Following Directions

I recently had an author send me their entire dissertation as an article to be published. Needless to say all of the information on the journal website discusses word and page limitations, and a dissertation does not fall into that requirement! This example illustrates a basic issue that you should remember when submitting an article to a journal for possible publication, make sure you are following the directions exactly as stated on the journal's website. Every journal varies on what they want, some follow APA exactly, others have modified the requirements. You will not know what they want until you read the directions.

What happened to the dissertation that was submitted? It was rejected! Do not follow their example!

Stay curious!

Today I want to remind you to stay as curious as Mandy is in the photo. It is so easy during the long process of writing to become bored or complacent, forgetting the drive that has led you to this point. Curiosity about everything in your environment and related to your study will keep you excited and provide the energy to get done.

Feel like you have lost the curiosity in your study? Here are some questions to lead you back. It often helps to write out your answers in your journal so you can refer back to them later. Think back to before you started your study… what lead you to that decision? Why did you decide to make that commitment? What did you want to do with your paper at that time? What steps can you take today to get you where you want to go?

Why did you choose the topic that you did? Have you read any recent books on your topic or methodology, lately? If not, that may help get you going!

Grammar Checks

You have a draft of your article, now what? First give yourself a cheer and celebrate, then begin the rewriting process. Rewriting?? Yes, you have done a first draft, hopefully including all of the necessary parts, but it is rough, and needs a lot of polishing. I suggest reading through the draft in full, make notes to yourself (I use track changes) and mark areas that are not complete, may not be clear to someone reading it for the first time, or need more support with citations. Then start at the beginning and read each sentence aloud, is there a way to make it clearer, more concise? Picture your grandmother, who knows nothing about your area of study, reading it: would she understand that sentence? Check for any pronouns (they, he, and she); is it clear to whom the pronouns are referring? Check your plurals versus possessives (this makes me crazy when they are wrong): plurals (e.g. “girls”) do not have an apostrophe, possessives do have an apostrophe (e.g., “the girl’s bike;” “the girls’ bikes”). Do you know a former English major? Someone who is a great writer? If so, ask them to read through your paper and offer suggestions.

Updating your literature

If you are working on rewriting your dissertation into an article for publication, be sure that you update your literature. Research moves quickly these days with the internet, and you want to make sure when your paper is published it has the most current thinking. Authors often forget to check on literature related to theory, which can get them into trouble, so do your homework! 

Rewriting Your Dissertation into an Article: Rewriting and Polishing

Once you have a draft of your article, it is time to begin the rewriting and polishing phase. Everyone has to do it, including very experienced writers. Accept that rewriting is part of the process, and spend that extra time now to save you pain later.

Where to start? I suggest reading through the draft in full, make notes to yourself (I use track changes) and mark areas that are not complete, that may not be clear to someone reading it for the first time, or that need more support with citations. Then start at the beginning and read each sentence aloud, is there a way to make it clearer, more concise? Picture your grandmother who knows nothing about your topic reading it, would she understand that sentence? Have you explained any terms that might be considered jargon? Check for any pronouns (they, he, and she), is it clear who the pronouns are referring to? Check your plurals versus possessives (this makes me crazy when they are wrong): plurals (e.g. “girls”) do not have an apostrophe, possessives do have an apostrophe (e.g., “the girl’s bike;” “the girls’ bikes”).

Do you know a former English major? Someone who is a great writer? If so, ask them to read through your paper and offer suggestions.

Check your results sections' APA format. There are very specific ways that statistics should be written, check the APA Manual that you are doing it correctly. If you are including tables or figures, then PLEASE read the sections on these in the APA Manual, not only on how to do them but also when to use them.

Print out your references, then go through the paper crossing off each time you have cited the reference. They should come out even. Double check if the citation has 3+ authors (e.g., Smith, Jones, & Johnson, 2015) then use et al. after the first citation (Smith et al., 2015).

Rewriting Your Dissertation into an Article: Discussion

The final text section of your paper is the Discussion, similar to the dissertation's Chapter 5. In your discussion, you will evaluate, interpret the results, and draw conclusions about them. Emphasize the theoretical or practical consequences of your findings. Be very careful that you are not misinterpreting or misrepresenting your findings (e.g., "the results are clear that older adults…" Did you examine ALL older adults? No? Then do not over generalize).

Begin your discussion with a clear statement of support or nonsupport for original hypotheses (it can also be structured in term of your research questions). Relate the findings to the previous literature, how do your results fit in with others' work? Your interpretations should take into account sources of bias and threats to internal validity. Also, consider limitations or weakness or your study. Bring in the theoretical implications of the study; does it fit with previous theories- why or why not? If not, could the theory be modified to account for your findings? Finally, end with problems remain unsolved, and what future areas of research have you identified? 

