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Publish or Perish?
Jacqui Ewart Planning your
Planning your Academic Publishing Journey
Publish or Perish?
Jacqui Ewart Jacqui Ewart Griffith University Nathan, QLD, AustraliaISBN 978-981-99-5901-3
ISBN 978-981-99-5902-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5902-0
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
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To Dean my warrior poet for sustaining our magic while you dealt with your dilemmas and the people who have made your journey beyond challenging. Sometimes there is a little light in the darkness—let’s move towards it.
Planning Your Academic Publishing Journey: Publish or Perish? is for those new to academia and those who might want to shift the focus of their research and publishing. It is also a resource for academics wanting to develop or expand their mentoring of early career academics. It is not intended to be a deep dive into the literature about academic publishing—you are equipped to find that material yourself. Rather, it has been informed by personal experience and many conversations with academic friends, colleagues, and others over an academic career of more than two decades— they have often been accompanied by laughter and occasionally by tears. This book is designed to help readers avoid the perils and pitfalls of academic publishing. You can dip into this book when a question arises about a particular type of publication or a specific issue associated with academic publishing. If your academic journey is just beginning you may want to read it from the beginning to the end to gain a comprehensive introduction to what is involved in the publishing aspect of academic work.
Planning your Academic Publishing Journey: Publish or Perish? arose from what was initially a casual conversation with my friend and colleague Dr Christine Feldman-Barrett. Our conversation meandered around the academic publishing landscape and wound up with some questions about specific aspects of publishing. My friend commented that she wished she had known the answers to those questions before she wrote her books. I thought that it would be great if early career researchers and first-time book authors had a ready reference manual that would assist them through the labyrinth of the academic publishing world. Thus, the seed for this book was planted.
Planning your Academic Publishing Journey: Publish or Perish? is a natural progression from a book I conceptualised and then lead authored called Managing Your Academic Research Project, published in 2020 by Springer. The book you are now reading and its forerunner, were driven by a desire to help those entering academia to navigate the sometimes-choppy waters of academic research and publishing. It can be difficult to find good mentors in academia, and this book is about helping early career researchers and those who find themselves stuck in a rut with the need to reboot their publishing careers.
Over the course of your career as an academic you will probably work for more than one university and therefore approaching your academic working life as a career requires that your mindset is about working for you will be important. This will include building your research and publishing trajectory to mirror what you want to see not what others want you to do. As academics we should always be learning, but we may not recognise some of the most important lessons when they occur. In any academic publishing career, there will be many of the latter movements. There will also be difficult conversations, bad behaviour, colleagues who fail to live up to their promises, but there will also be the ah ha moments, the colleague who delivers on time every time, the joy of brining a publication to fruition—these experiences equip you to better handle the adversity and the privilege that comes with working as an academic. Some of the matters raised in this book are mentioned more than once because they are crucial to a smooth academic journey.
I hope this book will help in those moments in your publishing trajectory where you might find yourself saying “I never thought this would happen”. Expecting the unexpected is crucial in publishing and having a backup plan for when things go wrong is important. Importantly, you should determine the journey you take when it comes to the research and publishing elements of your academic work. Run your own race. Stay in your lane. Find your people. Follow your passions.
The time to write this book was in part facilitated by a period of research leave provided by Griffith University’s School of Humanities, Languages, and Social Sciences in 2022. I extend my appreciation to the Griffith Criminology Institute for its ongoing support. A special thanks to Dr Christine Feldman-Barrett—one of our conversations led to this book.
Early in the writing of this book, I decided to anonymise the people who shared the stories included in it. Not everyone who contributed had negative experiences in relation to publishing or co-authoring, but some did, and it was important to treat everyone the same way for consistency. I was keenly aware that those who shared sometimes funny, dire, and terrible stories may have faced repercussions if their names were attached to their full and very frank accounts of academic life. It was important to ensure their safety and my heartfelt thanks to those who gave so generously of their time to be interviewed. Your kindness is a precious thing in the world of academia. You know who you are and how much I value your help.
Thanks to the tools and the fools whose bad behaviour inspired me to help others. They do not deserve the ink that has been wasted on them, but I find it hard to resist temptation. Nemo me impune lacessit (no one attacks me with impunity).
I extend my appreciation to the anonymous reviewers for their comments on the proposal and full manuscript which strengthened the book. A note to reviewer 2—no you were not that reviewer!
To my warrior poet who interrupted me when I needed to be interrupted, who left me to write in peace when I needed to do so and whose love is as awe-inspiring as a Scottish battle. Thank you, D, for the ring of Scottish thistles that you have grown around us. Your love is inspiring every moment of every day.
The interviews undertaken for this project had ethics approval from Griffith University (GU Ref No: 2021/728). They add a variety of voices and experiences to this book to demonstrate the wide and varied nature of academic publishing journeys.
Jacqui Ewart is a professor at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. She is a former journalist and communication professional. Her research focuses on public communication in the various phases of disasters and extreme climate change events, community emergence during crises and disasters, news media coverage of Muslims and Islam and public attitudes towards Muslims. She has authored, co-authored, and edited seven other books. She has led major research projects and has won awards for her journalism and her academic work. Her approach to academic life is to assist others through books such as this one and others she has written.
ECA Early Career Academic
ECR Early Career Researcher
ERA Excellence in Research Australia
MCR Mid-Career Researcher
REF Research Excellence Framework
Global South is used in this book to replace terms such as developing countries and non-Western Countries. Global North is used to replace terms such as developed countries and Western countries.
Abstract This chapter provides an overview of the book, how it is structured, how to use it, some of the key motivations for writing it. It sets the stage and context for the book by offering an overview of the fraught publishing terrain that academics face. It explains why publishing is important for academics, no matter the stage of their career. Readers are reminded that there are some key principles of publishing that remain the same regardless of the changing environments and contexts that characterise current publishing and academic settings. It raises some of the challenges academics face, whether they be new to academia or experienced researchers and authors. This chapter explains why planning publications is crucial for academics. There is a detailed description of the contents of each chapter so that readers can see how each chapter logically flows from that which goes before it. It is a roadmap for readers. It highlights that readers need to be conversant with the requirements of their own fields because not all disciplines and fields have the same expectations in respect to publication outputs.
