Publishing a research article

Publishing a research article

Publishing a research article is a core milestone of your professional journey. Researchers make huge strides to advance crucial knowledge. Research article publication has remained a talk of discussion in the contemporary world of academics. Journal article publishing results from scientific research processes, which have saved many lives and improved the way in which people live. However, it is only by publishing a research article that you can shed light on the issues affecting humanity.

Types of Research Articles that you can Publish

As a scholar dedicated to publishing a journal article, it is important to familiarize yourself with different types of articles that can be published by journals. There are several types of articles that can be accepted for publication. When intending to publish a journal article, there are steps that must be followed to ensure success in your endeavor.

Full Articles

One of the research articles that you can be accepted for publication is a full article. This type of publication contains a significant data, detail, developments and outcome. This is the most common type of article that academic scholars publish. Before publishing a research article of this type, the researcher is required to carefully select a topic, construct objectives/hypotheses, decide the methodology, collect data, analyze it and interpret the findings. You may consider reading the whole process of extracting and publishing this type of research article here. When publishing a research article, the author needs to know the route to getting published in a reputable journal and submit the work for purposes of publishing. Regardless of this type of article exhibiting widespread complexity in the preparation process, publishing it is the best way of enhancing one’s professional qualification.

Full articles are usually published as scientific journals from thorough research. When writing a full research article, there is a procedure that you need to follow:

1. Decide that your want to publish a research article

2. Identify the problem that you want to address through your intended article publication.

3. Prepare a research proposal with objectives/research questions and hypothesis.

4. Specify the methodology and justify it.

5. Carry out the actual study.

6. Analyze data.

7. Present the findings.

After following the above steps, you will present your full article to a publisher, who will again subject it to a thorough review process to determine if the article can be published in scientific journal. Remember to clarify the basic sections of a full research paper including:

1. Introduction

2. Literature review

3. Methods

4. Results

5. Discussion

6. Conclusion and discussions.

Review Papers

The second category under who a research paper can be published is a review papers. In journal article publication, review papers are meant to summarize a recent development in a given topic without introducing a new data. The main role of a review paper is succinctly reviewing a recent progress in a given or concept that is of interest. In publishing a research article of this type, you are required to summarize the current state of knowledge of your chosen topic. Your purpose should revolve around enhancing the understanding of the topic for readers through a clearer presentation and discussion of the findings from recent research papers. Scholars engaging in publishing review articles tend to structure their work into introduction, body, conclusion, future directions and literature.

However, it is not professional to use heading such as ‘body of the paper’; use actual concepts or ideas presented in the section of the research article as topic headings. Most publishing firms publish review papers alongside journals. Therefore, scholars seeking to grow their careers through publishing a research article are encouraged to write and submit reviews. This is because these are published rapidly because they elicit discussions.

Prior to writing a review article, check the journal and find out if they accept unsolicited reviews. This is especially when you want to write a review, but you have not been invited by the journal. You may find that the publishing journal website has not mentioned whether reviews are commissioned. In this case, you need to send a pre-submission inquiry letter to the journal editor proposing that you intend to write a review of a manuscript. This will save your time rather than spending time writing an article that will never be published.

Letters and Rapid Communications

Publishing a research article can further be achieved through writing letters and rapid or short communications. The intention of publishing letters and rapid communications is to quickly and timely communicate significant or original advances. However, this type of articles do not include too much data or detail. Letters and rapid communication are in most cases considered full, but shortened forms of publications although some scholars view them as not influencing the impact factor.

Specific Research Elements

Publishing a journal article may also take the form specific elements such as software, methods, videos or a brief overview of citable articles. The most common published articles of this nature include methods or methodologies. Publishing a methods or methodologies article involves presenting a new experimental method, test or procedure explaining vividly how investigation of a given phenomenon can be carried out. In some cases, the methods described may be completely new or may take the form of a bettered version of an existing methodologies approach. When publishing a research article based on mythologies or methods, you are expected to describe an advance of what is currently available in a demonstrative way. This type of research articles are used to inform scholars about advances in research methods, approaches and techniques.

Case Studies  

Publishing a case study involves researching into the development of a particular person, group, or situation over a given period of time. A more precise description of a case study is that it is an intensive study about a person, a group of people or unit that is aimed at being generalized to similar units. For example, you can create a case about IBM Corporate service corps and submit it for publishing. Most of these cases provide a background for researchers especially at the problem statement stages because they identify what is happening and what is happening in regard to the research phenomena.

Promoting Your Published Article

Publishing a research article and leaving it in the depository will not enable you to achieve your goal. After publishing your article, you need to promote. A publishing site will give you a link that you will share with your friends in social media and other online platforms. If you can afford, you may consider requesting for printed copies to sell or freely share with your potential readers. The more the readers you attract, the more you will be cited. The number of citations you have is a clear indication of how effective your article is to the scholarly world. There are several strategies that you can use to promote your published article. These include:

1. Sharing your work across the social networks.

2. Updating your personal profile on professional sites to reflect your newly published work.

3. Make use of research-sharing platforms such as ResearchGate, Mendeley and Academia.edu.

4. Creating your Google Scholar profile or enhancing your current profile to make it more appealing.

5. Creating a blog about your newly published article to enhance the visibility of your work to greater audience.

6. Ensuring your work is shareable and your outputs discoverable by making the outputs in a community of repositories.

7. Creating a unique ORCID identifier to distinguish you from other researchers.

In the course of preparing and publishing a research article, make sure to maintain a good language quality. A scientifically written article reports findings and conclusions as concisely as possible. An article that can be accepted for publishing should be kept simple (avoid unnecessary words). Read more about journal article publishing requirements in this article. Moreover, consider using active writing rather than passive voice, and maintain the necessary tense because a mix up tenses may spur confusions.

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