Firehosing your papers -- good idea or bad?

[Pangloss]

Is it a bad idea to send your paper to every journal on the planet, hoping one of them will accept it? If so, why?

 

Also, my teachers seem strangely reluctant to discuss the subject of getting published, and yet my school actively encourages PhD students to get published. There seems to be a disconnect here and maybe a social dynamic here that I'm not being "let in" on.

 

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. I submitted my first paper ever to a journal this week, and I'm finding the whole process a bit mystifying. I'm not even sure what happens if by some miracle the journal says "yes", or how likely that really is.

[swansont]

Depends on the journals, partly — they may have a policy against it. Your thesis advisor should have a feel for what journal is appropriate.

 

There are a number of reasons not to do it. Since you sign away your copyright, you can't have multiple acceptances, and you waste the time of the reviewers when you have to withdraw the paper.

[timo]

Is it a bad idea to send your paper to every journal on the planet, hoping one of them will accept it? If so, why?

It's bad style. I would be super embarrassed to tell a journal that I withdraw a paper because another journal already accepted it.

 

Also, my teachers seem strangely reluctant to discuss the subject of getting published, and yet my school actively encourages PhD students to get published. There seems to be a disconnect here and maybe a social dynamic here that I'm not being "let in" on.

 

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. I submitted my first paper ever to a journal this week, and I'm finding the whole process a bit mystifying. I'm not even sure what happens if by some miracle the journal says "yes", or how likely that really is.

I assume you wrote it alone, otherwise the co-author could have taken care of the publication process. If none of the profs wants to take the time to help you then ask the people at lunch (assuming you go to lunch together) or some post-docs in your institute for advice.

 

I would imagine that as long as you have a university affiliation and your paper is at least connected to some recent research papers then you do not need to worry about the paper being accepted too much (perhaps not in a high-impact journal, though). One sometimes reads about high rejection rates of scientific journals. But take into account that these journals probably get a lot of papers submitted by people who could be residents in the sfn speculations forum and that these people produce new papers with 2-10 times the frequency than a normal scientist.

Edited December 30, 2009 by timo

[Mokele]

As others have already said, it's considered bad form or against the rules to submit to multiple places at once.

 

 

Now, what happens when you click "Submit":

1) Paper arrives in email of the editor

2) Editor is busy, ignores it for 2 weeks

3) Editor picks peer reviewers who are qualified to review it.

4) Peer reviewers are too busy

5) Editor picks more qualified peer reviewers

6) Peer reviewers are too busy

7)After a month, the editor finally finds 2-3 reviewers, who may range from world experts to barely or unqualified grad students.

8) First reviewer turns in review after 2 months.

9) 2 months later, editor harasses reviewer 2

10) 1 more month, reviewer 2 turns in perfunctory review which misses the point entirely.

11) Editor notifies you of decision. If he rejects you, go back to #1 for a whole new journal and hope nobody scoops you.

12) Try to accomodate as many reviewer comments as possible, even if bad, in order to justifiably hold out on the *really* important points where they've missed the point, etc.

13) Turn in revised version which goes back to the editor, then the reviewers.

14) Reviewers accept changes just so they never have to see it again.

15) 1 month later, editor sends you "proofs", prepared and ready for publication. You have 48 hours to check every line for errors and typos (and you NEED to check every line), no excuses.

16) 3 months after that, your paper is published.

 

 

So, yeah, don't expect to hear anything for a long time.

[CharonY]

That is a pretty good description, although many journals now have a sophisticated submission system (instead of email) that tries to prevents you from uploading relevant figures and tables or garbles up your main text (I assume that it tries to convert every third word into Chinese during the process). So that in the end you will have to give up and mail it anyway. Only to be referred back to the system.

 

In addition, 15 has to be amended with: (you NEED to check every line for errors that they may have built in...)

 

As already noted, most papers only accept papers that are not submitted elsewhere. In addition, you may end up with the same reviewer that will get pissed because they got the same article for reviewing twice.

For many journals this is sufficient reason to reject the publication.