Every journey should begin with a plan, however well, loosely, or ill conceived. When I go on a road trip, I plan my route and I pack water and my favourite sweet Dinosaurs treats. I make sure I have a USB or the CD stacker full of my favourite road tripping tunes. These elements are essential for a successful journey, but before I gather these favourites, I ensure my car has been serviced, the tyres are at the correct pressure and the car is fully fuelled. I do this every time I take a new road excursion and so too should you with your academic publishing plan. Devoting some time to planning what you will write and submit for publication every year will set a clear pathway for you. Reviewing how each of the publications you plan to write fit with your overall plan is essential.
This is not a self-help book for academics. Neither is it a book about how to write academic publications as there are libraries and book shops full of those sorts of books. It is a book about how to plan and approach publishing across your academic
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
J. Ewart, Planning your Academic Publishing Journey, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5902-0_1
career. It is designed to help you craft a publishing plan, while also considering, and catering for the issues that might arise in the course of your academic journey.
Let us begin by addressing the elephant in the title, specifically the subtitle of this book Publish or Perish? The publish or perish maxim or perhaps more fittingly, dictum characterises much of academic publishing. The addition of the question mark after the sub-title of this book is there to remind the reader that the publish or perish mantra that has pervaded academia for decades need not be a case of success or failure. The pressure to publish, or to reconsider whether an academic career is for you, has ramped up over the past decade or so as neoliberalism has pervaded universities. As two of the reviewers of the proposal for this book pointed out, universities now operate within a context of rampant managerialism. This widespread managerialism pervades almost every corner of academic life if we let it. Bottrell and Keating (2019) highlight in their chapter titled Academic Wellbeing under Rampant Managerialism: From Neoliberal to Critical Resilience published in the edited collection Resisting Neoliberalism in Higher Education (Volume 1), that there is a form of cognitive dissonance in universities. They explain that this cognitive dissonance revolves around university discourses that on the one hand emphasise staff wellbeing, with every second academic referred to counselling and well-being services that have been outsourced to external providers, while on the other hand focusing on compliance, academic productivity, and institutional performance. Productivity for many academics in universities in the Global North centres on how much grant funding individuals gain within a set period and to a lesser degree how many journal articles or books they have been able to produce. For those in universities in countries in the Global South, the pressures can be remarkably different, with little or no workload allocated for publishing or research related activities, leaving academics who wish to pursue such scholarly activities with little choice but to use their own time to do so. Of course, many academics located in institutions in the Global North also find research and publishing eating into their leisure or family time, as rampant managerialism demands staff be available 24 h a day seven days a week to answer to students and administrators. Colleagues around the world have shared stories about how this has manifested, with administrators calling them on weekends and while they are on annual or sick leave to insist that they complete administrative tasks or respond to student queries. Our time is increasingly at risk of not being our own.
If you have made it this far into this book you may be nodding in agreement or hunting through job advertisements to find where your calling is outside of the academy. Despite the tendency amongst university management to want to count everything—the number of books and journal articles academics publish annually and as some colleagues have disturbingly reported time taken for toilet breaks— you can ostensibly play the numbers game while running your own race. When I first joined academia, a colleague said two things to me that have been helpful in dealing with the managerialism that has increasingly pervaded universities. The first piece of advice was that you do not work for university X, you work for yourself. These words have resonated over the years for me and my colleagues, as the pressure to meet university goals have at times threatened to over-ride our own professional aspirations and interrupted our academic journey. The second piece of sage advice my
colleague provided was that you should always see yourself as part of an international community of academics, not as an academic working in what for me was at the time a small, regional Australian university. Despite the rampant managerialism pervading neo-liberal universities, many academics have managed not only to survive but to thrive. Somehow, they have kept their vision of research that matters and makes a difference intact and alive. They have managed to walk the precarious line between what Bottrell and Keating (2019) describe as the need for academics to maintain a commitment to emancipatory projects and their institution’s obsession with employee productivity and institutional performance. While a lot of academic research is based on socially responsible principles, it is increasingly difficult to enact social responsibility in the post-modern university with the challenges academics face including managerialism and the neo-liberal context of higher education. Despite this, the imperative remains to make a difference by getting your research out to the world, whether it is to an audience of academics, industry, government, or non-government bodies.
The world of academic publishing can initially appear to be difficult terrain for those new to it and the rapidly changing landscape of publishing presents new challenges for those who are old hands at publishing journal articles, books, and edited collections. This book is not meant to be an exhaustive review of literature and research about academic publishing. You are well equipped to locate that material yourself. Rather, much of the information, advice, and hints contained in this book are drawn from me and my colleagues’ involvement with academic publishing. In writing this book I have drawn on the many weird, wonderful, funny, and sometimes horrendous stories my colleagues (de-identified for their safety) have shared with me during the two decades that I have worked as an academic. Their stories about theirs and others experiences with academic publishing illuminate a world with which some readers will be unfamiliar but will want to know about. I acknowledge that I have only worked in universities in Australia and recognise the context here is quite different than for example in a university in Nigeria or in many other academic institutions in the world. I have included perspectives on key issues that colleagues at universities face in the Global South through interviews with some of them. I also note that the disciplines in which I work, humanities and social sciences, are very different than those of science, education, medicine, and technology. In writing this book I have tried to cater for the diversity in academic disciplines and experiences. To that end I have occasionally drawn on the literature and my colleagues’ advice and experiences. Despite the rampant managerialism, the neo-liberal context, and the flow on effects, there is enormous privilege in working in universities. Many academics employed in the higher education sector are ostensibly allocated time to research and prepare journal articles or books for publication, while others are not. Despite the pressures this entails, there can be much joy in this work for academics. It is important to
acknowledge that the academic publishing industry is just that—an industry. Parts of that industry make millions from the often-unpaid labour of academics. Many aspects of the academic publishing industry are designed primarily to suit academics working in Global North universities. The proliferation of journals published in English puts those whose first, second or third language is not English at significant disadvantage. Another problem for many scholars is the political environment in which they work because that can have negative ramifications for their work as public intellectuals. For example, it can restrict their ability to speak publicly about their research or the social, economic, and cultural conditions of the country in which they work for fear of sometimes brutal repercussions such as the loss of their job, jailing, torture, or being ‘disappeared’. Many women face a range of issues in addition to those experienced by their male colleagues including family and caring responsibilities, pregnancy and birth, work conditions and expectations that are not conducive to them, marginalisation in some disciplines and difficulties in gaining positions on significant, influential university level committees. They often start their careers later in life due to raising children and shortly after beginning their careers find they have to care for elderly relatives. While their personal situations are often difficult many women are expected to serve on the lower-level departmental committees and take on entry level management roles that men are unwilling to do because it would hamper their ability to research and publish. Female academics often deprioritised their careers so that their husbands or partners can pursue their own calling.
