even industrial scale, many readers might have been surprised to see it in Nature .

Well, we want to change this perception.

where to publish your research paper

Iron extracted from hazardous waste of aluminium production

We want the world of engineering to know that its research, whether as a proof of concept or at the implementation stage, will be considered by Nature ’s editors and reviewers, as it is already by colleagues at other Nature Portfolio journals. The most recent of these, Nature Chemical Engineering and Nature Reviews Electrical Engineering , were launched in January.

We are proud to have already included some notable examples in Nature ’s pages. On 31 January, for example, Zhixun Wang at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and his colleagues described a method to produce flexible semiconductor fibres without defects or cracks that could be used in wearable devices 2 . One advantage of this technology, write Xiaoting Jia and Alex Parrott in an accompanying News and Views article 3 , is its industrial readiness, because the semiconductor fibres can be woven into fabrics using existing methods.

So why emphasize our willingness to consider more such studies now? Last summer, Nature published a series of editorials on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world’s plan to end poverty and achieve environmental sustainability. The plan isn’t going well — most of the goals and associated targets will not be met by the United Nations’ self-imposed 2030 deadline.

Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals

The series brought home the realization that SDG-related research is not yet a priority for many researchers , especially for those in high-income countries, compared with their colleagues in low- and middle-income countries. Partly in response, more than 40 Nature Portfolio journals put out a collective call for papers on topics relevant to the SDGs as part of a drive to get researchers thinking about how their work might move the world closer to meeting the goals.

In this context, studies that show how discoveries and inventions can be applied in real-world settings, including by testing and evaluating products and processes on large scales, are often highly relevant to the Nature Portfolio journals. Nature ’s publishing criteria require that papers report original research that is of outstanding scientific importance. The journal also expects that a study reaches “a conclusion of interest to an interdisciplinary readership”. Our message is loud and clear — that readership includes engineers, as well as scientists from all disciplines.

Back to the future

By putting out this call for more engineering research, we are restoring a connection with engineers and the field of engineering that is rooted deep in Nature ’s history. In Nature ’s first issue, published on 4 November 1869, readers will find a discussion on the likelihood of silting in the Suez Canal 4 , one of the largest engineering projects of the nineteenth century. The canal was a hot news topic, because it was due to open two weeks later, on 17 November. There was much public debate, and a degree of anxiety about such geoengineering feats. A correspondent to Nature , Thomas Login, had worked on the 437-kilometre Ganges Canal, which had opened 15 years earlier to connect the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India. The Ganges Canal’s waterways were intended to irrigate massive stretches of farmland, thereby reducing the risk of famine in a region where people had previously experienced hunger when the rains failed. I have no doubt there are many who will say the Suez Canal “is a total failure”, Login wrote. He was confident that the canal would succeed.

This is not an isolated or rare example. Subsequent editions of Nature include engineering conversations and critiques. The journal also published regular reports of meetings of professional engineering societies — just as those of other scientific societies were discussed.

The late nineteenth century was an age of ambitious, and controversial, imperial-era projects. It was also a time when scientists and engineers wanted to read about each other’s work in the same journal. As editors and publishers, we accept our share of responsibility for how things have turned out. Our responsibility now is to renew this connection.

Creating by collaborating

We want to recognize engineering in other ways, too. By highlighting the profession’s approach to collaboration, for example. Last week, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, equivalent in recognition to the Nobel prizes, was awarded to two engineering researchers for their contributions to the field of modern wind-turbine technology. Unlike recipients of some of the more well-known science prizes, Andrew Garrad and Henrik Stiesdal were not rewarded for a single landmark achievement, but for their 40-year partnership in designing, testing and improving wind turbines that are now built on an industrial scale around the world. The prize recognizes decades of painstaking, sometimes incremental, and, yes, collaborative achievements.

Their work also brought together researchers from other fields, such as mathematics, fluid physics, electronics and materials science. Such an approach to problem-solving needs to become the norm if the world is to succeed in addressing global challenges, Stiesdal, a former chief technology officer at Siemens Wind Power, told Nature . We wholeheartedly agree.

Engineering and science are like two ships that have set sail close together, but in many ways have gradually drifted apart. We can’t let that continue. Having engineers back in Nature ’s pages is long overdue, not least for the health of our planet and the well-being of all people.

Nature 626 , 455-456 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00390-4

Jovičević-Klug, M., Souza Filho, I. R., Springer, H., Adam, C. & Raabe, D. Nature 625 , 703–709 (2024).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Wang, Z. et al. Nature 626 , 72–78 (2024).