 

Edited to add: It also depends on the field. Most natural sciences follow a similar scheme, but there are slightly different flavors.

[Pangloss]

I really appreciate all this feedback.

 

If that's the case with copyright (and that makes sense), it raises a couple of questions in my mind:

 

1) Do Journals always tell you if they're not going to print your work?

 

2) If they just leave you twisting in the wind, how long should you wait before you submit your work to another journal?

 

Mokele's timeline (which was really interesting, thank you!) suggests that it could be a really long time before I know anything. Is this normal? It doesn't really seem fair. I only have the one paper here, and I really want to get it published somewhere if I can. (I know I'm being ridiculously naive about this, but I'm a plunge-in-with-both-feet kind of guy.)

[Mokele]

In addition, 15 has to be amended with: (you NEED to check every line for errors that they may have built in...)

 

And to check against the right version. My very first paper, I submitted version A, then got reviews, which led to submitting version B, which the reviewers signed off on, after which I made a few more tweaks (version C) and sent that in to be formatted.

 

When I got the proofs back, I was very, very confused until I realized they'd used Version A to make the proofs, not version C. That resulted in some very hasty emails, but everything got sorted out in the end.

 

1) Do Journals always tell you if they're not going to print your work?

 

Yes. If it's been more than 6 months, you might want to send the editor a quick email (she's probably as frustrated with whichever reviewer is dragging their feet as you are).

 

Mokele's timeline (which was really interesting, thank you!) suggests that it could be a really long time before I know anything. Is this normal? It doesn't really seem fair. I only have the one paper here, and I really want to get it published somewhere if I can. (I know I'm being ridiculously naive about this, but I'm a plunge-in-with-both-feet kind of guy.)

 

From what I know, time from submission to publication can range from 3 months to upwards of 9. I recently reviewed a paper that had been waiting for over 7 months (presumably, I was picked because another reviewer just never bothered to turn it in).

 

 

A large part of the problem is "Crap rolls downhill". Everyone submits to Nature/Science, gets rejected, then submits to the top-tier journal of their field, gets rejected, then submits to the next-best, etc. By the end of the cycle, a paper may have consumed the time of *dozens* of reviewers, especially if it's not very good. I know faculty in my dept get asked to review a paper several times per week, and have to turn most of them down simply due to time issues.

[D H]

Pangloss, is your faculty advisor listed as a coauthor? I get the feeling the answer is no. This might explain the "strange reluctance" described in the OP. The faculty is not going to tell you that it sometimes is a good idea, politically speaking, to specify someone as a coauthor. That this may not be a particularly good idea ethically speaking may be part of the reluctance.

[Pangloss]

Okay, I don't mind waiting however long it takes if they tell me they're going to run it. That's cool. It sounds like the whole "getting published" situation is not as bad as I feared.

 

When you're asked to review a paper, do you get anything out of that exercise? Pay? Editorial credit? Maybe a new item for your CV, at least?

 

My faculty advisor is not a co-author; I suspect her reluctance to discuss this further might have been due to the fact that she's an editor herself. But she was really helpful with criticisms of my paper from her perspective as an editor, so I'm not complaining. Sometimes in person I give people an impression of over-eagerness and high motivation. It's worked well for me over the years in the business world, but I've suspected for a while now that in the more relaxed world of academia it may sometimes be an impediment.

 

I look around at my fellow undergrad faculty (almost none of whom have PhDs, and only a couple of whom are even in programs), and I note that in the 3.5 years I've been employed there only one has been published, and that was just a casual magazine feature. The private, for-profit sector is very different that way, and I am eager to complete my PhD and transition to a non-profit environment. Getting published is one of the criteria I posed to myself of judging whether I'm going to be able to do that, given my general lack of academic background. My degrees are not prestigious, but I'm hoping that a combination of publications, a strong dissertation, and solid work experience will make me look good to some program chair somewhere.

[CharonY]

1) Do Journals always tell you if they're not going to print your work?

 

2) If they just leave you twisting in the wind, how long should you wait before you submit your work to another journal?