For some academics, particularly those in the very early stages of their careers, the complexities of academic publishing may seem overwhelming. Not all the information in this book will be pertinent to every reader, but if you are starting out on your academic journey, some sections may become relevant as you progress through your career. Academic publishing can be a jungle and you might feel like a bug about to be swallowed by the immensity of the beast. This book is presented so that you can dip into it when and as you need to, or you can read the entire text.
If you are at the start of your academic career looking for guidance about how to plan your publishing career, this book will hopefully provide a path to follow. Sound advice can be difficult to find when you are first starting out on your academic journey. More than a decade ago I instigated a regular get together for Early Career Researchers at my university to provide attendees with support for various aspects of their research careers. Those sessions involved panels of senior researchers discussing a set topic. At the time I was aware that just like my own publishing career, those of many senior academics had not been planned, rather it had ‘just happened’ for them. Many academics have progressed through their careers by taking advantage of research and publishing opportunities as they have arisen and have not necessarily been guided by a carefully considered plan. However, by the beginning of the second decade of this century it had become obvious to me, some 14 years into
my career as a full-time academic work, that the demands of universities, funding bodies and industry partners meant that it would no longer be possible to muddle through without a plan. Paradoxically, many of my senior colleagues who have somehow made it through the publishing and research maze, have stellar publishing careers and have risen to lofty heights within the academy. However, if you are entering academia now, it is vital to have a carefully crafted plan that covers your research focus, the planning and management of your publishing trajectory and, most importantly, a well-crafted research and publishing story for tenure, promotion, and research funding applications. Many universities now ask academic staff or those who have a dedicated research workload to prepare a three-to-five-year research and publishing plan. To further complicate your publishing journey many institutions have introduced a series of guidelines, expectations or benchmarks related to publishing outputs. These determine whether you are research active or whether your workload will shift to intensive teaching. They prescribe how many grants, publications and higher degree research student completions staff must have in a set time frame to be deemed research active. Woe betide those who fall below those benchmarks or what might be deemed acceptable output and achievement levels for a particular discipline.
Along with the aforementioned expectations, we are now in an environment where competition for funding has increased exponentially, meaning that many research active academics are driven by the institution’s need to attract external and nationally competitive funding. However, it is a Catch 22 situation—funding will be difficult to secure without a strong, competitive publication record; and you will not be able to develop a strong, competitive publication record unless you have had grants to collect data from which to publish. Seemingly more bizarre is the need to have held competitive grants to gain competitive grants. Those who enter academia through traditional pathways such as completing a Ph.D. and gaining a full-time tenure track position, which is increasingly rare, will have published during their doctoral candidature and so will be in a slightly better position than those whose entry into the academy is not so traditional. For example, professionals who transition to academia may be bewildered by the demands they face when it comes to publishing. Nobody is exempt. Early Career Academics will have to learn how to navigate the complex and sometimes opposing discourses within academic institutions. These include competing perspectives about what is important at any given time. Some may feel that academics should prioritise teaching, while others will put the emphasis on research, grant applications and publications. There are also those academics who will shift into administrative roles which often means leaving behind their own research and publishing or finding time on weekends to continue that work.
Although more established, senior academics who are research active, may appear to have more wiggle room in these processes, they also face pressures to bring teams
together to apply for and obtain competitive grant funding. It may appear to the lesser experienced academic that the spotlight shines on the glory of the professors who bring in the big bucks, but it is only a momentary gleam. In the grant game it used to be that you were only good as your last successful funding application, but now you are only as good as your next successful funding bid. This goes to the heightened expectations for continued success in attracting external, nationally, or internationally competitive research funding. In other words, one big grant is not enough across a career. The expectation is multiple grants over the lifespan of an academic’s career. The research active academic is always looking to the next grant, the next funding application, and the next project.
By now readers, especially those in the early stages of their academic careers, might be wondering whether it is worthwhile continuing in this profession or whether to chuck it all in and try to find where their skills set fits in the ‘real world’. Some may be tempted to consider moving to a deserted island and using their limited life skills to opt out while leading a sustainable lifestyle. While the situation may appear dire, I hope this book will help readers to come to terms with and manage the various and often-competing demands of the part of academic life that is publishing, whether it be journal articles, books, or book chapters. It may also be useful when you are trying to corral a group of unruly scholars to provide a chapter or a journal article for an edited collection or special edition of a journal.
Many of us know from bitter experience, that the best laid plans can go awry. That is why building contingencies into your academic publishing plan is crucial. You may not get that grant that you applied for and while you might decide to rework it, you will need to think about the other steps that you are going to take to ensure your publication outputs continue and that they build up your case for the awarding of funding. That is why it is best to have a plan A, B, C and D, just in case.
This book is not about how to write academic articles, books, conference papers, although it does touch on those matters tangentially. It is not about planning your research although those matters are raised in the context of planning your publications. It is not about how to write a journal article because there are plenty of books that take you through that process. This book assumes that the reader knows how to write academically and for an academic audience. While some might think that is a huge assumption, given some of the articles they have refereed over time, there are plenty of resources available including vlogs, blogs, journal articles and books about how to write academic articles and there is no intention to replicate that work
here. Rather, this book is about how to plan your publishing trajectory and how to execute that plan. Each chapter starts with a series of short tips condensed from the content of the chapter, so that readers can easily locate the relevant chapter if they do not have time to read the whole book. This book is structured so that readers can dip into it to find a quick answer to their question, or they can read it at length if they are new to academia and wanting to wise themselves up about the pitfalls and perils of publishing while also planning their publication journey.
