Importance of pre-submission peer review

As the name suggests, pre-submission peer review refers to the review of your research paper before submitting it to a journal. Here, a peer other than the co-authors reviews the paper. This review enhances the quality of the research paper and reduces the load on the peer review system of journals. In other words, this process is a win-win solution for both the authors and the journals.

The below points highlights the importance of pre-submission peer review in the publishing process:

– This process improves your paper by filling in the gaps or fixing errors that might have been previously overlooked.

– It makes your paper more readable and hence, increases the readership of your paper and that of the journal.

– This process gives you the option to choose the person to review your paper, ensuring you get constructive comments from people who know the topic.

– It gives you important feedback from experts in your field of research. Thus, this not only improves your paper but also helps you to make significant contributions to the literature.

However, whether this pre-submission peer review should be implemented or not is still debatable. With increasing workloads and academic pressure, authors often do not feel like wasting time on pre-submission feedback. In addition, they are also reluctant to ask colleagues to do extra work, given that they are always pressed for time. Moreover, with the increasing number of co-authors on scientific papers, most authors do not seek additional external feedback.

But, by adopting pre-submission peer review as an integral part of the publication process, one can substantially reduce the burden on the journal peer review system. Moreover, this also reduces the risk of publishing flawed ideas or inaccurate analyses. peer review

Proper Citation: A Key Norm in Academic Publishing

What to Cite?
Academic publishing is important for the career enhancement of every researcher. A long string of publications under the belt of a researcher not only performs the constructive role of filling gaps in existing research, but also enhances the chances of the researcher being cited by other researchers. The number of times your research work is cited indicates the impact of the study in your research field.
Researchers usually draft their own investigations in the light of discoveries of other researches. In the process, it is vital for these study findings to be recognized as standalone researches by maintaining a strategic distance from issues like copyright infringements and plagiarism. To walk this academic tightrope, researchers take care to refer to previous studies by presenting the thoughts of the first researcher in one’s own writing and by referring to the earlier publication. Other than recognizing the work of different researchers, the citation process also helps readers discover the source article and refer to it to acquire more data or details.
The advent of the World Wide Web and the Internet has helped the process of identifying fitting, reliable, and logical scientific information and using it in one’s research with proper citations. The researcher takes recourse to online search tools, for example Google Scholar or PubMed, to gather information about publications revolving around the proposed research area. To disentangle the mass of search results, it is important to sieve research articles that could form part of the critical reading list.
Demonstrating In-Text Citing
The purpose of referencing or in-text citation is to give credit where it is expected. There are various reference style guides and it is up to the researcher and the requirements of the target journal to choose the most suitable one. If it’s a book citation, the author needs to consider the detailed referencing guidelines specific for books. In case of a thesis, the concerned university will have a favored reference style that needs to be followed. In case of research journals, one needs to visit the author page to peruse “Instruction for Authors.” Here, the author would get a bird’s-eye view of the required referencing style along with the in-text citation style. Once the reference style has been chosen, it is critical to remain faithful to the reference style in a consistent manner throughout the manuscript.
Here are three ways to use in-text research citations.
– Name-Year format: The surname of the first author is mentioned, followed by the publication year in brackets after the text.
For e.g.:
(Smith, 2017) or “Huron et al. (2017) stated that the tumor regeneration process was…”
– Citation-Sequence and Citation-Name: Both these citation styles are widely used by many journals. These two mainstream referencing styles are fundamentally the same. In both, in-text referencing is a number that compares to the full reference in the reference list. In case of Citation-Sequence, the number relates to every article’s ordered appearance. In case of Citation-Name format, the list of sources is arranged alphabetically. For example, if the primary article referenced in the manuscript was a work of Smith (an anonymous author name), this paper would be doled out the number 1. In the numbered book reference, if Citation-Sequence style is used, Smith would be the primary reference in the reference list. If Citation-Name style is used, the reference list would be arranged alphabetically, and the in-text number assigned to Smith would relate to whatever position Smith has in the reference list.
Hence, it is vital for a researcher or author to follow the reference style guide in an organized manner. Notably, footnotes are by and large not utilized as a part of logically written scientific work. Besides, there are style guides that demand abbreviating the journal names. For e.g.: International Journal of Civil Engineering can be abbreviated as ‎Int. J. Civ. Eng.
Fortunately, there are currently many reference management tools accessible to researchers and scientists. These tools assist academic research in maintaining consistency in reference citations with an assortment of style guides. Few examples are Mendeley, Zotero, EndNote, and Papers. These are additional reference directories, which are purchasable. However, all these reference managers also offer scholarly or understudy discounts.
Academic Publishing, Academic Research, Authors, Researchers

The Future of Open Access Publishing

The Diamond Model of Open Access PublishingOpen access (OA) publishing is a major contemporary theme that shapes many scholarly discussions today. Scholastics or academics, colleges, corporate publishing houses, non-profit publishers and journals, editors, editorial boards, labor unions representing publication employees, funding agencies, and policymakers are all vital actors in this context. They hold numerous, albeit diverse, opinions on open access.

The discussion on OA is a debate about the future of the academic world without the fetters of copyright and licensing laws. The pros and cons of traditional profit-oriented academic publishing need to be discussed, including touchy issues such as monopoly prices and inequalities in access. Many believe that traditional publishing operates within the ambits of a market economy, which does not go well with, and often inhibits, academic pursuits. Simultaneously, the discussion must also center on the contemporary perspectives on OA that are frequently advanced by the mainstream publishing industry, policymakers and labor unions, and then meet these perspectives head on with cogent arguments in favor of OA publishing.

In recent times, a new term has been added to the debate on open access publishing, viz., diamond open access (DOA) publishing. This kind of publishing gives a chance to reclaim academic commons. DOA is a non-profit academic publishing concept that looks at scholastic knowledge as a common good and encourages job security by providing employment to many in the field of open publishing. It recognizes the true essence of the academic domain as a communication system that produces and disseminates academic knowledge as a commons in the OA process.

Promotion of academic commons through DOA needs public funding, favorable policies, research grants, and a system of rewards for academicians who act as editors, reviewers or editorial board members. After all, DOA works in the interest of the academia.

Existing concepts such as “green open access” and “gold open access” have their own limitations. In particular, the green open access model has been criticized because, like conventional publishing, it also operates in a market economy; authors are asked to pay to get their works published. This often leads to “vanity publishing,” where authors pay to publish researches that are often below par. Second, gold open access works in favor of research areas that have financial backing. For instance, while researchers in fields like life sciences have the cash to pay their way through to publication, others are hard put to get their work published through the gold access model.

DOA seeks to overcome these limitations. For a start, unlike gold open access, authors do not need to pay. Second, the final publication is immediately accessible to the public.

DOA publishing has emerged as a policy intervention and reflection on current issues related to OA publishing. It incorporates the following key questions about OA publishing:

  • What role should OA play in the future of academic publishing?
  • What should the future of academic publishing look like?
  • What academic policy reforms are needed in OA publishing?

Admittedly, the debate on OA has thus far lacked vision and the incorporation of innovative social practices. Therefore, there is a need to trigger a new level of debate with questions directed at contemporary policymakers, the writing and editing fraternity, publishing houses, and OA publishing associations and librarians.