Module 3: Publishing in the Social Sciences and Humanities
Compiler: Prof Catriona Macleod
You have completed your research, written up your thesis and had it passed, and now you want to proceed to the next step and publish your research. This module is about helping you think through how you might go about this. You will read about some of the forms of publication in the Social Sciences and Humanities, some key points that you should remember in terms of publishing, the components of the various forms of publishing, how you should respond to comments from reviewers, and guidelines around authorship.
Too little of the research conducted by students in South Africa lands up in journals or books, resulting in much useful research not forming part of public knowledge. You are therefore strongly encouraged in your efforts in having your research published.
Before getting started, however, you need to know that publishing is not a quick or easy process. Multiple drafts are required before submission, the review will take some time, and there will almost inevitably be changes that you will have to make on the basis of comments from the reviewers. Months, and even years, can pass before you see your name in print at the top of an article, chapter or book. But, seeing your name there will, in all probability, be one of the most exciting and fulfilling experiences of your life. So while you are in the midst of the long process of getting published, do not be discouraged. Remember that everybody goes through the same process and most of us experience the same “blood, sweat and tears” along the road.
Forms of publishing
There is a range of types of publication within the Social Sciences and Humanities. In Table 1 the usual types of publication are listed together with their main aim and possible publishers.
| Type of publication | Main aim | Publishers |
| Empirical article | Reports on results of original research | Journals relevant to discipline that publish empirical articles (check aims of the journal) |
| Theoretical article | To join the theoretical debate and to extend theoretical thinking in an area | Journal relevant to discipline that publishes theoretical articles (check aims of the journal) |
| Systematic review article | Systematic review of literature on a particular topic with the aim of consolidating and commenting on the status of knowledge in that area | Journal relevant to discipline that publishes reviews |
| Article length book review | Review of a book that does not simply provide an overview and brief comment, but is an in-depth comment and critique that links the author’s argument to debates in the field | Journal relevant to discipline that will consider publishing such an article |
| Conference proceedings | Publication of a peer reviewed full length conference paper along with other papers read at the conference | Conference organisers together with publishers |
| Book chapter | Contribute to a collection of chapters around a specific theme usually defined by the editors | Book publishers |
| Edited collection | Collection of a number of chapters, usually written by different authors, arranged around a particular theme in a discipline | Book publishers |
| Sole authored book | In-depth engagement with an area of | Book publishers |
Table 1: Usual types of publication in Social Sciences and Humanities
Some key points
In the following, some key points in preparing most types of publication are highlighted. These are generic issues that cut across many of the types of publication listed above. Following this, you will find advice on specific types of publishing.
Point 1: Writing for publication is very different from writing a thesis
Students are frequently surprised by the amount of time required to write up their thesis or parts thereof in a form acceptable for publication. Having spent considerable time and energy in conceptualising and conducting their research, and in writing up their thesis, they believe that it should be a simple process of extracting bits of the thesis to send in for consideration for publication. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Writing an argument for the XX number of pages of a thesis (typically anywhere between 150 and 300 pages) is very different to creating an argument for the 20 to 30 pages required for an article, conference proceedings, or chapter. In a thesis you have the luxury of space to explain yourself; in a short article you need to write in a very succinct manner, and you need to develop a tight argument in a short space of time. Even if you decide on a book, writing in the style of a thesis is very different to writing in the style of a book. Prepare yourself for an extensive process of re-writing.
Point 2: Use free writing and multiple drafts, with editing occurring at the end
Some authors find that they prefer to use free writing before starting with the formal phase of writing for an audience. In free writing, you write for yourself. The idea is to generate meaning in an informal manner. You may set yourself a task such as writing for five minutes without stopping about a particular aspect of the research or ideas you intend to include in the manuscript.
Frequently this helps in terms of getting you started and in terms of freeing you up to explore your argument.
When you start your first draft, you are writing for a reader. You need to argue a case that another person will understand. You are, when drafting, entering a conversation with your potential readers. In the drafting stage, do not worry too much about grammar, correct referencing etc. Instead concentrate on flow, coherence and argument.