Academic publishing has gone through several revolutions, and it will continue to change. This does not change the good practices that underpin academic publishing, such as rigour and the need for ethical approaches to authoring and co-authoring publications. Formats and styles change, the way findings are presented also vary, but each scholar must continue to find their own reason for publishing whether that is to drive their career forward, to maintain their current paid employment or to bring about change in the world.
Chapter 2 explores a range of foundational issues that should underpin your approach to academic publishing and your journey through it. Some readers may be tempted to skip this chapter, but it includes some pointed questions that you need to consider answering before you launch into, or reconfigure, your academic publishing pathway. Key amongst these is the issue of ethics, and that doesn’t refer to ethics clearances granted by universities and research partners. Rather, it is about your own ethics in publishing, working with others, dealing with publishers, and navigating the fraught and complex academic publishing world. It asks some difficult questions about who you are as a person and as a scholar. In other words, it prompts you to think about your story. Knowing what your story is and being able to vocalise it, will help to underpin your approach to research and publishing. This goes to the concept of your story. This is about not only knowing what your story is as an academic but the importance of being able to effectively communicate it. It is essential that you can effectively communicate your story to other scholars within and outside of your discipline and to non-academic audiences.
Chapter 2 explores how academics communicate their stories within and across disciplines, and publicly. Publicly communicating your story and your research is critical. Brian Cox, a former musician who is now a professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester and presenter of popular science programs on television, provides a strong example and role model for public communication. Knowing what your story is and being able to convey it in a way that is appropriate for the target audience, will help keep you on your academic publishing pathway. Ask yourself how the publication you are planning to write today will contribute to your story. Some people might approach their story by thinking of the key messages that inform it, or for others it might be t-shirt slogans that form the basis of their story. Professor Tara Brabazon (2018a), whose vlogs and scholarship provide support and inspiration for postgraduate students and those in the early stages of their academic careers puts it this way “What are the t-shirt slogans of your life?”. This chapter discusses some of the broader issues that inform academic publishing including questions about why we research and publish, which also go to the matter of the t-shirt slogans of your life. Planning your publishing journey will help you to address the often heard lament
that it is difficult if not impossible to find time to write. Additionally, this chapter explores the competing tensions between publishing to satisfy the managerialists and producing knowledge that matters, that makes a difference and contributes to society. The focus here is not just on being a public intellectual, which is important, but making a real-world difference with your research. It explores how academics can position their research by focussing on the important problems and issues at the heart of that research. This chapter will draw on some examples of academic work that has made a difference to illustrate the aforementioned concepts.
Academics in different disciplines and national contexts experience varying conditions when it comes to workloads, research, and publishing. The challenges experienced by those working in the Global South will be discussed. There is a discussion of the Anglophile nature of publishing, metrics and the issues and difficulties that raises for academics publishing in their second, third or fourth language and how this can lead to some academics seeking alternative platforms through which to publish and disseminate their research to those who matter, for example government, policy makers and practitioners. The expectation of publishing in English will be dealt with as will the challenges faced by those whose first, second or third language is not English and the consequences for those facing the Anglophile academic publishing world.
Chapter 3 deals with the big picture; planning your academic publishing journey. It provides a roadmap to keep you on track. It reflects on the current state of academic publishing and how academics at different stages of their careers can negotiate this sometimes-precarious landscape. It encourages researchers to think about their story and ensure that story underpins and informs their publishing plan. Critically, this chapter focuses on your story, the one that you want to tell with your research and in doing so it builds on the concept of your story as introduced in Chapter 2.The word your is emphasised for several reasons because it is not anyone else’s story or management’s ideas or wacky notions about what you should be publishing. Across the scope of academic life, I have heard some strange stories about ECRs who were told what they should or should not research and publish by those determined to advance their own careers and interests at the expense of the new academic. Many of the benefits of being an academic have been worn away over the past decades as economic imperatives have influenced universities, but one of the few benefits left that we should protect is being able to pursue your passions when it comes to research. I have also seen academics turn their hobbies, such as collecting antique jewellery or mountain climbing, into the focus of their research and publishing endeavours. Being strategic as to how you talk about and discuss your research is crucial. If your research is about one of your hobbies, being able to make the connection between researching aspects of your favourite pastime of mountain climbing, such as the history of the local mountains you climb, and the value of those mountains to cultural tourism is now more crucial than ever before.
As your career progresses your research publishing pathway will become more complicated, and it will probably involve juggling multiple projects and publication outputs simultaneously. This is where it will be useful to have a multi-storey car park in your mind, with a soft (digital) or a hard copy format (something as simple
as a whiteboard or tabbed sectioned large format notebook) to keep track of these publications. These formats can take you from conceptualisation to completion of a proposed publication. The format you keep this in will depend on how you like to work and manage your publications. These matters and more are covered in this chapter including mining your research for multiple publications, understanding the university environment and your own pathway, and navigating between the two and considering policies that influence your publishing plan. It explores the competing tensions between the race to secure grant funding and the desire of academics to publish and provides tips on how to manage those demands. Finally, the differences between outputs and outcomes are covered because this goes to the impact of your research and publications.
