Scholarly publishing questions addressed with 'Manuscript Accepted!'
The recent symposium on scholarly publishing offered helpful "how-to" tips for campus authors
Publishing is one of the most important activities we will do as scholars, but we rarely, if ever, actually learn about how to publish as part of our official graduate education. Instead, it's just one of those things we pick up as we go, learning by stumbling through it.
That's why the University Libraries and Graduate Student Association (GSA) decided to host "Manuscript Accepted!", a one-day symposium on scholarly publishing. On Feb. 12, more than 65 graduate students and early career faculty joined us to learn from and talk with University experts and publishing representatives about how the publishing process works.
Throughout the day, topics ranged from how to handle problems between co-authors to how to respond to peer review feedback to dealing with new forms of publishing like open access.
Our panelists and presenters offered great advice, including:
● Develop a network of people who will give you honest feedback
● Aim for the journal that's the best fit for your work - not necessarily the biggest or most well-known one
● Have an agreement in place at the start of a project with all your co-authors
● Even if you decide to withdraw your article and submit elsewhere after negative reviews, you should still address those comments - many places will use the same reviewers as others
Some of the biggest scholarly publishers - including Emerald, Elsevier, IEEE, SAGE Publishing, and Wiley - sent representatives to attend and speak at our event. However, we were especially excited to tap into the scholarly expertise on our own campus, from faculty who have served as editors for a number of journals to newer authors who know the roadblocks that those just starting out have to face. For example, Professor Markus Kemmelmeier, associate editor of two journals and editorial board member for four other peer-reviewed journals, spoke on a panel with other distinguished faculty and answered numerous questions from attendees on what it is like to work with faculty journal editors.
We also have experts at the University Libraries who can help you navigate publishing as well, such as how to find potential journals to publish in, what new data sharing policies mean, or just providing space to get your dissertation writing in gear. The GSA also provides workshops on a variety of topics that can help get you on track for your research, publishing, and future job searches. Check what the Knowledge Center and GSA have to offer or schedule a workshop. We also plan to offer this symposium again and the planning committee is excited to hear what other topics are of interest to our students, faculty, and staff. Please contact Teresa Schultz at teresas@unr.edu or Veronica Zepeda at vzepeda@unr.edu if you have suggestions on future symposium topics.
