There was a workshop for PhD students at the conference of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) ‘Practicing Science and Technology, Performing the Social’ held in Trento, Italy 2nd – 4th September, 2010. (http://events.unitn.it/en/easst010). At one session, five senior researchers and journal editors (Giuseppina Pellegrino, Paolo Magaudda, Lucy Suchman, Maggie Mort and Miquel Domènech) answered questions concerning about journal paper writing in STS. I have found their experiences, insights and comments helpful and worthy of dissemination. Below are some notes that I have taken:
Which journals?
1. Submit to journals YOU find interesting. To write for a journal means entering into discourse with a community. And you would like to talk with people you find interesting and help you grow. Prestigious journals might not necessarily be where you want to submit just because it is prestigious.
2. Don’t succumb to ‘citation index’, ‘impact factor’. Journal paper publishing (as academic achievement) is being judged by beaucratic measurements. However, the community should get together to push back some of these often unproductive pressures.
What to write?
3. Spin out from one topic. Although most PhD students only work on one topic, you can still write about issues of theories, methodologies, and perspectives that you have considered.
4. Spin out to suit different journals. Every journal has different foci and hot topics, write to cater to these differences.
How to write?
5. Write collaboratively. You will learn a lot…even as a third author.
6. Write for a different field with allies. Every field has a set of criteria or paradigm to judge research papers, and this makes it often very difficult to write for a foreign field. It is helpful to write with a friendly ally in the foreign field who is sympathetic with your view.
7. Connect local issues with global concerns. If your topic is very specific to a locality, make sure you draw meanings and values from your research for a greater audience.
8. Don’t give up on major revision. After having written a journal paper only to get a ‘Major Revision’ is disheartening. But it is also an opportunity for learning and improving.