Chapter 4 moves into more pragmatic territory—that of choosing a publisher and a publication outlet. In the past decade or so the publishing landscape has changed dramatically, with an increase in open access publishing options and an intensification in the number and voracity of predatory publishers. Coupled with this, some academics feel that some aspects of academic publishing models are broken. Academic publication is largely funded by employers i.e., universities, or is funded by academics working extra hours outside of paid employment. Many publishers have ceased paying royalties preferring to offer small gratuities with part payment on completion and submission of book manuscripts and another payment on publication. While open access publishing can subvert some of the brokenness that characterises much of the academic publishing industry, it is also fraught with problems including journals and publishers that masquerade as open access but have hidden fees for publication. However, there are publishers who approach academic publishing as a way of supporting and enabling the careers of those new to academia and those still establishing their careers. The choice of publisher will differ throughout the various stages of your career. It will depend on the audience you want to reach and what you want to achieve with the publication. This chapter looks at an issue closely tied to publishing, that is metrics and impact factors. There are different kinds of metrics and different types of impacts, with industry connections and social and economic impacts now foremost amongst academics’ concerns. This is discussed in the context of thinking about your plan for publishing and who you will publish with, but it is also part of the bigger picture for you because metrics and impact measures will no doubt continue to change and evolve over time. Other types of impact are considered including that created by working with industry and government and publishing in industry and trade publications.
The next series of issues covered in this book including authorship, co-authoring, and sharing data, are amongst the most rewarding, but also the most fraught and the most difficult with which to deal. The benefits, pitfalls and perils of collaborating are explored in Chapter 5. It discusses how to handle that moment when a colleague you like says “hey why don’t we write a book together” or “I’ve got a great idea for a themed edition of Journal X that we could co-edit”. Every academic will have a different approach to dealing with moments such as these. Deciding early on in your career how you are going to manage these types of requests will help you avoid some of the perils, while capitalising on the enormous benefits of working
with someone you respect and trust to meet deadlines and obligations. The rules of authorship are explored, including protocols that help you avoid being ‘ripped off’, mistreated and having the wool pulled over your eyes by someone who has more power than you or who mounts a seemingly convincing argument as to why their name should go first on a co-authored article when you did all the hard intellectual slog associated with it. There are ‘rules’ around these matters that may be discipline specific, but the general principles of fairness, recognition of intellectual input and being ethical when co-authoring should apply regardless of discipline. These ‘rules’ should also apply whether you are an ECR, a more established academic, or a Ph.D., student traversing the rough terrain of publishing. It is also useful to be aware of and familiarise yourself with your institution’s policies and procedures when it comes to co-authoring. Nothing stops a predatory colleague looking to score a co-authorship or lead authorship of a publication faster than a junior colleague who casually responds to intimidation subtle or otherwise by citing the relevant policies and procedures. It can be immensely useful to know the relevant policies ‘inside out’ if you find yourself in the unenviable position of having to deal with fall outs with collaborators, minor or otherwise. This might involve a colleague who decides they would like to take all that amazing data you collected and analysed to publish a book without involving you. It is important to remember that if you have done nothing wrong, have acted ethically and followed policy and procedures and any written agreements you have made with collaborators, that you will be able to fight underhanded attempts to claim your data and cut you out of co-publication opportunities. This chapter concludes with a discussion of written co-authoring agreements.
After dealing with many of the big picture issues when it comes to your academic publishing career, this book turns to the matter of shorter publications. Chapter 6 deals with journal articles, and book chapters including those produced for special collections, as well as turning conference and symposia papers into publications. It discusses how to make the most out of your research data. When I was some years into my academic career, a colleague asked me how I managed to publish so much. I somewhat jokingly responded that I was the Queen of the themes. What I meant by this was that when I first start thinking about a research project, I consider the types of themes that might arise given the research questions. That approach allows me to starting thinking about how these themes might become the focus of a journal article, book chapter, or book. This chapter explores the crucial question of which journal to target, that is which journal will be the right fit for your article. The process of choosing a journal will change depending on the stage of your career. In the early stages of your career publication is an important aspect of risk management. You need to be aware of the risks associated with publishing in journals of different quality and that there are potentially long lead times for top ranked journals, which is important when mapping and developing your career path. It will take you through some of the key factors that should inform your decision about the choice of journal for your article and considers various types of publications and how they are prioritised and de-prioritised across disciplines.
This chapter also looks at how to make your teaching count when it comes to publishing. There are some academics who focus solely on producing publications
about innovations in their teaching, or about their activities and fantastic projects based around Work Integrated Learning (WIL). One of my colleagues, Dr Faith Valencia-Forrester, has dedicated much of her academic career to Work Integrated Learning and I explore how she has embedded research in learning and teaching which has led to publications (see for example Valencia-Forrester & Backhaus, 2021; Valencia-Forrester, 2020).
From short articles to lengthy publications, Chapter 7 turns to the publication of books as part of the process of managing your academic publishing career. Books matter, despite what some people might tell you. They are a magnificent showcase for original knowledge and in that respect can make a wonderful contribution to your field. This chapter deals with the question of why you would choose to write a book rather than a series of journal articles from your research project. It then delves into the rewarding and sometimes fraught territory of editing books, that is collections whose chapters are based around a common theme. I use the word fraught because of the many considerations and difficulties that editors can encounter. However, bringing a group of top international scholars together can have many benefits and it can be an enjoyable experience. From edited collections, the book moves to examining the ins and outs of proposing and bringing together special themed editions of journals. While there is a significant workload attached to such projects and often little recognition of this within many universities, these activities are opportunities to facilitate connections with, grow and create new networks amongst high profile international scholars. This chapter also discusses the meaning and importance or otherwise of books in different disciplines.
Chapter 8 deals with a range of matters involved in publishing some of which could be referred to as the ‘hidden workload of publishing’. This chapter explores the extras that are involving in publishing. This includes choosing titles for your publications and why titles matter. It delves into the dreaded peer review process, discusses how to deal with Reviewer 2 and how to respond to problematic reviews. This chapter also discusses how you can be constructive when you are invited to review a journal article, book chapter or book. It tackles how to deal with that article—the one that has been rejected several times and what approaches you can take towards getting it published. It covers managing activities such as editing, allocating and managing time to review page proofs and corrections, and how to fix things when they go wrong. Issues around artwork, photos and graphics negotiating copyright and approvals are explored. This chapter concludes with a brief discussion of mentoring, how to get support and provide support in return in the context of an academic publishing career.