 

1) as Mokele said. However, usually the corresponding author is making that request (in case it is not you). In addition, you may want to look at the journal policies. Some state their average review time and you may want to ask earlier in some cases. Depending on field and journal sometimes after three months a request can be reasonable.

 

2) You can always retract it, but if you submit somewhere else the process starts anew. You should not submit while it is still in review (for reasons already stated). In general it is customary to wait for the response of the review first and then decide to resubmit it or look for a different journal (depending on whether it accepted and the amount of changes/additional experiments required for publication).

 

Mokele's timeline (which was really interesting, thank you!) suggests that it could be a really long time before I know anything. Is this normal? It doesn't really seem fair.

Fairness was never part of the equation. If you think this is bad then try to survive on grant money. But on average one tends to get the decision after 3 months (again, depending on journal). Personally, I had decisions as fast as one month and as long as four.

 

 

Edit:

When you're asked to review a paper, do you get anything out of that exercise? Pay? Editorial credit? Maybe a new item for your CV, at least?

Normally not. Also, reviewers are usually anonymous.

Unless you become regular reviewer of a journal (as opposed as getting forced to write for an advisor). Then some write it on their CV (I do not, though).

[Dave]

I agree with the most part about Mokele's post about the length of time it takes to get published. In the mathematical world things aren't very different. I know people who've waited 2+ years for their papers to finally be published.

 

However, I have to say that I recently submitted a letter to PNAS (through the normal peer reviewed route) and was really impressed with the speed. From initial submission to receipt of peer reviews and a decision (in my case corrections) was under two months. So I guess if you can fit what you want to say into a short format, and can find an appropriate journal, you don't have to wait an age to get published.

[Mokele]

However, I have to say that I recently submitted a letter to PNAS (through the normal peer reviewed route) and was really impressed with the speed. From initial submission to receipt of peer reviews and a decision (in my case corrections) was under two months. So I guess if you can fit what you want to say into a short format, and can find an appropriate journal, you don't have to wait an age to get published.

 

Yeah, I've heard that a lot of the higher-end journals are working on reducing their turnaround time.

[Martin]

If you haven't seen this bit about the Scientific Peer Review system circa 1945 you may wish to check it out:

A senior faculty and his grad students/postdocs discuss review of some research they have submitted for publication.

A link was given to this earlier, as I recall, but some people may have missed it.

[Severian]

I have only ever published in high impact journals. I have actually witnessed a job committee turn down an applicant because they published a single paper (out of many) in a low impact journal.

[ajb]

I have only ever published in high impact journals.

 

Journal of physics A?

 

(I am thinking of submitting a paper to them myself at some point in the not too far distant future).

 

Anyway, the journals I have looked at insist that you do not submit articles to other journals at the same time. You are of course after rejection free to submit them.

[CharonY]

Uhm, isn't its IF around 2? Or am I confusing it with something else?

[ajb]

The Journal of Physics A had an impact factor of 1.680 for 2007 and 1.54 for 2008.

 

Though I am not sure to what extent such a number has meaning. This journal publishes articles that are of great relevance to my interests in mathematical physics and its interactions with theoretical physics. I doubt that any such journal would score very highly on any list of journals. But for me it seems the natural choice to submit to.

 

Other journals I have looked at also tend to have low IF's as compared to journals in other subjects.

 

Journal of Nonlinear Mathematical Physics (2007) 0.437.

Journal of Mathematical Physics (2008) 1.085.

Communications in Mathematical Physics (2008) 2.075 .

Journal of Geometry and Physics (2008) 0.683 .

Journal of High Energy Physics (2008) 5.375. (Probably too out of scope for my work )

Communications in Theoretical Physics (2008) 0.719.

Classical and Quantum Gravity (2008) 3.035. (again just outside of scope)

 

 

Nature for example had an IF of 31.434 in 2008. I doubt Nature is too interested in the work I am interested in.

 

So the IF is really a relative thing. The Journal of Physics A sits ok in the list of potential journals to submit to.