Jia, X. & Parrott, A. Nature 626 , 38–39 (2024).

Login, T. Nature 1 , 24 (1869).

Article   Google Scholar  

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Two Factors that Determine When ESG Creates Shareholder Value

where to publish your research paper

New research suggests that high-ability managers and applying ESG practices to supply chains set successful initiatives apart.

The paper “Corporate Sustainability: First Evidence on Materiality,” published in 2016, marked a significant shift in perceptions of corporate sustainability. It demonstrated that focusing on financially material ESG (environmental, social, and governance) factors positively impacts portfolio returns and shareholder value. Despite its influence in popularizing ESG investing, the topic remains controversial with mixed academic consensus and political debate in the U.S. Recent research by the author has further explored this field, highlighting two critical aspects: the role of high-ability managers in selecting profitable ESG projects and the long-term value of ESG practices in supply chains. The study found that companies with high-ability CEOs and strong ESG investments outperform others, and firms with fewer supplier ESG incidents yield higher returns. These findings underscore the importance of ESG efforts in resource allocation and their potential to attract investment by demonstrating a tangible impact on shareholder value. The ongoing challenge lies in enhancing disclosure, transparency, and effective use of ESG information by investors and regulators.

A main criticism of corporate sustainability has long been that it results in firms not putting shareholders first, thus contradicting managers’ fiduciary duty. In 2016, however, I published a paper, “ Corporate Sustainability: First Evidence on Materiality ,” with George Serafeim and Mo Khan, that began to overturn that narrative. We documented that considering financially material ESG factors (i.e., those sustainability activities that are related to the core sector practices of the firm) improve portfolio returns, which is consistent with financially material sustainability activities creating shareholder value.

  • AY Aaron Yoon is an assistant professor of Accounting & Information Management at Northwestern Kellogg.

Partner Center

Our next-generation model: Gemini 1.5

Feb 15, 2024

The model delivers dramatically enhanced performance, with a breakthrough in long-context understanding across modalities.

SundarPichai_2x.jpg

A note from Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai:

Last week, we rolled out our most capable model, Gemini 1.0 Ultra, and took a significant step forward in making Google products more helpful, starting with Gemini Advanced . Today, developers and Cloud customers can begin building with 1.0 Ultra too — with our Gemini API in AI Studio and in Vertex AI .

Our teams continue pushing the frontiers of our latest models with safety at the core. They are making rapid progress. In fact, we’re ready to introduce the next generation: Gemini 1.5. It shows dramatic improvements across a number of dimensions and 1.5 Pro achieves comparable quality to 1.0 Ultra, while using less compute.

This new generation also delivers a breakthrough in long-context understanding. We’ve been able to significantly increase the amount of information our models can process — running up to 1 million tokens consistently, achieving the longest context window of any large-scale foundation model yet.

Longer context windows show us the promise of what is possible. They will enable entirely new capabilities and help developers build much more useful models and applications. We’re excited to offer a limited preview of this experimental feature to developers and enterprise customers. Demis shares more on capabilities, safety and availability below.

Introducing Gemini 1.5

By Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, on behalf of the Gemini team

This is an exciting time for AI. New advances in the field have the potential to make AI more helpful for billions of people over the coming years. Since introducing Gemini 1.0 , we’ve been testing, refining and enhancing its capabilities.

Today, we’re announcing our next-generation model: Gemini 1.5.

Gemini 1.5 delivers dramatically enhanced performance. It represents a step change in our approach, building upon research and engineering innovations across nearly every part of our foundation model development and infrastructure. This includes making Gemini 1.5 more efficient to train and serve, with a new Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture.

The first Gemini 1.5 model we’re releasing for early testing is Gemini 1.5 Pro. It’s a mid-size multimodal model, optimized for scaling across a wide-range of tasks, and performs at a similar level to 1.0 Ultra , our largest model to date. It also introduces a breakthrough experimental feature in long-context understanding.

Gemini 1.5 Pro comes with a standard 128,000 token context window. But starting today, a limited group of developers and enterprise customers can try it with a context window of up to 1 million tokens via AI Studio and Vertex AI in private preview.

As we roll out the full 1 million token context window, we’re actively working on optimizations to improve latency, reduce computational requirements and enhance the user experience. We’re excited for people to try this breakthrough capability, and we share more details on future availability below.

These continued advances in our next-generation models will open up new possibilities for people, developers and enterprises to create, discover and build using AI.