In the drafting phase of any publication expect to do multiple drafts. It is the very rare scholar who can have a perfect product within the first, second or even third draft. Most published researchers have worked and re-worked their writing several times.
Remember to get some distance from your drafts. Leave them in the drawer for a couple of days; when you return to them, you will find that you are able to read them with fresh eyes and thus become your own critic.
Editing is the final phase. Once you feel that your final draft meets the standards in terms of flow, coherence and the presentation of a sustained argument, you need to attend to such things as spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and layout. This is important. If you are sloppy on this front, this will be taken by the reviewers (rightly or wrongly) as a sign of lack of rigour.
Point 3: Talk to colleagues about the main ideas when at the free writing stage
Bouncing ideas off peers and colleagues about what you are thinking of writing and the main argument that you are thinking of constructing helps to refine your ideas. Often this peer or colleague may ask you a simple question that acts as a catalyst for a key argument to fall into place.
Point 4: Obtain information about the guidelines for the journal, book, or conference proceedings for which you are writing
Before starting the drafting stage of your publication, obtain the particulars of the journal, book (if writing a chapter) or conference proceedings for which you want to write. You need to ensure that what you write fits in with the brief.
Journals will have information on the aims and scope of the journal on their web-sites, as well as guidelines to authors. Study these carefully. It is important to pay special attention to what kind of articles the journal publishes. Compare, for example, descriptions from two journals in Psychology:
Theory & Psychology is a bi-monthly journal devoted to scholarship with a broad meta-theoretical intent. It examines such issues as the conceptual frameworks and foundations of psychology, its historical underpinnings, its relation to other human sciences, its methodological commitments, its ideological assumptions and its political and institutional contexts. It fosters dialogue among psychologists and other social scientists interested in psychological analyses (http://psychology.ucalgary.ca/thpsyc/).
The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis is a psychology journal that publishes research about applications of the experimental analysis of behavior to problems of social importance (http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jaba/).
It is clear that these two journals are inviting very different kinds of submissions. You need to ensure that you have a match between the kinds of articles a journal publishes and what you will be writing. You also need to check on the page or word limits and the referencing style.
There are three additional factors you need to consider in terms of selecting your journal. These are: (1) locality and readership; (2) impact factor; and (3) accreditation.
In terms of the first of these, you need to know who the main readers of the journal are and where they are located. This will affect how you pitch your article. For example, if your research was conducted in South Africa and you want to publish in a journal based in the United States, you will need to provide more contextual background than if you publish in a South African journal. You will also need to present a case that is of interest beyond the specificity of the South African context. If the journal is read mostly by practitioners, then you will need to speak to issues relevant to this audience.
The impact factor of a journal is a measure that reflects the average number of citations of articles published in the journal. Although there is some argument about the usefulness of this metric in the Social Sciences and Humanities, it is frequently used to indicate the relative standing of a journal in a particular discipline. The impact factor of a journal is published in the Journal Citation Reports. In order for you to access these, your university needs a subscription. Not all universities subscribe because of cost. Often, however, journals will include the impact factor of their journal on their web-site. It is important to consider the impact factor of a journal because those with higher impact factors generally have higher rejection rates. It is probably wise to choose a journal that does not have a high impact factor for your first attempt at publishing. As you become more established, however, you should start to target higher impact factor journals.
Universities in South Africa obtain their government subsidies in a number of ways. One of these is through publications. For each accredited publication, the university receives a certain amount of money (this varies from year to year, but is in the range of R120 000). Accredited journals are those listed on the ISI Web of Science Indices and the Scopus IBSS indices as well as the Approved South African Journals List from the Department of Higher Education and Training. The research office at your university probably has a hyperlink to the lists of accredited journals on their web-site. Most universities put pressure on their staff and students to publish in accredited journals, for obvious reasons. This, however, should not mean that you never publish in a non-accredited journal as there may be very good reasons to publish in such a journal (e.g. reaching a specific audience).
