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What are the advantages of publishing a research paper?

Publishing a research paper can have many advantages for researchers, including: Career advancement, professional recognition, opportunities for collaboration, increased visibility, impact on society, credibility and trust, professional development, inspiration for future research, and contribution to the field. It can help researchers to establish themselves as experts in their field, open doors to new opportunities, and contribute to the advancement of knowledge and understanding in a specific field.

• Career Advancement: Publishing a research paper is often a requirement for academic promotions and tenure. It can also help researchers to establish themselves as experts in their field and to gain recognition for their work. This can lead to new opportunities for advancement and can help researchers to build a reputation for high-quality research.
• Professional recognition: Publishing a research paper in a reputable journal can lead to professional recognition and prestige, both within the academic community and outside of it. This can open doors to new opportunities, such as funding, collaborations, and speaking engagements.
• Opportunities for collaboration: Publishing a research paper can lead to opportunities for collaboration with other researchers and institutions, both within the researcher’s field and across different fields. This can help to further the research and accelerate progress.
• Increased visibility: Publishing a research paper can increase visibility for the researcher and their work, which can lead to new opportunities, funding, and collaborations.
• Impact on society: Publishing a research paper can have a positive impact on society by contributing to the advancement of knowledge and understanding in a specific field. This can lead to new discoveries, technologies, and understanding that can improve people’s lives.
• Credibility and trust: Publishing research papers in reputable journals lends credibility to the researcher and the research, and can increase public trust in the researcher and their work. This can help the researcher to secure funding, collaborations, and other opportunities.
• Professional development: Publishing a research paper is a process that requires the researcher to conduct a thorough literature review, to understand the research methodologies and the ethical considerations, it helps the researcher to develop their skills and knowledge in their field.
• Inspiration for future research: Publishing a research paper can inspire future research by identifying gaps in the literature or by suggesting new directions for research. This can help researchers to identify new opportunities for investigation and to stay at the forefront of their field.
• Contribution to the field: Publishing a research paper adds to the body of knowledge in the field. It helps researchers and practitioners to understand the current state of research and knowledge in the field and it helps to advance the field.

Overall, publishing a research paper can be a valuable experience for researchers, providing opportunities for career advancement, professional recognition, collaboration, and impact on society. It can also help researchers to develop their skills and knowledge, and to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their field.

What is the difference between a Research Paper and a Review Paper?

What is doi, what do you need to do during production of your research paper, ways to support your academic wellbeing which preparing the research paper/article, how to improve your research paper writing skills, is doi compulsory to publish a research paper in a journal, in what ways does research paper give weight to career development, how to develop a research paper from scratch, how plagiarism report plays crucial role in research paper publication.

Guide to Getting Published in Journals

• Why publish in journals?
• Identifying potential journals
• Creating a journal comparison spreadsheet
• Aims & Scope
• Editorial Board
• How different journals approach peer review
• Different open access models
• Interpreting traditional metrics like the Impact Factor
• Alternative metrics
• Ethics and malpractice statements
• Recognising and avoiding predatory journals
• Instructions for authors
• Submitting your paper

Introduction

What is a journal? And why is important to publish your work in one? Finding the right journal for your work can make a big difference to the way it is received, so the process of selecting a journal can be an important one.

There are several key benefits to publishing research in journals:

DISCOVERABILITY

• Publishing in journals can give your work visibility among other researchers in your field, outside of your immediate circle of contacts and colleagues.
• Journals can makes your work more discoverable, as they are already being read by circles of interested readers.
• Journals often have sophisticated distribution networks, placing work into libraries, organisations and institutes, and through letterboxes of readers around the world.

CONTRIBUTING TO THE RECORDS OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD

• Journal publication helps to preserve your work in the permanent records of research in the field.
• Adding your work to this record involves you in the active research community for a topic, helping to expand your professional network, increasing potential for collaboration and interaction with peers.
• Publishing your work through visible sources helps others to learn. By adding your experiences to the literature of the field, it helps to build the corpus of knowledge in your subject area.

THE BENEFITS OF PEER REVIEW

• The peer review process helps improve the presentation and communication of research. The feedback can help you to frame your arguments in the most effective ways, and may even present valuable new insights into your own work. In addition, the peer review process can also help you reach peers and senior members of the research community by having journal editors, editorial boards and reviewers read your work.

DISSEMINATION AND IMPACT

• Selecting the appropriate journals can help add information to the public discussion of contemporary topics, beyond academic circles.
• You may be required by funding agencies to publish your work in certain journals, as open access, or meeting other criteria stipulated in your grant award.
• As well as the publication itself, particular journals may help you to engage with audiences, and meet requirements to achieve or provide certain impact metrics, evidence of engagement and interaction with your work.