Context lengths of leading foundation models

Highly efficient architecture

Gemini 1.5 is built upon our leading research on Transformer and MoE architecture. While a traditional Transformer functions as one large neural network, MoE models are divided into smaller "expert” neural networks.

Depending on the type of input given, MoE models learn to selectively activate only the most relevant expert pathways in its neural network. This specialization massively enhances the model’s efficiency. Google has been an early adopter and pioneer of the MoE technique for deep learning through research such as Sparsely-Gated MoE , GShard-Transformer , Switch-Transformer, M4 and more.

Our latest innovations in model architecture allow Gemini 1.5 to learn complex tasks more quickly and maintain quality, while being more efficient to train and serve. These efficiencies are helping our teams iterate, train and deliver more advanced versions of Gemini faster than ever before, and we’re working on further optimizations.

Greater context, more helpful capabilities

An AI model’s “context window” is made up of tokens, which are the building blocks used for processing information. Tokens can be entire parts or subsections of words, images, videos, audio or code. The bigger a model’s context window, the more information it can take in and process in a given prompt — making its output more consistent, relevant and useful.

Through a series of machine learning innovations, we’ve increased 1.5 Pro’s context window capacity far beyond the original 32,000 tokens for Gemini 1.0. We can now run up to 1 million tokens in production.

This means 1.5 Pro can process vast amounts of information in one go — including 1 hour of video, 11 hours of audio, codebases with over 30,000 lines of code or over 700,000 words. In our research, we’ve also successfully tested up to 10 million tokens.

Complex reasoning about vast amounts of information

1.5 Pro can seamlessly analyze, classify and summarize large amounts of content within a given prompt. For example, when given the 402-page transcripts from Apollo 11’s mission to the moon, it can reason about conversations, events and details found across the document.

Reasoning across a 402-page transcript: Gemini 1.5 Pro Demo

Gemini 1.5 Pro can understand, reason about and identify curious details in the 402-page transcripts from Apollo 11’s mission to the moon.

Better understanding and reasoning across modalities

1.5 Pro can perform highly-sophisticated understanding and reasoning tasks for different modalities, including video. For instance, when given a 44-minute silent Buster Keaton movie , the model can accurately analyze various plot points and events, and even reason about small details in the movie that could easily be missed.

Multimodal prompting with a 44-minute movie: Gemini 1.5 Pro Demo

Gemini 1.5 Pro can identify a scene in a 44-minute silent Buster Keaton movie when given a simple line drawing as reference material for a real-life object.

Relevant problem-solving with longer blocks of code

1.5 Pro can perform more relevant problem-solving tasks across longer blocks of code. When given a prompt with more than 100,000 lines of code, it can better reason across examples, suggest helpful modifications and give explanations about how different parts of the code works.

Problem solving across 100,633 lines of code | Gemini 1.5 Pro Demo

Gemini 1.5 Pro can reason across 100,000 lines of code giving helpful solutions, modifications and explanations.

Enhanced performance

When tested on a comprehensive panel of text, code, image, audio and video evaluations, 1.5 Pro outperforms 1.0 Pro on 87% of the benchmarks used for developing our large language models (LLMs). And when compared to 1.0 Ultra on the same benchmarks, it performs at a broadly similar level.

Gemini 1.5 Pro maintains high levels of performance even as its context window increases. In the Needle In A Haystack (NIAH) evaluation, where a small piece of text containing a particular fact or statement is purposely placed within a long block of text, 1.5 Pro found the embedded text 99% of the time, in blocks of data as long as 1 million tokens.

Gemini 1.5 Pro also shows impressive “in-context learning” skills, meaning that it can learn a new skill from information given in a long prompt, without needing additional fine-tuning. We tested this skill on the Machine Translation from One Book (MTOB) benchmark, which shows how well the model learns from information it’s never seen before. When given a grammar manual for Kalamang , a language with fewer than 200 speakers worldwide, the model learns to translate English to Kalamang at a similar level to a person learning from the same content.

As 1.5 Pro’s long context window is the first of its kind among large-scale models, we’re continuously developing new evaluations and benchmarks for testing its novel capabilities.

For more details, see our Gemini 1.5 Pro technical report .

Extensive ethics and safety testing

In line with our AI Principles and robust safety policies, we’re ensuring our models undergo extensive ethics and safety tests. We then integrate these research learnings into our governance processes and model development and evaluations to continuously improve our AI systems.

Since introducing 1.0 Ultra in December, our teams have continued refining the model, making it safer for a wider release. We’ve also conducted novel research on safety risks and developed red-teaming techniques to test for a range of potential harms.