Nevertheless, you should think carefully about this, as accredited journals do have higher standing in general: accreditation is an indication that they have a thorough and rigorous process of review and quality assurance.
If you are asked to write a book or to contribute to conference proceedings, there will often be a concept note, theme or extensive proposal around which the publication will cohere. Pay attention to these in formulating your manuscript.
Point 5: Independent comment prior to submission
Ask a colleague to read the final draft of your manuscript and to comment on it before formal submission to the journal or editors of the book/conference proceedings. This should be somebody who will look at the article with fresh eyes and who will give you constructive and rigorous feedback. You need to ask the person to be honest. Because the review they will give you is not anonymous, they may be tempted to “pull their punches”.
Ensure that the draft that you give to the reviewer is the final draft (although you may not have gone through the process of thorough editing). Do not expect the reviewer to do your work for you by fleshing out your ideas. Their work is to read your work with fresh eyes and to comment on such things as flow, rigour, coherence and gaps. If colleagues are showing you the respect of spending time reading and commenting on your work, you need to show them respect of giving them your best effort. If you do this, the comments provided will add value to what you are doing and stretch you beyond what you have managed to put together on your own.
Remember to acknowledge colleagues who have taken the time to comment on your article. Most publications have an acknowledgement section in which funders, participants and people who have added to the production of the publication through commenting on a draft or through providing research assistance are acknowledged.
Point 6: Have a central argument or statement.
Ensure that your manuscript has an argument. What is the key thrust? How does the article contribute to the academic conversation or debate around your particular topic? It is always useful to state the argument up-front so as to orientate the reader to the major issues.
Point 7: Have a rationale
Ensure that you provide a rationale for your paper. Why is it important? How does it address a gap in the literature? How does it build on the current literature in the field?
Point 8: Provide scaffolding
Ensure that your paper has sufficient scaffolding. Provide the reader, at appropriate times, with a road map of what is to follow.
Point 9: Write with clarity
Students sometimes feel that they need to write in complex ways because they assume that complicated expressions of ideas sound formal and academic. In using complex “academic” language, they may land up not really expressing what they are thinking. In reality, some of the best academic work is done by scholars who are able to explain complex ideas in clear and simple language. Try to “uncomplicate” your language and to ensure that what you are writing clarifies rather than obfuscates the central point you are making.
Empirical article
What follows is an outline of the structure of a generalised form of a research article. This must simply be seen as a guideline, with different kinds of articles taking different forms depending on the journal and the purpose of the article.
Title page
More and more journals are moving to electronic submission systems. In these you will enter your details electronically. If, however, your article is not submitted electronically, you will include a covering page which contains the title of your article and your details, including name, department, university, postal address, email address and telephone number. If there are multiple authors include this information for each of the authors, but indicate which of the authors will be the corresponding author.
Title
The title should be succinct and should provide reference to the main elements of the research. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems and so should be concise and informative so as to ensure maximum retrieval by other scholars at a later date. Avoid phrases such as “an investigation into” as it is taken for granted that all research is some form of investigation. You are permitted to have a main title with a subtitle, separated by a colon. Ensure that the sub-title and the title speak to each other. Some titles include catchy phrases. For example, ‘“Abortion is killing our culture”: discourses of abortion in a rural community’. If you include such a phrase, ensure that it speaks to the main argument of the article.
Abstract
This is the first, and possibly the only, encounter the reader will have with your article as abstracts are sometimes presented separately from the article. It is a summary of your article. It should, therefore, be possible to understand the main thrust of the article by reading it. It needs to: interest the reader in terms providing some background and a rationale for the research; provide an indication of the purpose of the research and the methods used; indicate the setting of the research; summarise the results briefly; and provide a conclusion in which the main argument and significance of the study are discussed. Excessive statistical details should be avoided as well as acronyms unless they are well established (such as HIV). Journals have different requirements in terms of the length of the abstract, but typically an abstract is between 150 and 200 words long. Some journals require that the abstract be presented in subsections (e.g. aims, objectives, methods, results, conclusion), but most simply require a narrative.