Edited January 2, 2010 by ajb

[Severian]

These days I publish mainly in the Journal of High Energy Physics (IF 5.375 in 2008), though sometimes in Physical Review D (IF 5.050 in 2008).

 

Interestingly most people in my field look down on Nature and Science. They view it as PR, rather than proper science. I think that is mainly due to my field being extremely quantitative, so we disapprove of the more qualitative studies in other fields.

 

The 'low impact' journal I referred to earlier had an IF of 3.485 for 2007, which rather surprises me, since it isn't very low.

[D H]

I have actually witnessed a job committee turn down an applicant because they published a single paper (out of many) in a low impact journal.

I find that a bit (more than a bit!) troublesome. Papers should ideally stand on their own merit, regardless of who authored them. This viewpoint, rejecting papers because the author was stupid enough to publish in a low impact journal, yields some amount of credibility to crackpot claims regarding the validity of the peer review process. Some journals, particularly in the life sciences, use a double-blind peer review process to address this bias.

 

From this Nature editorial, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7179/full/451605b.html, the group that exhibits the greatest reluctance to using a double-blind review process are journal editors. I guess that stands to reason from a Bayesian prior perspective. The people most likely to produce ground shaking results are those who have previously produced such ground shaking results. However, as is the case in the stock market, past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future success.

[ajb]

These days I publish mainly in the Journal of High Energy Physics (IF 5.375 in 2008), though sometimes in Physical Review D (IF 5.050 in 2008).

 

Both these I think are just outside the scope of my work. I keep an eye on the JHEP papers for time to time.

 

Interestingly most people in my field look down on Nature and Science.

 

This is also my impression. Not many (if any?) of the papers I have used have been published there. (I tend simply to use arXiv versions, even if they have been published elsewhere).

 

Is the IF really a good measure of things? It seems to me not to be very useful when looking at very specialised subjects.

 

JHEP IF of ~5 sounds very low when compared to Nature, but JHEP is very well respected in the HEP community (which I am just outside of, though I am a member of the IOP HEP group).

 

I cannot immediately think of any mathematical physics journals that score very high. Unless you have any suggestions?

[Mokele]

The 'low impact' journal I referred to earlier had an IF of 3.485 for 2007, which rather surprises me, since it isn't very low.

 

I find that a bit odd, since in my field the absolutely highest impact factor journal outside of Nature and Science is 2.98. I mean, we publish in PNAS and such, but those aren't really specific to our field.

 

Of course, our field is also tiny, our ratio of grad students per faculty is pretty low, and our experiments take a *long* time. On the other hand, it's rare for us to have more than 3 authors on a paper, and 2 authors is most common (Student & Adviser, Date).

[CharonY]

Well, it is not that surprising then. As it has been pointed out the expected IF depends highly on the field. An impact of around 2 appears not too high to me (i.e. an expected average of two citations per year). But then it depends on the pure amount of papers published to what actually gets cited (i.e. crap to gold ratio). A very small field can relatively high impact, if all the papers get cited.

I recall that the highest for microbiological papers was around 4-5. Here papers in journals with impacts of lower 1.5-2 tend to be thought of as "crap" papers.

Where I am currently working on (closer to the biomedical area) the breadth is even higher. The top includes journals like Cell, whereas the bottom can scratch around 1.

So depending on the field the standards as what is believed to be acceptable varies (unsurprisingly) a lot.

Also there is of course a difference in the evaluation between experimental and theoretical works even within a discipline.

I do find it surprising if one low IF factor should have such an impact on hiring, unless of course there were either other reasons or it was the only distinguishing factor from other candidates.

Edited January 2, 2010 by CharonY

[Pangloss]

How do you find out what a journal's impact factor is?

[Mokele]

I usually just google "Impact factor (journal name)", though that's not really how I pick outlets - the journals in my field don't have narrow defines, but you can typically read any given draft and go by "feel".

[CharonY]

The "official" impact factor can be seen on the Journal citation reports by Thomson. You need institutional access to see them, though.