In advance of releasing 1.5 Pro, we've taken the same approach to responsible deployment as we did for our Gemini 1.0 models, conducting extensive evaluations across areas including content safety and representational harms, and will continue to expand this testing. Beyond this, we’re developing further tests that account for the novel long-context capabilities of 1.5 Pro.

Build and experiment with Gemini models

We’re committed to bringing each new generation of Gemini models to billions of people, developers and enterprises around the world responsibly.

Starting today, we’re offering a limited preview of 1.5 Pro to developers and enterprise customers via AI Studio and Vertex AI . Read more about this on our Google for Developers blog and Google Cloud blog .

We’ll introduce 1.5 Pro with a standard 128,000 token context window when the model is ready for a wider release. Coming soon, we plan to introduce pricing tiers that start at the standard 128,000 context window and scale up to 1 million tokens, as we improve the model.

Early testers can try the 1 million token context window at no cost during the testing period, though they should expect longer latency times with this experimental feature. Significant improvements in speed are also on the horizon.

Developers interested in testing 1.5 Pro can sign up now in AI Studio, while enterprise customers can reach out to their Vertex AI account team.

Learn more about Gemini’s capabilities and see how it works .

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COMMENTS

  1. Publish with Elsevier: Step by step

    1. Find a journal Find out the journals that could be best suited for publishing your research. For a comprehensive list of Elsevier journals check our Journal Catalogue. You can also match your manuscript using the JournalFinder tool, then learn more about each journal. JournalFinder

  2. How to publish your research

    Step 1: Choosing a journal Step 2: Writing your paper Step 3: Making your submission Step 4: Navigation the peer review process Step 5: The production process Step 1: Choosing a journal Choosing which journal to publish your research paper in is one of the most significant decisions you have to make as a researcher.

  3. How to Publish a Research Paper: Your Step-by-Step Guide

    Part 1 Choosing a Journal Download Article 1 Create a list of journals you'd like to publish your work in. Ideally, you'll choose your target journal before you start writing so you can tailor your paper to build on work that has already been published in that journal.

  4. The 5 Best Platforms to Publish Your Academic Research

    The 5 Best Platforms to Publish Your Academic Research Publishing • Jun 10, 2022 • Ver este post en Español Academic research is a central component of scientific advancements and breakthrough innovations. However, your research journey is complex and ever-changing.

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    5 min read You're in academia. You're going steady. Your research is going well and you begin to wonder: ' How exactly do I get a research paper published?' If this is the question on your lips, then this step-by-step guide is the one for you. We'll be walking you through the whole process of how to publish a research paper.

  6. 7 steps to publishing in a scientific journal

    7 steps to publishing in a scientific journal Connect 7 steps to publishing in a scientific journal April 5, 2021 | 10 min read By Aijaz Shaikh, PhD Before you hit "submit," here's a checklist (and pitfalls to avoid) As scholars, we strive to do high-quality research that will advance science.

  7. How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer ...

    Introduction Writing a scientific paper is an important component of the research process, yet researchers often receive little formal training in scientific writing. This is especially true in low-resource settings.

  8. How to Get Published

    Explore Sage Campus Choosing the right journal for you Each journal has its own Aims & Scope, so the acceptance of articles is not just about quality, but also about being a good fit. Does your work reflect the scope of the Journal? Is Open Access important to you, and does the Journal have an Open Access model available?

  9. Author Services

    Research your publishing options. Take the time to explore the journals in your field, to choose the best fit for your research. Find a journal that serves the audience you're trying to reach, and whose aims and scope match your approach. You might also have choices to make about different publishing options, including open access.

  10. How to publish your paper

    How to publish your research in a Nature journal; ... Nature journals provide more than 3,000 registered journalists with weekly press releases that mention all research papers to be published ...

  11. Where is the best place to publish my research?

    Identifying the best place to publish research involves consideration of many factors, including: Journal aim and scope. Publication of similar work. Journal rankings and measures of journal impact. Demonstration of good publishing practices. Welch compiled the information below to help guide a researcher through the decision-making process.

  12. How to Publish a Research Paper

    To Publish a Research Paper follow the guide below: Conduct original research: Conduct thorough research on a specific topic or problem. Collect data, analyze it, and draw conclusions based on your findings. Write the paper: Write a detailed paper describing your research.