Key words
If your article is published, the key words will be entered in the indexing systems of the databases in which the journal is indexed (information about the databases in which the journal is indexed is usually contained on the web-site). It is essential, thus, that your key words are sufficiently descriptive of your research/main ideas so that the potential readers you have in mind are able to access your article easily.
Introduction
The introduction must draw the reader into the article, stimulating their interest in the area, locating the study within an area/domain and context, posing a problem, providing a rationale for the research, and indicating what the aims of the study are. It is often useful at this stage to provide an indication of what is to follow.
Literature
In this section you need to discuss relevant literature that speaks directly to the problematic at hand. Relevance to the research question is central. Thus, for example, if your research question focuses on the adequacy of antenatal care for pregnant teenagers, reviewing literature that speaks to the causes of teenage pregnancy would not be necessary (or at the most should get a passing mention).
The literature review needs to be succinct, but also to cover the major domains within the area. Essentially it is a narrative that builds towards the research question. You are making a series of claims supported by evidence from the literature and as such, the literature review should not be a series of summaries, but rather should build, “brick by brick”, an argument to support the relevance or your research question. Flow and connections between the paragraphs is important.
Theoretical framework
Depending on the nature of the research, it may be necessary to have a separate section on the theoretical framework that guides the research question and/or methodology. The length and depth to which you go in this section depends on the research question and the centrality of theory to the study.
Method
There is a range of formats in which this section is arranged. Areas that need to be covered are: the research questions or aims and objectives; sampling; methods of data collection; methods of analysis; and ethics. Increasingly journals are requiring that authors indicate the ethical standards body that approved the research. You need to provide enough detail so that the reader is convinced by the rigour of your research.
Results and discussion
In quantitative research, you would present your results section separate from the discussion section. Literature that speaks to the results is referred to only in the discussion. However, in qualitative research often (although not always) the results and discussion are integrated, with reference to literature forming part of the analysis of the results.
You may need to present graphs or tables in the results section. These need to be clearly labelled and to be readable. Many journals prefer the table and graphs to appear on separate pages. In this case, you need to present one table or graph per page attached to the end of the paper. This helps them in terms of page layout. You will then indicate in the text the place where you would like the table or graph to appear. You can use the following mechanism:
| Type of publication | Main aim | Publishers |
| Empirical article | Reports on results of original research | Journals relevant to discipline that publish empirical articles (check aims of the journal) |
| Theoretical article | To join the theoretical debate and to extend theoretical thinking in an area | Journal relevant to discipline that publishes theoretical articles (check aims of the journal) |
| Systematic review article | Systematic review of literature on a particular topic with the aim of consolidating and commenting on the status of knowledge in that area | Journal relevant to discipline that publishes reviews |
| Article length book review | Review of a book that does not simply provide an overview and brief comment, but is an in-depth comment and critique that links the author’s argument to debates in the field | Journal relevant to discipline that will consider publishing such an article |
| Conference proceedings | Publication of a peer reviewed full length conference paper along with other papers read at the conference | Conference organisers together with publishers |
| Book chapter | Contribute to a collection of chapters around a specific theme usually defined by the editors | Book publishers |
| Edited collection | Collection of a number of chapters, usually written by different authors, arranged around a particular theme in a discipline | Book publishers |
| Sole authored book | In-depth engagement with an area of | Book publishers |
Conclusion
The conclusion can provide a summary of the main findings. Importantly, however, this should not merely repeat the findings in a summarised form, but should draw out the major argument.
References
Follow the referencing style used by the journal to the last full stop and comma. Ensure that all in-text citations appear in the reference list and vice versa. Be careful of a slippage of this when you are doing multiple versions.
