Just submitted my first paper for publication

[ajb]

I have just sent off a paper for possible publication. The journal was recommended to me by someone familiar with my work. I know they publish work on similar topics.

 

Anyway, I may give details if the paper gets accepted.

 

I wanted to know what are other peoples experiences of submission to journals? Let us hear both the good and the bad.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Sisyphus]

Is the paper your dissertation? Anyway, best of luck!

[ajb]

Is the paper your dissertation? Anyway, best of luck!

 

The first half is very much based on (part of) my dissertation the second half is not discussed , but to some extent it is foreseen in the dissertation. A good chunk of the work was done after I wrote the dissertation. I ran out of time to include it.

 

Cheers.

[Severian]

Congratulations ajb! May you have many more.

 

I was amused to receive my end of year summary from Physical Review cataloguing the papers I reviewed from them throughout the year. I actually rejected every paper they sent me! I am usually pretty lenient, so they must have just been sending me crap. (I just rejected another one a for them a couple of days ago too, so the trend is continuing.)

[Martin]

What a nice bit of news! Thanks for sharing it with us.

You must be on the point of taking a postdoc position somewhere.

Cordial best wishes and many (as Severian says) happy returns.

[ajb]

Cheers.

 

I was amused to receive my end of year summary from Physical Review cataloguing the papers I reviewed from them throughout the year. I actually rejected every paper they sent me! I am usually pretty lenient, so they must have just been sending me crap. (I just rejected another one a for them a couple of days ago too, so the trend is continuing.)

 

To gain some inside information about what referees are looking for, can I ask on what grounds papers are usually rejected?

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

You must be on the point of taking a postdoc position somewhere.

 

I am still looking for positions. Hopefully something will come up.

Edited January 12, 2010 by ajb
Consecutive posts merged.

[Severian]

To gain some inside information about what referees are looking for, can I ask on what grounds papers are usually rejected?

 

I usually reject papers due to lack of rigour. For example, they may have calculated a process but forgotten some important contribution. Or they may make an assumption which isn't true.

 

The last one I rejected because it wasn't interesting - minor corrections to an uninteresting process in an unlikely physics scenario. I rejected it on the grounds the Physical Review is supposed to be high impact, so they should send it somewhere else.

[ajb]

I usually reject papers due to lack of rigour. For example, they may have calculated a process but forgotten some important contribution. Or they may make an assumption which isn't true.

 

Thank you.

 

The last one I rejected because it wasn't interesting - minor corrections to an uninteresting process in an unlikely physics scenario. I rejected it on the grounds the Physical Review is supposed to be high impact, so they should send it somewhere else.

 

This is similar to my fears at the moment. My work is correct, it is new and on a topic of interest. However, the work is not exactly surprising. One could predicted the outcome with a little thought. I do claim to be the first to do the actual work.

 

With that in mind, I submitted to a reasonable journal in my field. Not the one with the highest IF, but still respected.

[Severian]

I am sure you will be fine. I think I am quite a bit more fussy than most reviewers. There is an awful lot of papers published which shouldn't be, so I try to stem the tide a little. I am sure the authors of the paper I rejected will just ask for another referee and the next one will probably be more sympathetic.

[the tree]

Severian- If I may ask, how did you become a reviewer? Is it a full time thing or are you doing your own stuff as well? Is it a fun job?

[Severian]

It is definitely not a full time thing. In fact, I usually wait a respectable time after they send the papers to me before sending my review back, so that they don't just keep sending me stuff.

 

If you write enough papers and publish them in a journal, the journal will eventually ask you to review for them.

[Mokele]

If you write enough papers and publish them in a journal, the journal will eventually ask you to review for them

 

Ditto, though "enough" can be "one" in my case - if there's next to nobody working on something (in my case, arboreality in something other than primates and anoles), you quickly wind up on reviewer lists for that topic.

[CharonY]

Some journals also actively ask existing reviewers whether they can recommend someone. It is kind of a community service.

[mv]

I usually reject papers due to lack of rigour. For example, they may have calculated a process but forgotten some important contribution. Or they may make an assumption which isn't true.

 

The last one I rejected because it wasn't interesting - minor corrections to an uninteresting process in an unlikely physics scenario. I rejected it on the grounds the Physical Review is supposed to be high impact, so they should send it somewhere else.

 

Hello,

 

What about my article "The Gravitational Isolator" (my discovery/invention) from http://allempl.xtreemhost.com/

Can/should it be submitted for publication to a science journal?

[ajb]

Can/should it be submitted for publication to a science journal?

 

I think not.

[the tree]

Academic papers tend have well, data, in them. Ideally that data should be comprehensive, statistically significant and above all, replicable.

[Mokele]

And results that aren't purely due to sampling error (too low frame rate) and poor camera use (too low shutter speed).

[mv]

Thank you for your answers!

 

Then, I have to wait until I will have the resources to build a better prototype then to use a better camera for more samples ...

However, I thought that the theoretical proof (which is very simple) would be enough to have my discovery recognized and published.

 

Many thanks again!

 

Sincerely yours,

Mihail Vrapcea

[ajb]

However, I thought that the theoretical proof (which is very simple) would be enough to have my discovery recognized and published.

 

There is no indication that you really calculated anything on the webpage you linked to. Have a look at some papers on the arXiv to get a feel for what is required.

[the tree]

But don't be fooled into thinking that everything you see on arXiv is any good.

[ajb]

But don't be fooled into thinking that everything you see on arXiv is any good.

 

Apart from my preprints of course

 

In all seriousness, you are of course right the tree. I hope though, it would give a better understanding of what we mean by a scientific paper. With the understanding it is not peer review.

[ajb]

The referees have now recommended that my paper be published. I have to take into account their reports before submitting a final version.

 

I will update more once it has all gone through.

[ecoli]

My first paper was kicked around for months and months before finally getting published in an open source paper. I'm still proud of it, though.

[ajb]

The paper has now been accepted for publication in Reports on Mathematical Physics.

 

I am pleased.

[StringJunky]

Congratulations AJB...I'm sure you'll go far.