CAREER ADVANCEMENT

• Publishing in particular journals can be an essential component to advance your career, by meeting necessary assessment criteria and output performance targets.

PREVENTING DUPLICATION OF EFFORT

• And last but by no means least, publishing your work can prevent waste and increase efficiencies, by enabling others to build on your achievements or avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts.

As you can see, your choice of journal can make a significant difference to the impact your paper may have. With much to consider, choosing the right journal for your research is both important and difficult.

The different modules will dig further into the ideas presented here, helping you identify the journals that will maximise the potential in your paper, reach the most appropriate audiences, and enhance your career.

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• Last Updated: Sep 18, 2023 1:28 PM
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National Research Council (US) Committee on Responsibilities of Authorship in the Biological Sciences. Sharing Publication-Related Data and Materials: Responsibilities of Authorship in the Life Sciences. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2003.

Sharing Publication-Related Data and Materials: Responsibilities of Authorship in the Life Sciences.

• Hardcopy Version at National Academies Press

2 The Purpose of Publication and Responsibilities for Sharing

• THE TRADITION OF SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATION

The roots of scholarly scientific publishing can be traced to 1665, when Henry Oldenburg of the British Royal Society established the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society . Oldenburg was motivated, in part, by a desire to remove himself as diplomatic interlocutor between the dispersed, independent scientists of the time with whom he communicated individually. The aim of the new publication was to create a public record of original contributions to knowledge and to encourage scientists to “speak” directly to one another. By providing intellectual credit publicly for innovative claims in natural philosophy, the journal encouraged scientists to disclose knowledge that they might otherwise have kept secret.

The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society created a sense of competition among scientists to be the first to publish a new scientific finding, an incentive that is continued in modern scientific journals. If the journal is a prominent one, publication endows the author with an extra measure of prestige. In addition, as Cell editor Vivian Siegel and other workshop participants noted, publications also yield indirect rewards. For example, they affect a researcher's job prospects and ability to be promoted or gain tenure. Publishing a scientific paper can result in fruitful new scientific collaborations, including financially profitable arrangements for authors in academe, as a result of commercial overtures for collaboration or consultancy.

Publishing also holds some risks for an author. Competitors might use results presented in a paper to advance their own research and “scoop” the original author in future publications. The careers of young scientists might be particularly vulnerable to having prospective research “picked off” by others. (However, if a researcher chooses not to publish his or her results or chooses to delay publication, someone else might publish the same findings first and receive the credit.) Another risk associated with publishing is that other researchers will use information presented in a paper to invalidate or question the author's own findings, and publish conflicting results.

Are the benefits and risks of publishing any different for companies whose investigators publish than those for academic scientists? It was pointed out at the workshop that companies whose scientists publish their findings typically receive the intellectual credit, recognition, and prestige that come with such disclosure to the entire scientific community. Such nonfinancial benefits can translate into increased publicity and increased perceived value of a company to potential investors and business partners. They also strengthen the scientific reputation of companies in the eyes of potential collaborators. By encouraging others to use their methods and materials, companies can develop a net of researchers who are extolling and extending the value of the technology that the company has published. Moreover, companies that encourage their investigators to publish are attractive to employees or potential employees who wish to build and maintain their publication record, either in anticipation of someday returning to academe, as a vehicle for facilitating their participation in and recognition by their peer scientific community, or in buttressing their own career prospects within the company.

For a for-profit research entity, publication also carries financial risks. By revealing proprietary data or other trade secrets, publishing may harm a company's competitiveness in the marketplace and thus endanger the return to investors. A competitor might use information disclosed in a scientific paper to develop a competing product or otherwise gain commercial advantage or to discredit the product claims of the company making the disclosure.

While companies whose scientists publish may worry about their competitive edge in the commercial market, researchers in academe worry about gaining a competitive edge in the rewards process and about getting their research grants renewed. Where academics are rewarded by priority, “fame,” and career advancement, companies whose investigators publish receive benefits in terms of visibility, public relations, and validation. Although there are different tradeoffs involved in publishing, in practice, researchers from these two worlds often have similar goals and are motivated by common incentives. Their common interests converge in the forum of scientific publication.