Theoretical article
This type of article is quite difficult to write and requires a high level of engagement in the field. Nevertheless, you should not be perpetually put off because of this. At some stage you may want to write such an article in order to join the conversation around theory in your field. Much of what is written in the section on empirical articles (title page, title, abstract and conclusion) is relevant for such an article. What is different here is that your article is based on a deep reading of theory and presents an argument for a particular approach or new dimension. What is important in such an article is careful structuring of the article to build an argument and to create logical flow. Sign-posting as you go along is useful in terms of providing flow (sign-posting is when you are explicit in terms of explaining the links between what was dealt with before, what you are saying now and what is to come in the next section). At the end you need to bring the various elements of your argument together, with a clear indication of the primary purpose of the discussion in terms of furthering the theoretical debate.
Systematic review
Publishing a systematic review of the literature is often a good way to get your name known within a particular field. A systematic review identifies, appraises and synthesizes high quality research relevant to a particular research question. You will need to do a thorough search for relevant papers. In the methodology section you will need to list all the databases and journals you accessed in your search (this speaks to the rigour of your search). There are a number of texts advising on the approach you should use in a systematic review. Read these and use the methods suggested in your analysis. At the very least, you must identify the key issues or topics within the body of literature and structure your article around these. You need to create logical flow in terms of how these follow one another. Note the different theoretical approaches to the issue and what each brings in terms of understanding the area. Identify: strengths and weaknesses in the literature; lacunae in the literature; issues or areas that need addressing. Importantly, you need to engage critically with the literature and to make a statement regarding the state of current knowledge in area. The pointers made above around title page, title, abstract and conclusion apply here as well.
Article length book review
This is not a usual form of publication. Before you start writing, you should ask the editor of the journal you would target if s/he would consider a full length article about the particular book. Usually the book needs to be a key one in the area. The review needs to be thorough and needs to locate the book within the current debates that are occurring within the area. The review must be much more than a summary of the book; it must be a critical engagement that acknowledges the additions that the book makes in terms of knowledge in the area, but also critiques it in terms of approach, theory, argument or research conducted. Again you will need a title page, title, abstract, and conclusion (see above).
Process in terms of article submission and publication
When you submit your article to a journal, you will need to include a statement in your submission that the article has not been published in another journal and that it is not under consideration elsewhere. It is important to note that you can submit your article to only one journal at a time. Editors take an extremely dim view of manuscripts being submitted simultaneously to a range of journals. It is precisely because they have had difficulties with this that they require authors to make the above-mentioned undertaking up-front.
Some journals have a two-stage review process. In the first stage, the editors consider the manuscript and decide whether to send it out for independent review (second stage). If they think that you have submitted your manuscript to an inappropriate journal or if they think that the quality is not high enough, they will return your manuscript to you without further review.
Once your article is submitted and accepted by the editors, if this process applies, the editors will send your manuscript to reviewers. Editors approach reviewers on the basis of their known expertise in the area in which your research was conducted. Usually there will be three reviewers.
The editors will remove the title page, so that none of your details appear in the manuscript sent to the reviewers. This is so that the review is “blind”. In order for the review to be completely blind, you need to ensure that any reference to any of the authors is removed. Thus, if you have referred to your own work (be it a thesis or previously published work), remove your name and replace it with XXX.
The reviewers are asked to comment on the manuscript and to make a recommendation in terms of publication. These recommendations usually fall into the following categories:
· Accept as is;
· Accept with minor editorial changes;
· Revise and resubmit;
· Revise and resubmit for re-review;
· Reject.
Even established researchers seldom have the luxury of having the first two recommendations for their work. The reviewers usually have some recommendations in terms of changes. In the penultimate section of this module I speak about how to respond to reviewers’ comments.
Once the reviews are complete, the editor will consider the comments from the reviewers together with his/her own reading of the article. The editor will then decide on the status of the manuscript and will advise you accordingly. It is not unknown for reviewers to have differing opinions and it is then the editor’s job to indicate which of the reviewers’ comments s/he considers essential in terms of your revision.
