Getting Yourself Published

Presenter

Dr. Muhammad Mudasar Ghafoor

M.B.A., M.Phil (Management Sciences) Pakistan,

PhD United Kingdom

Incharge/Assistant Professor
Department Of Commerce, University of the Punjab,
Gujranwala Campus

20th October 2015

 Will it be all on the slides?

• “Knowledge is experience – everything else is just

information”.

• The slides will have all the information on them, but

the real knowledge comes with what you do during
this Lecture.
 Lecture Aims

• To help you to get into print more easily or

efficiently.

• To maximise your hit rate with journal editors.

• To help your University/Organization to further

enhance its reputation as a source of scholarship and
expertise.
 Intended Lecture outcomes
After participating in this Lecture, you will be
better able to:
1. Confront constructively any writing-avoidance
tactics which may be holding you up.
2. Adapt your tone and style to write effectively for
different target audiences.
3. Get started on the planning of a new piece of
writing.
4. Increase your hit-rate with journal editors.
5. Make your writing more efficient and enjoyable.
6. Gain feedback on your ideas from a variety of
sources.
 Writing for publication: the ten most
important words

• Why? • Which?
• What? • So what?
• Who? • Wow?
• Where? And the most powerful
• When? four-letter word in the
• How? English language...
????
 Writing for publication: the ten most important
words

 Why? (rationale)  Which? (decisions)

 What? (content)  So what?
 Who? (people, you, (importance?)
me, them)  Wow? (impact?)
 Where? (locations) And the most powerful
 When? (times) four-letter word in the
English language...
 How? (processes)
????
 Danger!

AWAT
Advanced writing avoidance tactic
 Organising your writing…
Jot down your immediate gut responses to the following
questions..

1. Where will you (or do you) do your writing?

2. When (time of day) do you do your writing?
3. How long does it take you to actually put pen to
paper, or fingers to keyboard?
4. Who knows about your writing plans?
5. Jot down (in hours or minutes) what you think is a
sensible minimum element of time which could be
used to make some progress with your writing for
publication.
6. How many times, per week, does this time element
become available to you?
 Making time …

• We are all busy people – too busy!

• Yet ‘if you want a job done well, give it to a busy

person’.

• How do prolific writers manage to do it?

• By using the odd 5-minutes which keep turning up,

rather than waiting for the solid 2-hours which never
occur.
 Urgent versus important

Urgent
2
Urgent but not
Urgent and important
important
3

Not important Important

Life’s too short!

Neither important Important but non-urgent
nor urgent
1

Non-urgent
 Getting started…

If you don’t start, you certainly won’t finish.

Phil’s first law of task management:

“Most things get done, well enough, in the last 10% of

the available time.

Therefore, most things could have been done, even

better, in the first 10% of the available time”.
 But…

Phil’s 2nd law of task management:

If it will only take five minutes of less, do it now!

This saves handling it ever again.
 Getting started: lay an egg...

• Draw an egg in the middle of a blank sheet of paper.

• Write in the egg keywords of the topic or draft title

that you’re going to be writing about.

• Start brainstorming ideas and questions.

 Getting started: lay an egg...

1 6 4
7

X-1
Title
keywords X

3 2
5
 Capture your ‘btwivi..’ and ‘cityvs’ moments

• While sharing ideas on your writing plans, note

particularly when you explain to someone…

• ‘but that’s what is very interesting…’ as this will be

something important to convey with passion and
enthusiasm in your writing itself
• And…

• ‘can I tell you very simply….’ which may be good

practice for how to introduce your writing.
 WIRMI and WIIFM?

• WIRMI

‘What I really mean is….’

• WIIFM?

‘What’s in it for me?’ i.e. the reader, editor, publisher,

target audience…
 Identifying your target audience 1…
• What is the specific audience for this piece of
writing?

• What kinds of people will want to read what you are

writing?

• How will this audience benefit from the work?

• What is the right medium for this audience?

• What is the right level for this audience?

 Identifying your target audience 2…

• What kind of language does the focus merit?

• What are the likely backgrounds of the audience?

• What prior knowledge does the audience have of this

subject?

• Will the audience understand your point of view?

• What kinds of things are important to this audience?

 Target audiences

• Stick an orange post-it onto your egg diagram.

• List on this various primary and secondary target
audiences for this piece of writing, e.g.