• PUBLISHING AND COMMUNITY STANDARDS

By facilitating communication between individuals who had worked in isolation from one another, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society also contributed to the development of a scientific community. As a result, modern journals do more than simply register the intellectual accomplishments of individual scientists; they record a collective body of knowledge. Journals are a centerpiece of the scientific enterprise and serve as a focal point for the description of scientific results. Journal articles supply information that helps scientists to develop new hypotheses, and they provide a foundation on which new scientific discoveries and inventions are built. As Eric Lander noted at the workshop, “science is fundamentally a cumulative enterprise. Each new discovery plays the role of one more brick in an edifice.” Authors cite previously published papers to make a case for their conclusions that is based on a combination of previously documented scientific evidence and the new information they have gathered. Scientific journals, many established by learned societies, provide a forum for a continuing dialogue of sorts, as authors discuss findings that add new pieces to others' previously published results or announce alternative conclusions to those made by other authors or contradict them. Science moves forward in this way.

Because publication is central to the activity of the scientific community, and consequently, to scientific progress, principles and standards that govern an author's responsibilities related to publication have always been paramount. As the 1992 National Research Council report Responsible Science observed, “For centuries scientists have relied on each other, on the self correcting mechanisms intrinsic to the nature of science, and on the traditions of their community to safeguard the integrity of the research process. This approach has been successful largely because of the widespread acknowledgement that science cannot work otherwise, and also because high standards and reputation are important to scientists” ( NRC, 1992 ).

Because standards related to publication are so important to the functioning of the community, calls for the publication system to adapt to the different risks of publication to scientists working in different circumstances are not easily implemented. Chapter 5 addresses specific arguments related to exceptions, but in general, applying a standard to some authors and not others weakens the incentive of distinction that has attracted scientists since Oldenburg's day to publish publicly in a journal. When exceptions to the community standard are sought and granted, there is a danger that the value of publishing is diminished, not only for the author who requests an exception, but for the entire community. Moreover, if the same standard does not apply to all authors, then the community cannot assume that the quality of scientific papers and the information they purport to represent is reliable. That jeopardizes the integrity of the publication system.

That is not to say that publication-related community standards are insensitive to other important societal interests, such as protecting the identities of research subjects. Measures to protect that information do affect how data are reported and made available to other investigators; nevertheless, the community has striven to find ways to maximize the availability of relevant data without compromising privacy.

A current topic of discussion in the scientific community is the possibility that published information in the life sciences will be exploited by bioterrorists. It is too early to say where those discussions will lead, but current community standards abide by regulations on access to some research materials (for example, radioisotopes, explosives, controlled substances, and pathogens) for good reason. If additional safeguards are found to be necessary in providing access to research data and materials, the community must make accommodations for them.

Similarly, the community complies with prohibitions imposed by some nations on the distribution of biological materials and organisms collected in those countries. Biological materials that are paleontological, archeological, or anthropological in nature, and sometimes samples of organisms, may by national law be required to be deposited in the country of origin, and even when material is allowed to be exported, there are often legal restrictions on its subsequent distribution and use. For example, the commercial use of such samples may be prohibited or restricted. Nonetheless, all such material is made fully available for study at the repository, and not normally under the control of the authors who published results derived from studying it. The details of the results of the original study, and images, DNA sequences, and other information derived from the specimens, are also made available.

The principles and standards of scientific publication are also consistent with society's interest in the applications of scientific knowledge and their economic and other benefits. An author who publishes a paper is expected to share materials related to that publication to other scientists for research purposes, but that does not prevent an author from seeking intellectual property rights protection in order to realize the commercial value of those materials. To encourage the disclosure of scientific information, the patent system bestows inventors of a novel, nonobvious, and useful innovation with the right, for a limited time, to prevent others from making or using that innovation, unless licensed to do so. Scientific publication provides no such incentive, but to the contrary, encourages other scientists to use and integrate into new research those things described in a scientific publication. An author who publishes a scientific paper describing a patented process, for example, may have a legal right to prevent others from using it, but the scientific community holds the expectation that an author will make available a license to use that process for research. From a social perspective, the two systems are complementary: patenting fosters the commercialization of ideas; scientific publication communicates the ideas that build the edifice of science. Scientific publications also influence the issuance of patent rights by defining the landscape of the “prior art” and “obviousness” criteria used in assessing the novelty of putative patent claims.

• JOURNAL POLICIES AND COMMUNITY STANDARDS

Journals have their own policies that describe an author's responsibilities related to publication and sharing publication-related data and materials. Publishers of journals include for-profit companies and not-for-profit enterprises, such as university presses, scientific societies, and associations, and each publisher is motivated by the intellectual objectives and fiduciary responsibilities of its own constituencies. Journal editors often compete for papers that increase the impact and standing of their journals in the scientific community and their mass media coverage. On occasion, journal editors have been willing to make exceptions to their usual policies on data sharing in return for the opportunity to publish a paper they believe will be of high impact in the scientific community and, increasingly, in the general public.