Book chapters
You will usually write a book chapter when the editors approach you to contribute to the edited collection that they are proposing. They may approach you prior to submitting the book proposal to publishers, in which case the summary of your proposed chapter will form part of the proposal. At times, however, you may be approached only after the proposal has been accepted.
Editors approach potential authors on the basis of their known expertise in the particular area. Edited collections will have a framework within which you should work. The guiding theme of the collection should be followed, and you should pay careful attention to the guidelines provided by the editors. Very often edited collections have chapters of varying quality, so it is very important that you keep in contact with the editors regarding how you are structuring and writing the chapter.
Edited collection
Once you have sufficient expertise in a particular area, you may decide that you would like to gather together inputs from a number of scholars in your area to write chapters for an edited collection. Before you approach people to write chapters, develop a concept document in which you outline the rationale for such a collection and various domains that you would like to be covered and how each of these link to the central aim of the edited collection. Send this to the potential authors indicating which chapter you would like them to write and invite them to put together a summary. Alternatively you can invite them to propose a chapter that they think will fit in with the broad theme of the edited collection. Some authors prefer this as it allows them space to develop the concept for the chapter themselves.
Once you have all these abstracts together, approach a publisher with a full concept document (including the rationale, overview and various abstracts – see possible areas to be covered in a proposal in the section on sole authored book). It is possible to approach publishers without a complete set of summaries for each chapter; however, the more complete your proposal looks the more likely it is that the publishers will agree to publish your proposed book. It is also accepted that things will be fluid and that what you propose will not necessarily be exactly what you deliver in terms of final product. Only once you have a contract with the publishers, ask the authors who have sent you the summaries to write the full chapter.
You will need to decide beforehand what review process you are going to go through:
· Are you, as editors, going to review each chapter? This is certainly the quickest and easiest logistically but what will you do with chapters that you think are of questionable quality? If you go this route, you must be prepared to ditch weak chapters and incur the displeasure of the author(s).
· Are you going to have an editorial board who reviews the chapters anonymously? If so, once again, given that an editorial board is still small, how will you handle fall-out between colleagues if a member of your editorial board finds the chapter to be unpublishable?
· Are you going to find independent reviewers? This is a more difficult route, but is the only way in which to ensure quality without the potential personal fall-out that may occur if authors deliver a chapter of poor quality. In addition, book chapters will only attract subsidy from the government if there is independent review.
Often potential contributors will want to know what the review process will be so that they can consider whether they are willing to contribute to the collection.
There are a number of challenges involved in being the editor of an edited collection. These include:
· Authors not meeting the deadlines for submission of their draft chapters, thus putting the entire project behind schedule. This is particularly difficult because all you have is a collegial agreement that the person will produce the chapter, and there really is no fall-back other than applying polite pressure. Academics are inevitably busy people, and often are unable to deliver their chapter by the agreed upon deadline, which does add pressure to you as editor. One way of dealing with this to allow substantial time between the date for submission of chapters and the date for the submission of the full book to the publishers. This allows for the possibility of some lateness of submission of the various chapters, but also for revisions where they are needed.
· The chapters that you receive may be of variable quality. To overcome this you need to be clear at the outset what the parameters of the project are and how you would like the chapters to be structured. Even with this, however, you may still have some difficulties, and you may need to return to some authors asking for extensive revision.
· Dealing with the copy-editing and indexing will be your head-ache rather than the individual authors. The process of getting from a final submission to the editors to actual production may be lengthy.
Sole authored book
At some point in your academic career as a Social Science and Humanities scholar, you should publish a sole authored book. Books are a key manner in which knowledge generated in the Social Sciences and Humanities is reported upon. This is because there is sufficient space in which to explore complex arguments and to build cases. Indeed, in some universities the publication of a sole authored book is a requirement for promotion from Associate Professor to Professor in the Social Sciences and Humanities.
