Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Keepongoing]

Has anyone submitted to a professional journal? Can you tell me your experience? What was your research topic?

Can you give me some tips? How to find a good topic that has not been done a billion times? Who to first submit to etc.

Thank you

[sunnata1]

Generally speaking, the journal you submit is directly related to the topic of the research paper. There are general journals and very specific journals.

If the journal is peer-reviewed your submission gets sent to several reviewers. They each anonymously review the paper and the data. They make criticisms, request changes in terminology, and generally debate over major and minor points. They return these to the journal editor who sends them to you.

You make changes (or fight to keep the existing stuff) and resubmit. The process can go back and forth for a while.

Also, a journal might outright refuse the paper if they think the quality is poor or the topic is outside their domain. In very rare cases a paper can be accepted 'as-is' or 'no revisions required.'

If you need a 'good' topic you are far away from starting. Research and the following paper is an incredibly large amount of work. If you're not passionate about the topic you'll never be successful in getting it published.

Note - the above refers to quality peer-reviewed journals. There are a fair amount of 'throw away' journals that publish papers that aren't academically robust.

[Moldy Rutabaga]

Sunnata's advice is good and I have little to add, except to also say that you should try to write about topics you feel interested in rather than trying to coldly market some niche. My first publications were course papers that I modified. Think about why you chose the topics you did -- hopefully you were into the subject and the course.

As well, be paaaatttient. This is a process that can take many months or even be multi-year. Journals will take a long time to get back to you, and the editing process can also be spread over a great deal of time. Normally it is considered very unprofessional to submit to more than one journal at a time, which really makes you wait.

As far as which journals, it will be best if you can access an online directory like Jstor or the like and can get campus access somehow. If you read a few journals online you will get a better sense of which ones are close to your topic and style. I've been rejected outright many times because I wasn't careful to match my paper to the journal's specific genre. I've been rejected many times for other reasons, too! You need to be a little persistent.