The extent to which journals state their policies for the sharing of materials and data is highly variable ( Table 2-1 ). That variability and the diverse nature of journals might suggest that common principles and standards do not exist. But even the stated policies of journals do not capture what are generally recognized as accepted practices and expectations of the community. For example, most journals today explicitly require that authors provide enough detail about their materials and methods to allow a qualified reader to replicate all experimental procedures. A logical, often implicit, extension of that requirement is that authors must make available the data and materials needed for others to verify or refute the findings reported in a paper. Thus, for example, in a paper citing genetic results from one or a series of organisms, voucher specimens should be cited and deposited in an appropriate public repository where the identity of the organisms can be checked by subsequent workers (with the obvious exception of well-known and easily-available strains). Insofar that scientific publication is central to the forward progress of the scientific community, it is presumed that an author must provide data and materials in a way that others can build on them. These widely held expectations are not necessarily incorporated in current journal policies.

Policies of 56 Most Frequently Cited Life-Science and Medical Journals.

• THE PRINCIPLES OF PUBLICATION

At the workshop and in its deliberations, the committee attempted to distill the community's most basic interests in the process of publication. It found that a majority of the scientific community held common ideas and values about publication and the role it plays in science, and that those ideas have guided the development of community standards that facilitate the use of scientific information and ensure its quality. Central to those ideas is a concept the committee called “the uniform principle for sharing integral data and materials expeditiously (UPSIDE),” as follows:

Community standards for sharing publication-related data and materials should flow from the general principle that the fundamental purpose of publication of scientific information is to move science forward. More specifically, the act of publishing is a quid pro quo in which authors receive credit and acknowledgment in exchange for disclosure of their scientific findings. An author's obligation is not only to release data and materials to enable others to verify or replicate published findings (as journals already implicitly or explicitly require) but also to provide them in a form on which other scientists can build with further research. All members of the scientific community—whether working in academia, government, or commercial enterprise—share responsibility for upholding community standards as equal participants in the publication system, and all should be equally able to derive benefits from it.

Along with UPSIDE, five additional principles guide the development and implementation of community standards. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss those principles and the nuances of how they are embodied in examples of community standards for sharing data, software, and materials. New community standards are likely to evolve as science itself changes, but the principles remain a fundamental underpinning of the their development. The principles motivate the creation of standards that maximize the value of scientific findings to the community, because this has proved to be the way that science progresses most rapidly. In addition to the principles of publication, Chapters 3 and 4 include the Committee's recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of community standards for sharing data and materials.

• Cite this Page National Research Council (US) Committee on Responsibilities of Authorship in the Biological Sciences. Sharing Publication-Related Data and Materials: Responsibilities of Authorship in the Life Sciences. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2003. 2, The Purpose of Publication and Responsibilities for Sharing.
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The Importance of Academic Publishing and the Open Access Evolution

• Peer Review

Here we discuss the supportive role of academic publishing to scientists, its importance to scientific research, open access publishing, and more.

Updated on February 24, 2022

In this article, we will broadly discuss the role of academic publishing in supporting scientists worldwide. We'll first discuss why publishing scientific research is so important, followed by what journal editors are looking for when publishing research, and then finally concluding with a discussion of Open Access publishing.

Does academic publishing help researchers?

Let's begin by discussing the role of academic publishing. Firstly, is it necessary? How does it help or support researchers? Well, publishing is the final step of the research process. I want to emphasize this point — publishing is an integral (and final) part of research.

It does not matter how important a researcher's results are, if no one knows about them, they'll have no impact. So, it is essential for researchers to communicate their results with others to advance their field.

What do you gain from publishing in a journal?

People often ask me if it is important where researchers publish their results. Definitely. A scientist needs to publish their findings on a platform that is discoverable by others in their field worldwide. The greater the recognition of the platform, the higher the likelihood it will be for people to find and read that research. And that is how scientists improve their impact.

However, with the ease of discoverability on the internet, is it necessary to publish research in academic journals? Can a scientist simply post their results online? That certainly seems much more efficient and easier for the author. And it is. But it is not convenient for readers.

I like to see academic journals like curators at an art museum. Imagine you want to visit art and there are two choices of art museums.