Publishing a sole authored book requires a high level of engagement with a field. Some academics are successful in converting their PhD thesis to a book, while others wait until they are sufficiently steeped in the field to write a new book length document. Be aware that if you want to convert your PhD to a book that this will involve a major re-writing. It will not simply be a case of changing the title page and sending it to a publisher. Publishers would want your book to be attractive to the reader, which means that the more technical details that you would need to have in a PhD will not appear in your book. The strict structure of the PhD is often not what publishers are interested in.
Before embarking on writing a book, you should put together a book proposal that you send to publishers for consideration. Publishers will have different requirements in terms of proposals, and you should look on their web-sites to see what their requirements are. Typically you will be required to provide information about:
· Proposed title of the book;
· Author details;
· Type of book;
· Brief description of the book including information on the significance, uniqueness, scope and synopsis;
· Outline of chapters;
· Potential market/readers;
· Competing titles;
· Estimated length;
· Estimated time of completion;
You usually have to attach your Curriculum Vitae as well as a sample chapter to the book proposal.
As publishing is a commercial venture, publishers are interested in knowing that they will get a return on their investment. It is therefore in your interests to ensure that your proposed book will be of interest to a relatively wide audience and to indicate this in your proposal. This does not mean that you should not propose writing a book on an obscure, but interesting, topic. It does mean, however, that you may have more difficulty in finding a publisher.
Books work differently to journals. The golden rule with respect to journals is submission to only one journal. You may only submit to another if your manuscript is rejected by the first. With book Page proposals, you may submit to a number of publishers simultaneously. HOWEVER, you need to be explicit about the fact that you are doing this in your covering letter.
Publishers will usually send your proposal to reviewers. Based on the comments of the reviewers, they will decide whether to offer you a contract.
Once you have the contract, you should then try to stick to the deadline you set for yourself. When you write the proposal, use “x number of months from date of signing of contract” to indicate time of submission, rather than an actual date. On completion, the publishers will usually send the whole manuscript out for review again. Only with positive responses will they then actually publish the book.
Finally, you will have to work with the publishers around copy-editing and indexing. Publishers may offer you the choice of indexing the book yourself. This is often preferable to paying a consultant, as you are more familiar with the contents than a consultant would be. If you choose to index it yourself, make sure that you understand how to construct an index (the publishers will probably supply you with guidelines).
Responding to comments by reviewers
It is very rare, especially in the Social Sciences and Humanities, for a publication to be accepted without changes being required. Reviewers inevitably have a number of comments to make about your work.
Most of us would like our work to be given an A++. It can be hard to hear that the extraordinary amount of labour you put into a manuscript is insufficient for such appraisal. Our initial reading of reviewers’ comments often comes from this emotional space and we may misread what is being said (a colleague of mine thought, on first reading, that her manuscript was being rejected when in fact the recommendation was acceptance but with changes – she only realised this when the editors asked her some time later when they could expect her revised manuscript!).
My advice to students and colleagues is to read the reviews and then to put them aside for a few days. When you come back to the reviews after this ‘time-out’ period, you will discover that there is much value in the comments and that your work will be strengthened by taking these comments into consideration.
When you do the revisions, you must pay careful attention to the comments made by reviewers. When you re-submit the manuscript, you will need to provide a covering letter in which you outline how you have attended to the comments. In this, you need to demonstrate that you have taken the comments seriously and that you have attended to the necessary changes. You may want to repeat each comment, followed by a detailed indication of how you have accommodated the change recommended by the specific comment.
It is possible that the reviewers may have misread your paper or that they made comments with which you simply do not agree. You are free to decide not to make changes if you feel strongly that this is the case. You will need to indicate your concerns with the particular comments, giving reasons, in your covering letter. You need to think carefully about doing this, however, because editors select reviewers on the basis of their respect for them as scholars. Nevertheless, if you are clear that it is not possible for you to accommodate the recommended changes or that the recommended changes would lead to a weakening of the argument, you need to state this. Be very sure that you are able to substantiate your argument.