  13. How to Write and Publish a Research Paper in 7 Steps

    Should you publish your research at all? If your work holds academic value - of course - a well-written scholarly article could open doors to your research community. However, if you are not yet sure, whether your research is ready for publication, here are some key questions to ask yourself depending on your field of expertise:

  14. Writing your paper

    How to publish your research Writing your paper Writing your paper Advice and guidance on preparing and writing an effective research paper Publishing the results of your research is a critical part of your academic career. By following the advice and guidance here, you'll be able to produce a paper that's a great fit for your chosen journal.

  15. Where Should You Publish Your Research?

    Here are the many ways you can publish regularly and make sure you're always being competitive and active. Contents hide. 1 Conferences. 2 Blogs, social platforms, and own websites. 3 Trial registries. 4 Data repositories. 5 Preprints. 6 Open access repositories. 7 Theses and dissertations.

  16. How do I publish my article with Elsevier?

    Select ' Submit your article ' on the homepage of the journal you would like to publish in. This option may not always be available as some journals do not accept submissions. Sign in to Editorial Manager, or register if you are a first-time user. Follow the steps to submit your article. After submitting your article, use the reference number ...

  17. Publish Your Research Articles

    Articles are published rapidly as soon as they are accepted, after passing a series of prepublication checks to assess originality, readability, author eligibility, and compliance with Health Open Research's policies and ethical guidelines. Peer review by invited experts, suggested by the authors, takes place openly after publication.

  18. How to Write and Publish a Research Paper

    Generally, there are two ways of presenting your work: 1- Presenting a poster. 2- Or by giving a talk in front of an audience. In both cases, you will have to prepare an additional material summarizing your work, which could be either a poster or slides, it is the conference committee that makes the decision.

  19. How to find the right journal for your research (using ...

    To find the right journal for your research paper, it's important to consider what you need and want out of the publishing process. The goal for many researchers is to find a prestigious, peer-reviewed journal to publish in. This might be one that can support an application for tenure, promotion or future funding.

  20. How to Publish a Research Paper: A Complete Guide

    Step 1: Identifying the Right Journal The first step in publishing a research paper is crucial, as it sets the foundation for the entire publication process. Identifying the right journal involves carefully selecting a publication platform that aligns with your research topic, audience, and academic goals.

  21. Where do I publish my research?

    Locating a journal to publish your research can be a challenge. One source is Article Publishing Discount for Michigan authors. This provides links to several publishers with discount information for UM affiliates. ... Type in the title of your paper, parts of the abstract, choose a subject area. Journal title suggestions will appear if your ...

  22. Research Guides: Publishing: How to pick a journal

    Who is writing the papers you are citing in your own work, and where are they published? Who will benefit the most from your work? For example: Are you actually trying to reach parents of elementary-aged kids? Then try contacting school boards, or publish in their newsletter, rather than an academic journal.

  23. How to Publish a Research Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

    How to Publish a Research Paper. Publishing a research paper or getting it published in an academic journal can be one of the most fulfilling accomplishments in your academic career. You've spent countless hours learning, researching, thinking and writing, and now you get to share your knowledge with others who share your interests and passion for research.

  24. Find a journal

    Elsevier Journal Finder helps you find journals that could be best suited for publishing your scientific article.

  25. How to publish a research paper?

    Things to be Taken Care of while Publishing Research Paper: Good practice in referencing Self-plagiarism and text recycling How to avoid plagiarism? How to spot predatory journals? What is an...

  26. Calling all engineers: Nature wants to publish your research

    Papers in engineering are under-represented, even neglected, in the journal. We want to change that. ... Calling all engineers: Nature wants to publish your research Download PDF. EDITORIAL; 14 ...

  27. Two Factors that Determine When ESG Creates Shareholder Value

    The paper "Corporate Sustainability: First Evidence on Materiality," published in 2016, marked a significant shift in perceptions of corporate sustainability. It demonstrated that focusing on ...

  28. Introducing Gemini 1.5, Google's next-generation AI model

    Gemini 1.5 delivers dramatically enhanced performance. It represents a step change in our approach, building upon research and engineering innovations across nearly every part of our foundation model development and infrastructure. This includes making Gemini 1.5 more efficient to train and serve, with a new Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture.

  29. Preface to the Chinese translation of the 2nd edition of NIETZSCHE ON

    The Chinese translation will be published by the Shanghai People's Publishing House in 2024. 5 Pages Posted: ... Do you have negative results from your research you'd like to share? Submit Negative Results. Paper statistics. Downloads. 159. ... Research Paper Series; Conference Papers; Partners in Publishing; Jobs & Announcements; Special ...