– Editor
– Referee
– Reader
– Other kinds of target audience for the same topic…
 For the editor or referee...jot down:

1. Name
2. What kind of person is this?
3. What makes them tick?
4. What do they hate?
5. Why are they reading your piece?
6. What’s in it for them – what are they going to get out
of your piece?
 Addressing these seven factors in our efforts to
get published…
• It helps a great deal if we really want to write and get
published.
• We can take ownership of our need to get published,
reminding ourselves of ‘what’s in it for me?’.
• Writing is improved most by simply keeping doing it, with
plenty of practice, trial and error, repetition.
• We can deliberately use our writing to make sense of what
we are studying or researching.
• It is vital to make sure that we get feedback on what we are
doing, writing and thinking.
• We can enhance our writing by practising explaining, or
coaching or teaching – to anyone who will listen.
• We can develop the quality of our writing by making
informed judgements on our own, and other peoples’
writing.
 How to cope with rejection
• Everyone gets rejected.
• It wasn’t you who was rejected, it was just that lousy
paper you wrote!
• Give yourself time to cool down.
• Find out (gently) why:
– From the editor/reviewer if possible
– From friends and colleagues
• Turn the feedback into ‘next time I’ll...’ action plans.
• Look carefully at the feedback six months later – it
will be much more useful then.
 The journal editor’s agenda…
• Will it survive the 5-minute test?

• Is the purpose clear?

• Does the purpose match the journal’s?

• Are the key points quick to spot?

• Do the key points link to the purpose?
• Does the author know why it’s important?
• Is it readable?

• Does it follow the housestyle (to the letter!!)

• Will it create a lot of work for me?
What are the points that make a manuscript immediately
appealing to you? Ten most important points chosen by
editors:
1. Professional appearance: how it looks.
2. New/novel treatment of the subject
3. Very thorough.
4. Author guidelines followed.
5. Good writing clarity and style.
6. Relevance of subject.
7. Title of manuscript.
8. High-quality abstract.
9. Seminal piece of work/research.
10. A controversial subject.
 Ten most common reasons for immediately
rejecting a manuscript...
1. Author guidelines not followed.
2. Not thorough.
3. Bad writing: clarity and style.
4. Subject of no interest to readers.
5. Poor statistics, tables, figures.
6 Old subject / manuscript.
7 Unprofessional appearance.
8 Title of manuscript.
9 Too simple - ‘reporting’.
10 Written at the wrong level.
Referees and reviewers look for the following in
manuscripts:

 Clarity, coherence, well-written.

 Thoroughness.
 Research method.
 Appropriateness to the journal.
 A unique contribution.
 Advancement of knowledge.
 Importance of subject
 Generalisability and validity of results.
 Timeliness.
 Most common advice given by editors when
rejecting...
• Write clearly, logically and sequentially.

• Study and follow the author guidelines.

• Have the manuscript critiqued before submission.

• Think what readers want to know, not what you want

to say.

• Be a stickler for detail.

 Getting the title right…
• Please jot down three possible titles for the piece
you’re thinking of writing…

1. One ‘normal’ title;

2. One ‘off the wall’ title;
3. One fairly normal one, but with a twist in it.

• Now please read out each of the titles, and everyone

else ‘vote’ for which one you prefer as a reader –
• Two hands – favourite
• One hand – second favourite
• No hands – least favourite
 Now turn these outcomes into a draft Abstract

• “This article ……
 What was your first verb?
• Offers an illustration of…
• Focuses on…
• Challenges the paradigm of..
• Describes how…
• Describes the effects of…
• Reviews the recent advances in..
• Analyses the impact of…
• Successfully demonstrates the use of
• Presents a novel method of …
• Reports, compares and correlates the phenomena of…
• Reports on the results of…
• Assesses the influence of…
 What can I do when?
1. I’ve got 40 pages and I need 25?

2. I don’t get constructive criticism from senior co-

author or supervisor?

3. I lack confidence?

4. Ideas have moved on from what I’ve already written?

5. My paper has run out of momentum?

 Intended Lecture outcomes
After participating in this workshop, you will
be better able to:
1. Confront constructively any writing-avoidance
tactics which may be holding you up.
2. Adapt your tone and style to write effectively for
different target audiences.
3. Get started on the planning of a new piece of
writing.
4. Increase your hit-rate with journal editors.
5. Make your writing more efficient and enjoyable.
6. Gain feedback on your ideas from a variety of
sources.
Thanks