Rewriting Your Dissertation into an Article: Results

The results section of your article is taking Chapter 4 of your dissertation and reducing it to the essentials. I find it helps to discuss the results through your research questions. Your results should be unbiased and provide enough detail that others can interpret them. Do not hide ones that did not come out as expected. Indicate whether your data violate the assumptions of the statistics you used.

It generally makes the most sense to set it up based on your research questions, keep it concise and to the point. Do not include unnecessary figures and tables. A good rule of thumb is if you discuss the data in detail in the text, do not also include a figure, or table on it.

Quantitative Studies. Keep your reporting of results non-biased and assume your reader has a professional knowledge of statistics (so do not explain basic concepts or give citations for common procedures). Be sure to explain how you handled any missing data in the analyses, and the percentage that were missing.

Qualitative Studies. Report your findings in a non-biased way; explain how you went about your analyses. Provide participant quotes to illustrate your themes. It is a good idea to assign pseudonyms to participants and briefly provide any relevant information after each quote (e.g., Rose, age 68). Discuss any discrepant cases, and how these were addressed.

Rewriting Your Dissertation into an Article: Methodology

We are now into Chapter 3 of your dissertation, this needs to be cut down to just a couple of pages for an article. It is helpful to go to the APA manual and read the section on methodology and look at their examples. You also might want to read a recent article with similar methodology to yours. When you are ready, start with an outline, which will look something like this:

                           Method

                           Participants

                           Materials

                           Procedure

Remember, your method section must be in sufficient detail that someone else can replicate your study based on your description. Therefore, each section needs to be written in detail, however, note that there are fewer sections than in your dissertation; so some things will need to be included in a sentence or two, such as a brief mention of the approval by the IRB (give approval number).

Rewriting Your Dissertation into an Article: Literature

Reducing your 50-75 pages of Chapter 2 to a couple pages of literature review in an article is a very daunting prospect! I suggest beginning by thinking through your key concepts/ variables. What does your reader absolutely have to know about to understand your study? Then write these down as the beginning of an outline for your article. My guess is it will look something like this:

             Intro

             Theory

             Variable 1

             Variable 2

             Gap in the literature

With your outline as a map, now take each section individually and think about what is the most important literature you need to include? You do not have to do an exhaustive review, but you do need to show you understand the literature. You may find it helpful to treat each section as a summary of your literature on the topic in c. 2. Remember, you should not have more than five pages or so of literature, so keep to the essentials. Do a first draft and let it set for a day or two, then go back and see if you can eliminate any nonessential sentences. Have someone else read it for coherence, does it make sense to him or her, and make an argument for your study? Be sure you end the literature review sections with a couple of sentences emphasizing the gap you are addressing and why your study is needed. Mentioning your research questions helps the reader know where you are going.

Rewriting Your Dissertation into an Article

One of the most common questions I receive, as a journal editor, is how do I make my dissertation into an article? This is the first in a series in which I will discuss this issue and offer some suggestions on how to approach this difficult task.

Let's review a few basics of the differences between a dissertation and a published journal article. An article, based on your project will be much shorter than your original dissertation. While a dissertation is often between 100-200 pages, a manuscript for a journal article is rarely over 30 double-spaced pages. A dissertation must exhaustively review the literature, however, the literature in an article is provided to put the study into context; the key issue is to lead the reader to clearly see the need for your study and the gap you are addressing. Much of the information in a dissertation is repeated throughout the paper- it can be characterized more as a book, a journal article should be succinct and to the point. So a few issues we have identified: your article should only have enough literature to put it into context, information should not be repeated frequently, and it should be succinct. Remember the basis of a journal article is the APA manual, so use the format it describes. Do check the journal's website for any exceptions it might prefer over the APA manual.

The first step, I recommend, is to do an outline of the project in an article format. Typically, this will be the following:

Cover page (title, your name, affiliation, and author notes), 

Abstract (check journal requirements- typically 200-250 words). Keywords

Body of paper

Title of paper

(1-2 pgs) Introduce the need for the study (why should we care about the topic?)

(2-5 pgs) Literature review discussing variables 

Method

Participants

Materials

Procedure

Results

Discussion

References 

Accepting Feedback Gracefully

An inevitable part of submitting a paper for review in a journal is getting criticism. This can be very difficult for people; they feel defensive and resentful. Please, take a step back from this and think about it, a reviewer has taken a great deal of time to read and review your paper. They do not like saying negative things any more than you like to receive them. However, it is the reviewer's job to help you get your paper into a publishable shape, and that is what he or she is doing when they give you feedback. It does not matter if a hundred other people think you are a marvelous writer, accept that this person does not, and see how you can fix it.

