Publishing for the first time (or trying to!)

Hi there,

I'm an MA student in literature / culture and wondered if anyone had any advice on publishing for the first time and how to go about it.

To give you an overview of my situation, I had two essays back recently with comments 'this is of publishable quality' and 'this could be turned into an article'. My main questions are:

- Are these just flattering but empty comments?

- How does one go about turning a 5,000-6,000 word essay into an article? Assuming one doesn't just send them off to journals in the field having incorporated the essay comments (or is it that simple / one shouldn't be wary of doing so?)

I'm new to my MA university (and I don't think the academics who marked them would have time / enough of a personal connection to help me with this) so any advice would be appreciated - especially from any grads / PhD students who have already published!

Thanks a lot

It is worth getting in touch with the academics who wrote those comments and seeing what advice they have as they don't need to know you personally to help you to publish something and talking to them will help you to form networks.

Thanks - however as implicit in my message I would also appreciate hearing any advice / about anyone's prior experiences of doing this before I reach out. Thanks!

Hi there,

I'm an MA student in literature / culture and wondered if anyone had any advice on publishing for the first time and how to go about it.

To give you an overview of my situation, I had two essays back recently with comments 'this is of publishable quality' and 'this could be turned into an article'. My main questions are:

- Are these just flattering but empty comments?

- How does one go about turning a 5,000-6,000 word essay into an article? Assuming one doesn't just send them off to journals in the field having incorporated the essay comments (or is it that simple / one shouldn't be wary of doing so?)

I'm new to my MA university (and I don't think the academics who marked them would have time / enough of a personal connection to help me with this) so any advice would be appreciated - especially from any grads / PhD students who have already published!

Thanks a lot

Congratulations on your comments from your article review. These are not flattering comments. Trust me, most people in the academia are not excessive in their comments.

When I first published a conference paper, which has gone on to be submitted to a journal paper, I was extremely elated. Surprised, because I didnt consider the paper anything "serious." Then it was cited by someone in Canada and I actually got convinced that it was a useful paper! It's gone on to be cited by quite a few people.

But it was -so it seems. It ticked the requirements for the conference paper. I guess yours is a journal paper. What I think you should do:

1. Find out from your supervisor the right journal that the article can go to. For some supervisors, the IF is important. For some, it isn't so important.
2. When you have located the journal paper, do some research for similar papers and study them. Then note down the similarities.
3. Make the comparisons between yours and the papers/ the similarities. Note down the aim, objectives, methodology/ research design, length of literature review, contribution to knowledge, etc. Also note down the length of the paper.
From this you will be able to spot what you can do to improve your paper.

4. Write!

All the very best and congratulations on your first paper.

Best Regards,
Cranfield TSR Rep.

Thanks so much for this - I guess from both of your responses it's clear I should reach out to the supervisors...?

From what you've said are you describing a more science / social science paper (with literature review/methodology)? In my field articles tend to be much more in the form of a flowing essay and @alleycat393 if I understood correctly re: co-authorship I don't think that's really commonplace from what I see

One last thing - what does IF mean?

Thanks!