Guidelines concerning authorship
Authorship can become a thorny issue. In particular, this can potentially become a problem when a student wants to publish his/her thesis work. Supervisors may want their name first, may not agree with the proposed article, may not provide sufficient support, or may have sourced the funding for your research and thus have other ideas around publishing. It is vitally important that agreement around publishing and authorship is attained while the student is still in the process of conducting the research so that problems do not arise once the thesis is submitted. The Psychology Department at Rhodes University has a standard agreement that all students sign. It is attached by way of example. If you do not have such an agreement with your supervisor, it is important that you raise the matter with him/her and obtain mutual written agreement on the way forward. Such an agreement does not always solve all difficulties, however. It is important to communicate concerning your ideas so as to prevent any problems arising.
Apart from difficulties around student-supervisor publication, there will be times when you are part of a larger team of researchers and the issue of authorship and order of authors will arise. The questions that will need to be answered are:
· Who is included as an author versus being acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section?
· What is the order to authorship?
The latter can be contentious as first authorship is usually given more weight in research circles than second or third authorship.
Various guidelines have been devised regarding the above. Many of these guidelines refer to medical or science disciplines, but there is some generalisation to the Social Sciences and Humanities. These guidelines do not always agree, however, meaning that there are no hard and fast rules. Claxton (2005) provides some insight into the debates, which may be useful to you in your discussion with fellow researchers (the various acronyms refer to organisations in the medical or science fields).
3.1. Authorship qualifications
Indications are that this is one of the most prevalent issues within research laboratories especially for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior staff members. Concepts and attitudes toward authorship qualifications appear to be strongly influenced by one’s field of training and experience.
The ACS guidelines say that all who make significant contribution and who share responsibility should be authors. The ASA states that authorship should be based on intellectual contribution unless the authors clearly state another basis for authorship. The NIH guidelines say that authorship is based on significant contribution to and/or interpretation of results and an assumption of responsibility for the study. The COPE guideline expects authorship decisions to balance intellectual contribution and writing against the collection of data and other routine work. COPE also specifies that all authors must assume public responsibility for the work…. According to the ICMJE guidelines, an individual must fulfil the following criteria to be authors: “Authorship credit should be based only on (1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and (3) final approval of the version to be published. Conditions 1–3 must all be met. Acquisition of funding, the collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not justify authorship.” In addition, the ICMJE guide emphasizes that all who qualify should be listed, that each author should be willing to take public responsibility for their involvement, that at least one author take responsibility for the integrity of the whole work, and that others involved be named in the Acknowledgements. The DCSD adds to the ICMJE model stating “An author shall in writing accept the final draft of the manuscript” and shall provide a detailed description of his or her contribution.
Does the guidance mean that the senior … scientist who may have been responsible for the initial overall concept under which the research was done and for writing the grant proposal that ultimately funded the research might be included as an author under ACS, ASA, and perhaps NIH guidelines but not under ICMJE and DCSD guidelines? Because of the variation among guidelines, many such questions could be asked. Obviously, the ICMJE and DCSD guidelines are more prescriptive. …
3.2. Order of authorship
Surprisingly little is said in guidelines about the order of authorship. ICMJE suggest that the order of authorship should be a joint decision of the coauthors. The DSCH and others expect the writer of the first draft who made the most important work effort to be the first author and the senior coauthor responsible for the work to be the last author. Authorship order, according to ASA, preferably should be by degree of intellectual contribution. Individual groups may establish guidelines for attribution.
Claxton (2005). Scientific authorship: Part 2. History, recurring issues, practices, and guidelines. Mutation Research/Reviews in Mutation Research, 589(1), 31-45.
Conclusion
Publishing is an exciting and interesting process. Although it has its complications and you may encounter frustrations along the way, you should see it as the logical route for your research. There may be many reasons why you have conducted your research (e.g. because you believe the research can make a difference, because you are excited about the academic conversation you are joining, because you think that the research will produce original knowledge in your field). Whatever the
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