Thoughts about academic publishing

My history in publishing and editing• Publishing (1983-present)

• > 170 peer-reviewed papers (incl. Science, Nature, PNAS)• 65 reviews of books or software• 34 book chapters, technical reports, popular articles• 3 books ( + 3 under contract)• 2 op-eds (Nature World View, Seattle Times)• 1 science fiction story (Nature Futures)• 1 creative-writing essay (in Forest Under Story)

• Editing (1994-present)• Ecological Society of America

• Chair, Committee on future of electronic data (1994-1996)• Founding editor, Ecological Archives (1997-2001)• Associate editor-in-chief, Ecology (2002-2010)• Editor-in-chief, Ecological Monographs (2009-2015)

• Botanical Society of America• Associate editor (1995-2004)

• Other• Ecology Letters (Associate Editor)• Peer-reviewer for dozens of journals, book publishers, funding agencies

(average: 1 review/month)

Key considerations

1. A good story2. Know your audience3. Your own considerations4. The publishing world (choosing a journal)5. Writing

1. Submission2. Review3. Acceptance4. Visibility

Key considerations

1. A good story• Theory/idea• Data• Conclusions• Summarized easily (press-release, Twitter/Weibo)

Key considerations

2. Know your audience• Who do you want to read your paper?• Where do they get their information from?• How is that information packaged?

• Scientific paper• General article• Popular press• On-line only• Visualization

Key considerations

3. Your own considerations• Ego and identity

• https://orcid.org/• Traditional metrics (journal-based)

• Impact factor• Immediacy• Five-year impact factor• Half-life

Key considerations

3. Your own considerations• Ego and identity

• https://orcid.org/• Traditional metrics (journal-based)

• Impact factor• Immediacy• Five-year impact factor• Half-life

• Altmetrics (article-based)• https://www.altmetrics.org

• http://www.harzing.com/resources/publish-or-perish• https://impactstory.org

Key considerations

4. The publishing world (it’s an ecosystem!)• Societies, self-publishing, and non-profits• Commercial (for-profit) journals (Elsevier, Springer, Kluwer…)• Commercial-society hybrids (ESA, ESC, Wiley-Ecology)• Open access publishers

• Legitimate• Predatory

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_open_access_publishing), (https://scholarlyoa.com/2015/01/02/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers-2015/)

• Grey• Preprints

• arXiv (http://arxiv.org), bioRxiv (http://www.bioarxiv.org), PeerJ(https://peerj.com/preprints/?journal=peerj), DASH (https://dash.harvard.edu)…

Key considerations

5. Writing• Writing is a craft – work at it!

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different worlds on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” (--Annie Proulx)

• Read good writing• Work with friends, colleagues, translators, editors• Rewrite, edit, polish; rewrite, edit, polish…• Repeat…• The Elements of Style (W. Strunk & E.B. White) is indispensable.

• Originality and citation• Avoid duplicate publication• Avoid plagiarism

• One example: https://www.plagiarismsoftware.net/• Other examples of misconduct

• http://retractionwatch.com/

Submitting a manuscript

• Manuscript• Work with professional editors and translators• Use the active voice (reflects responsibility)• Pay attention to guidelines and formatting instructions! (bibliographic

management software simplifies this task)• Avoid “data not shown”. Make data and code available!

(http://datadryad.org, http://figshare.com, institutional repositories, https://github.com …)

• Cover letter• It matters, but more at some journals than others• Often requires short summary, “tweets”, or highlights

• Suggested editors and reviewers• Often required, rarely used (or useful)

Review process

• Different levels of review: rejection or acceptance can occur at any level

• Editor-in-chief• Editorial board / Handling editor• Peer reviewers

• Almost everything gets rejected!• Be emotionally prepared• Move on quickly (revise, reformat, resubmit)

• Respond quickly to requests from journals

Acceptance

• Copy-edits (only some journals)• Page proofs/galley proofs (48-hour response)• Embargoes (who benefits?)• Online (or online-before-print)• Data and code available• Press releases and outreach (#scicomm)

Maintain visibility

• Know your workplace expectations:• Academia: Journals, book chapters, books… Publish or

perish Publish or vanish• Governmental agencies & NGOs: White papers, reports,

… Focus is on the mission; report on time. Clearance often required for op-eds, public presentations, etc.

• Private sector: Deliverables. What does your boss want? Be flexible and always ready to change, but be principled

• Consulting: The client is (almost) always right.

• Website? Social media? Watch out!