Chapter 9 moves away from the minutiae of your academic publishing career and it returns to the big picture of how to manage your publishing profile. In other words, how do you brand and sell yourself effectively in an over-crowded market. This relates closely to the earlier discussion in this book about your story because how you tell your story will be intimately tied up to how you talk about and promote your publications. If you can clarify the benefits and impacts of your research findings, as detailed in your publications that will help enormously when promoting them. This chapter discusses what you can do to assist in publicising your publications including the types of support publishers offer. It also examines the other types of
writing and activities that can be used to disseminate your research and publications, such as opinion pieces for news and other specialist publication sites. This chapter looks at how to pitch an idea for an opinion piece and how to tie your piece to current events to increase the likelihood of publication. It examines what Brabazon (2018b) calls the “author platform” and describes as “the capacity for an author to be known so that their name sells books”. Brabazon explains that the author platform shows who you are and how you connect to specific audiences. It is “your connection, your authentic relationship with a readership” (Brabazon, 2018b). In investigating what the author platform is and how you can develop yours, this chapter also examines how you can use social media to promote your publications. It delves into creating your personal brand, networking, using social media as part of your academic publishing career. It will look at other means of disseminating research findings including blogs and vlogs, which can be useful for academics including those in the Global South. The chapter discusses the benefits and pitfalls of academic self-publishing including reports for industry, position papers and rapid responses such as research briefs. It also highlights the variations in approaches to this type of publishing between disciplines, regions, and countries.
Chapter 10 ‘Putting it all together’ completes the jigsaw puzzle that is managing your academic publishing career. While it acknowledges the variations in approach to academic publishing across disciplines and countries, this chapter provides some final advice including publishing in a pandemic. This is because in the early stages of planning this book the world was in the first few years of COVID-19 with associated lock downs, travel restrictions and bans on in-person gatherings. This had significant effects on some researcher’s careers including their ability to gather data and ultimately for some, to publish. It then turns to where this book has taken you and where you still have to go in a looking back to look forward approach. This chapter talks about reconfiguring, re-orienting, and recalibrating your publishing career pathway along with learning from past mistakes and most importantly celebrating your successes. Finally, I discuss why money matters. This might seem like an odd note on which to finish this book, but many of the precariat rely on royalties to top up their sessional casual teaching and research assistant work. While true open access publishing is important, many who are at the earlier stages of their careers will need to publish with top international publishers who do not always pay royalties.
Having a publishing plan is an essential element for academic success, although it is not the only element you need. Knowing where you are going and how to get there is, like the road trips I like to take, requires careful consideration and planning. That does not mean you should never divert from your plan, some of the best journeys are those that end up in unexpected places.
Bottrell, D., & Keating, M. (2019). Academic wellbeing under rampant managerialism: From neoliberal to critical resilience. In D. Bottrell & C. Manathunga (Eds.), Resisitng neoliberalism in higher education Volume 1: Seeing through the cracks (Vol. 1, pp. 157–178). Palgrave Macmillan.
Brabazon, T. (2018a). Vlog 129: What’s your story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBP_U6Z wgAU&t=1045s. Accessed 29 Sept 2018.
Brabazon, T. (2018b). Vlog 124: Author platform https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjX77f Vn5KA&t=32s. Accessed 20 Sept 2018.
Valencia-Forrester, F. (2020). Models of work-integrated learning in journalism education. Journalism Studies, 21(5), 697–712.
Valencia-Forrester, F., & Backhaus, B. (2021). Widening participation in service learning. In E. Sengupta, & P. Blessinger (Eds.), International perspectives in social justice programs at the institutional and community levels (Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Vol. 37 ) (pp. 77–88). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Abstract A range of foundational issues are covered in this chapter. These are the foundations that should underpin your approach to academic publishing and your journey through it. There are some important questions that readers need to consider before developing an academic publishing plan. To this end this chapter introduces the concept of your story, that is not only knowing what you story is as an academic but the importance of being able to effectively communicate your story. It provides examples of how this works in practice across different disciplines. It provokes the reader into thinking about their own story. Knowing what your story is and being able to vocalise it will help to underpin your approach to research and publishing. Another element that underpins your story is your ethical principles and ethics are explored from the perspective of how an academic’s ethics inform their relationships with others when co-authoring and publishing. Additionally, tensions can be experienced in the competing need to publishing for career purposes and to produce knowledge that matters, makes a difference, and contributes to society. This chapter discusses ways of managing these pressures. The focus here is not just on being a public intellectual, which is important, but making a real-world difference with your research. As such this chapter explores how academics can think about their research and what real-world problems and issues it addresses.
Key Points
. Apply the ‘pay yourself first’ principle
. Do not let other people create a fork in your pathway
. Stick to your own agenda
. Research, write and publish what you are passionate about
. Treat others as you would like to be treated.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
J. Ewart, Planning your Academic Publishing Journey, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5902-0_2
Welcome to academia. I want to start by destroying any misconceptions you may have about academic life. Most academics are not working together towards a common cause. There is little hand holding in academia. In fact, if an academic is holding your hand, it will more than likely be to ensure you stay in their line of sight, under their control and that you don’t reach for the stars. Many academics are often unhappy people at risk of burn out working in institutions that are poorly managed. My academic colleagues around the world have shared accounts of how they and others have been bullied and the appalling mismanagement of such cases, in some cases leading to extremes such as academics taking their own lives. It can be a bleak, soul sucking environment. It can be very easy to focus on the negatives—too much teaching, a heavy administration load, email overload, bullying, narcissistic personalities, and colleagues’ bad behaviour—all at the expense of getting on with the research and letting the world know about the results of your latest study or investigation.
It is possible to survive the toxic environments that increasingly characterise universities if you identify and undertake work that you are passionate about and find pride in doing. However, there may be times when the only solution is to move institutions or countries. Teaching can be rewarding and a source in which to find satisfaction in bringing up the next generation of scholars and it can be a source of material to write and publish about. Research can also provide much to be proud about, whether it be a discovery that changes the world, study findings that make a difference to the way practitioners do their jobs, a new or improved process, a gadget that will reduce pollution or a project that helps to solve a vexing social problem. Other academic activity such as service to the community or your profession can also provide inspiration. This chapter will help you to see your way past some of the obstacles that you will encounter. While much of what occurs in academic is not in your control, the way you respond to it is up to you. It will help you to think about the foundations of your work and life as an academic. This will underpin the development or progression of your academic publishing journey. Often the academic context and the environment present what can appear to be barriers to developing and maintaining a successful publishing pathway. Taking control of what you can control will help you to navigate the sometime rough terrain of academia.