The first has no restrictions; anyone can come in and hang up their artwork. This museum has complete freedom. So, when you walk in, you'll see some high-quality art and some very poor-quality art. Further, as there is no organization, everything is mixed together. So, it would likely take you a long time and a lot of effort to find artworks of interest to you.

The second museum, on the other hand, is curated. Meaning that art professionals inspect the various pieces of art to determine those that are of high quality. Additionally, they group this art by genre or age; e.g., one room will contain Japanese art from the 20th century, while another room will contain French art from the 19th century.

Which museum would you prefer to visit?

Most people would choose the second. Why? It is simply easier. You can quickly view the art that you are interested in, and you can feel confident that the art displayed are high quality works.

That is the role of journals in academic publishing, as curators of the scientific literature. Scientists first submit their work to specific journals (whose scope is related to that topic of research), and the journal editors and peer reviewers ensure that work has the necessary quality and relevance to be published.

In this way, readers can quickly find what they are looking for and feel confident that research will be relevant and useful.

This is the value of academic publishers for the scientific record — they filter and improve what is published. Journal editors are the first line ensuring that the research is suitable for the scope of their journal. This helps to group similar research together that support each other. It also helps readers find studies that are relevant for them.

For example, climate scientists can feel confident that the research published in Nature Climate Change will likely be relevant and interesting for their own research. This helps these researchers save time by not having to search through the internet looking for research.

Regarding improvement, journal editors consult experts in the field — peer reviewers — to evaluate the studies and give recommendations on how that research can be further improved in terms of robustness and transparency. Having these additional insights can make sure that the final published article is of the highest quality and also promotes reproducibility of that research.

Highly selective journals, like those from Nature, have very high standards regarding what they publish. The result of this strict quality control is that readers can feel confident that when they pick up an issue of Nature Cell Biology (or any other Nature title), they'll be reading the latest and most important breakthroughs in their field.

The pros of open access publishing

Do scientists need to be careful of what journals they publish in? Definitely. Over the last 10–15 years, Open Access publishing has gained a lot of attention and popularity. In this publication model, authors may have to pay an article processing charge (APC) after their manuscript is accepted.

In this way, that article will now be freely accessible worldwide for everyone. Because of the interest in making science more transparent and open, many countries and funding agencies worldwide are supporting or even encouraging this publication model.

Open Access has numerous benefits for authors. First, it improves the accessibility of their ideas globally. Many developing countries cannot afford to pay the subscription fees of many scientific journals.

Therefore, their researchers can only read studies that are published Open Access. The more that articles are read, the greater their impact worldwide. And this will improve the international reputation of the author in their field.

The cons of open access: predatory journals

However, some people have seen open access as an opportunity to make money for unsuspecting authors. They set up illegitimate publishing entities to make ‘predatory journals'. These are not true journals in that they do not fit the model described above — they don't filter nor improve the academic literature. Instead, they promise authors quick and easy publication for a fee.

These journals rarely use peer review and simply publish anything that is submitted to them. Not only does this hurt the field by publishing unreviewed research, it also hurts the authors. Because of the poor quality of the journals, they are not indexed by the main databases researchers use to find articles online.

Therefore, if a scientist publishes in one of these ‘predatory journals', their research will not be found. And because authors can only publish their research once, that means this research will be lost to the field and the authors will not receive the impact or recognition they hoped to achieve.

Luckily, authors can easily identify quality Open Access journals. First, they should look for journals published by reputable publishers like Springer Nature, Elsevier, Wiley, etc. They should look for journals with reputable journal editors and editorial board members.

They should also look for journals that are indexed in reputable online databases, such as Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, or Directory of Open Access Journals. Lastly, they should look for journals that do not require payment of an APC until after their manuscript has gone through peer review and has been formally accepted.

In this way, scientists can feel confident that the journal is a high quality and trustworthy platform to share their research.

Academic publishing plays a central role in supporting researchers and advancing scientific progress. We do this by ensuring what is published is relevant for the field and of high quality research.

However, scientists must carefully evaluate potential journals to ensure that the ones they choose are reputable journals that they can trust. In doing so, scientists can feel confident that their research will now have an impact on the advancement of their field and improve their international reputation.

Not sure where to submit your next research article? Try AJE's Journal Recommendation Service .

Jeff Robens is Senior Editorial Development Manager for the Nature Research Academies .

This article originally appeared in Publishing Academy, Nature Digest, Academic Publishing (March 2018, Vol 15 No. 3).

Jeffrey Robens, PhD

Senior Editorial Development Manager, Nature Research Academies

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