How should you approach the feedback? I suggest quickly reading the feedback and if you find you are feeling defensive close it and think about it for a while, resist the impulse to immediately write back. Remind yourself they are trying to help with your paper, and they want you to have your paper published. Then when you feel you are ready (hopefully no more than a day!), begin the revisions, take each comment one at a time, think about it and revise. If you find you are not sure what the reviewer means with a comment. Carefully write out an email of inquiry to the editor of the journal. Here is an example:

Dr. X,

Thank you so much for the thoughtful comments and suggestions on my paper, "Fear of Pencils!" I find I do have a question about a comment from reviewer A, in which he/she states: "I don’t know what you mean on p.3." Could I get this comment clarified please, what precisely is he/she referring to?

Thank you again for your help,

Jane Researcher

Always be polite, and thank them for their help. You will find you get much further with being open and kind than you ever will with being defensive. 

The Micro Level Writing Review

How do you review your own writing? Why should you spend time on this? Doing a good review of your writing before you submit it to a journal can save you a great deal of time in the end. Remember, every time it is reviewed, it can be several months, if you can reduce the number of reviews needed, it can save you a lot of time!

I recommend a several stage process of self-review; you can do the steps in any order that feels comfortable for you. Yes, it will take you time and it is not particularly fun, but it will save valuable time and it will teach you to write! First, review your writing at the micro level of individual paragraphs and sections. Make sure you have spell check and grammar check turned on in your paper. If you are not seeing some words/ sentences underlined in red or green in Word, go to the options menu (often listed under File)/ proofing and make sure spell and grammar check are turned on. Make sure the Exception boxes are not checked (these turn off spelling and grammar checks). Make sure that you then check all of the items in red (spelling) and green (grammar issues) underlining.

Step 1 is to pick a small section of your paper; read the section aloud, carefully listening for grammatical errors and missing words. You may also wish to consider utilizing and submitting your work, or even small sections of your work to electronic/online academic writing aids such as Grammarly and/or Turnitin. 

Step 2, read through the section again checking for APA errors. There are several common problems students have, for example, citations and use of the second person ("we," "our"). Read those sections of the APA manual and make sure you are doing them correctly. Make sure any jargon is defined (a good rule of thumb, would your grandmother or friend not in your field, understand the term? If not, define it).

Step 3 is the hardest one, check your content. Make sure you are only talking about one topic in each paragraph. Are your arguments clear? Does every fact or statement have a citation? Check the length of your paragraphs and break up long ones (there should be no page long paragraphs).

Following directions

One of most common reasons that papers are rejected at journals is that the author(s) did not follow directions. For example, if the word limit for articles is 10,000 words, sending in a completed dissertation (probably 40-50,000 words) is not going to be accepted. How can you avoid these kind of problems and avoid having your paper rejected? Carefully read the submission instructions to authors, and follow them closely!

New things

All new things are scary, because you do not know what to expect, and typically feel like you do not want to make any mistakes. Let me see if I can take you through the process of submitting your paper to the journal and what you should expect. First, of course you will write your paper and check the journal's guidelines; the Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences (JSBHS) are at: http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/jsbhs/

2) Once you are satisfied that you have followed all of the requirements in the journal, you are safe to proceed. Make sure you have the required files prepared, for JSBHS you will need an anonymous version of your paper in which you have taken out anything indicating who you are or your institution (because it will be sent out for a "blind" review- the reviewers will not know who wrote it). You will also need a cover letter in which you detail the required information discussed in the submission guidelines. You will go to the area of the journal website called "Submit an Article." The site will have you enter all of the required info, along with your paper and cover letter.

3) As the author, your part is done; now the editor takes over. First, the editor checks that you have followed directions. Then he or she assigns 2-3 peer reviewers, these are experts in the topic of your paper. The paper is sent to them along with instructions on doing the review. They typically have up to a month or so to complete the review.

4) When the reviewers have completed their review they write out their comments and suggestions and suggest a decision on the paper: accept as is, minor revisions required, major revisions required, reject. The editor then takes all of the comments and makes his or her own decision about the paper- whether or not it will be accepted, need revisions or be rejected for the journal. He or she then notifies you, as the author, what the decision is. (Know that it is very rare for papers to be accepted on the first draft, it typically takes several revisions).

5) You can then revise and resubmit it as above. The same process of review is followed, as above

6) Let's assume your paper has been accepted. Congratulations! The editor will have you submit a clean version that has all of your identifying info it. The paper will then be sent by the editor to a copyeditor, who will check grammar, APA, and references.

7) Then it will appear on the JSBHS website as a published paper!