This chapter focuses on four key foundation stones of your academic publishing journey: publishing imperatives; telling your story; t-shirt slogans of your life; and ethical matters. After dealing with these foundational matters the chapter concludes with a short but important discussion of the role of planning in publishing.
There are competing and sometimes conflicting tensions that drive the imperative to publish. These will not always serve your interests, although they may be presented as being beneficial to you. Getting published is not the only imperative for many academics. Universities engage in counting the number of refereed publications (journal articles, book chapters, books etc.) and academic’s research productivity are judged on the resultant count along with grant income. Activities such as Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) and Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the United Kingdom mean grant income is important, as is the ranking and impact of journals in which academics publish. These exercises also focus on the impact of research and academics must provide evidence of that as well. Management in some universities have tried to shift academics’ focus towards specific outputs through these exercises. In the early days of the ERA exercise in Australia I heard an academic manager informing an academic historian that books did not matter and that they should shift their publishing to journal articles in highly ranked journals because were the publications that would count. The historian nodded sagely and went back to writing their 15th book knowing that the goalposts would shift again in a few years.
The problem with such exercises is that early career academics can find themselves directed, or pushed, into a research and publishing pathway that is designed to meet the institution’s mandate only to find that several years into their career that they have lost their passion and are writing merely for the sake of producing the types of outputs valued by their institution and not necessarily their discipline or themselves. For beginning academics, it can feel impossible to push back against, or ignore these institutional and national mandates. Some may consider forging their own journey to be a Career Limiting Move (CLM). At these times, reflecting on your story can help to fend off the foolhardiness and temporality that characterises some of these exercises. Mid-career and senior academics can also find themselves on unstable ground when arguing against institutional mandates or ignoring them and pursuing their own pathway. Publishing imperatives depend on the context of the university for which you work. For example, a colleague in a Central African university says that time for research is largely theoretical, that is academics in his country are expected to research and publish but are allocated minimal time which is often take up by unexpected activities that suddenly become a priority for the university. This is not an uncommon experience. Tensions between university priorities and academic mandates are common. An academic from a Middle Eastern university elaborates on the tensions that exist between academics and their institutions:
Academic excellence is not just research excellence and not just teaching excellence. No, there are other dimensions that have to be taken into account regarding the role of academics in society, and you [universities] are abandoning these roles. You don’t give them any value, but this is institutional, this is this is deeply the consensus within the academic administration. But no, they don’t want that because it brings them trouble. When academics go out into the public and speak their mind, often confronting government, often confronting public opinion that that brings a whole lot of trouble to the academic institutions. And they are cowards.
They try to avoid it as plague, but nonetheless it’s an important role of the universities.
(Middle Eastern scholar)
This scholar’s comments reveal the multiple roles that academics are required to fulfill while also highlighting the underlying tensions around them.
If a primary motivation or part of your story is to make a difference by sharing your findings with others, then you will be more secure in pursuing a publishing pathway that is relevant and appropriate for you. Sharing research with industry, government, communities, and non-government organisations may be, and many academics would say should be, your primary motive in publishing. Solving the problems and challenges that the professions, industry, government, non-government, and businesses face can be highly rewarding. As public intellectuals we have a duty to share our knowledge, research findings and outcomes with various publics, particularly those who might benefit from that knowledge. Some academics remain mired in a publishing for publishing’s sake mindset, as if that is the beginning and end goal of research.
However, it is important to think about publishing in a different way. Research is about the questions that help inform our thinking about the social, economic, and scientific problems. It is informed by considerations such as who should benefit from the knowledge we produce, how we share that knowledge with others and the contributions we want to make to society. I’m certainly not advocating any sort of self-help movement for academics; in fact, I ardently loathe self-help books. Many of these types of books and the movements that spring up in their wake ignore social, economic, and cultural contexts not to mention power relations, that make changing one’s life for the better unachievable no matter how hard an individual might try to follow the advice in these types of books. Many of our colleagues working in universities in the Global South do not have the time to research and publish and no end of self-help books will make a difference to that situation.
This book cannot cover every single institutional, disciplinary or the various contexts that characterise working as an academic in international universities. I hope it helps you to inform you about what is important and what you value in publishing. It is up to you to locate and understand the value of publishing in your discipline, while also understanding the institutional, national, and international contexts of higher education and how they work to influence and inform your research and publishing pathway. The value of academic publishing varies across institutions and countries. What is important for you as a scholar is that you know about these contexts but that you don’t let them rule or derail your story. The way you craft a narrative about your research is a type of public relations exercise. If you can craft your research and publication story in a way that is not at odds with the institutional context, you may be able to continue happily on your publishing pathway with relatively little interference.
The reality is that there are other factors and associated tensions that drive the publishing imperative including the desire to climb the academic ladder by securing that next promotion, and eventually making it to the pinnacle of full professor. For many academics in the Global South, these factors present significant impediments
to publishing. For example, a study of the experiences of academics at a Sri Lankan university (de Silva, 2022) highlights that the pressure to publish from their research had positive and negative effects on them. It also revealed some of the barriers to publishing quality outputs including resources, university culture, a lack of knowledge about publishing opportunities and incentive programs that could affect the quality of publications by encouraging sub-standard outputs. Pressure to publish can also vary within disciplines. In science the quality of publications matters as Petersen et al. (2013) highlight this in their discussion of the development of a tool to assess the impact of the quality and quantity of publications produced by scientists. They find (2013: 15316) that in science reputation is based on factors such as the perceived quality of a publication and “decisions made based on those perceptions” which were closely linked to citation numbers.
In addition to the aforementioned pressures there is increasing insistence that academics need to attract grant funding which requires that academics have a publication track record. There are other reasons for publishing such as producing knowledge not just for the sake of it, but to make a difference. That is not to say that knowledge for knowledge’s sake is not a worthy pursuit because it can lay the foundations for great change. Publishing your research findings can make a difference, not just for the university’s purposes or to achieve that next promotion. For example, scientists from various universities clearly have made a difference during the COVID19 pandemic, developing and testing vaccines in an extremely time and politically pressured environment. Oxford University scientists were involved in developing the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine (see https://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/covid-19-vaccines). As with many vaccines the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was not without controversy, but the contribution that academic scientists made to the development and ultimately the availability of COVID-19 vaccines is enormous and highlights the important role of academic research.
Making a difference through research is not only the domain of the sciences. Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences can also make real-world differences. For example, a project I co-led called Reporting Islam, had significant outcomes in relation to Australian journalists’ knowledge of Muslims and their faith and best practice in reporting stories. The project was designed to assist journalists working for Australian news media organisations and journalism students towards more informed reporting on stories about Muslims and their faith. The research embedded in the project in the form of pre and post training session tests showed an immediate improvement in their knowledge of Muslims and Islam and of what constituted best practice in reporting associated stories following the training. That project was underpinned by the international research, interviews with journalists and journalism educators, and case studies of news media coverage of Islam and Muslims. It was about addressing problematic reportage which many Muslims felt contributed to social divisiveness. Other researchers have moved into producing podcasts about their research or interviews with those who bring solutions to social issues. Research that makes a difference is now highly valued within and outside the academy.
While distributing research findings through traditional academic publications is part of the work of many academics, it can be quite a lengthy process. Some academics
speed up the process of distributing their findings by publishing summaries of their results in publications that are directed at industry and government. Others make their findings available through commentary pieces in online publications so that industry and members of the public can read about their work. In both cases, if your research has not been published in peer reviewed journals or other academic publications you should make it clear to readers that your findings have not been peer reviewed. The value of these types of non-academic publications is that they can be published by researchers anywhere in the world and may include blogs, vlogs, public commentary on news sites, and briefing papers. There is potential for such publications to make a significant impact on industry and government, including on policy makers and practitioners. They should be written in plain, simple language because they are largely for a non-academic audience. Their style and tone are also important and must be relevant to the readers.
When it comes to publishing in journals, there are real hurdles for academics working in universities in the Global South. Many journals published in the Global North focus on studies relevant to Europe and the USA, while also publishing in English. This can create barriers for those wanting to publish from research undertaken in the Global South. Political contexts can have a negative effect which manifests in the spurious rejection of publications submitted to international journals by academics in countries such as Israel and Russia. This is despite many academics lack of support for, and vehement opposition, to government policies such as the occupation of Gaza Strip and the war on Ukraine. While politics and science are not supposed to mix, many academics in Israel feel they are out of contention when it comes to international funding opportunities due to the political climate in their country. For many of those entering academia, the situation is made more difficult by the political situation in some countries, for example in Israel some people are not able to attend university or are seriously disadvantaged in their attempts to do so. For those hoping to develop an academic career this type of situation is further complicated by reduced investment in higher education and the contingent precarious employment situation.
There are several useful books for academics located in the Global South that provide insights into the broader contexts of these environments and how to manage the impacts of them on their academic work including publishing. Global Academic Publishing Policies, Perspectives and Pedagogies (2017) edited by Theresa Lillis, and Mary Jane Curry discusses the state of academic publishing across languages and countries, providing advice about responses to pressures to publish in English and strategies for those whose first language is English in publishing. Another useful work is The Sociolinguistics of Academic Publishing: Language and the Practices of Homo Academicus (2017) written by Linus Salo, which examines sociolinguistics and academic publishing from a historical and current viewpoint. It provides case studies of Swedish academics in the disciplines of history and psychology and has a useful discussion of publishing and funding models and associated pressures on academic life. Additionally, Suresh Canagarajah’s A Geopolitics of Academic Writing (2002) is a thoughtful analysis of the geopolitical and economic conditions of academic writing in the Global South with attention to the effects this has on the
availability and circulation of knowledge. He critiques the approach journals in the Global North take to publishing, highlighting how this locks out or exploits those in the Global South. That book is useful for those scholars in the Global South in thinking about the conditions of their work and how to deal them.
The kind of academic you are matters. How you treat others matters. These things matter because they go to the heart of who you are as a person and how you behave as an academic. They form the foundations of your story as an academic. Knowing your story and how to tell it, is not about some strange motivational or cult-like approach to academic life. It is not about being mindful or any other mis-used and mis-applied term appropriated from an Eastern religion on a whim and bandied about in an esoteric way. Being aware of contexts, situations, other people and how you are interacting with them is vital. Your story is fundamental to understanding how you underpin the way you approach working with others and your research. It is about your perspective and your journey. Universities are riddled with people who want to co-opt your story. Run your own race. Focus on your own story. The story you tell yourself about your own research and publishing journey, how that fits within the rest of your academic work and how it fits with your life is important. Brabazon (2018) asks three key questions that are integral to forming your story. I have slightly altered the last question slightly to reflect that this book is for those who are post-Ph.D., and in the early or mid-stages of their academic careers. They are: What is your fuel? What is your engine? What propels you in your life and your research? Brabazon describes the answers to these questions as the t-shirt slogans of your life. The t-shirt slogans of your life are the principles that underpin it, as Brabazon (2018) explains:
What are your values? And indeed, what do you value? This is not the story that you tell other people. This is not the story that you tell people on a date, like tell me your life story, this is not this stuff, it’s not the story that you tell at a job interview, this is much more honest, much more important, this is the story that you tell yourself. And yes, whatever story you are telling yourself it can change, it can transform.
The last point in this quote is very important—it is about the possibility of transformation. Over the course of an academic career, your research and publishing trajectory will change. Your pathway may diverge from your plan, so too will the way you tell your story as you progress through your career. Your story won’t necessarily be the same when you are doing your Ph.D. as when you are a full professor. Elements of it, and the foundations of it, may remain intact but the journey will change your story.
Determining your story means asking yourself some important questions. What drives you?; Why are you doing this research?; Why do you want the world to know about it? It is useful to consider two additional questions: So what and who cares.