1. Journeys into journals: publishing for the new professional
Angharad Roberts
Lead Editor, Library and Information Research
28 October 2016

3. Library and Information Research
Research Into Practice in Information and Library Services.
- publishes research accessible to, and usable by, the LIS community;
- encourages reporting of research by practitioners;
- encourages reflective and evidence-based practice;
- publishes papers resulting from LIRG annual awards and prizes;
- promotes the use and understanding of quality research methods.
Open Access – no processing charges.
3 issues per year, including 1 special issue each year.
Digitised archive from 1993 onwards.

4. This session... Why get involved in publishing? What roles are there?
Writing for publication:
Where and what to publish
Peer review and assessment criteria
Editing
Writing tips

5. Why get involved in publishing?

6. Why get involved in publishing?
Share best practice
Build the evidence base
Tell your story
Start a debate
Learn from others
Develop new skills
Raise your professional profile

7. What roles are there? (1) Author – more on this later Reviewer:
Evaluate submissions
Provide feedback and advice for improvement
Copy / layout editing:
Prepare articles for publication
Checking style, grammar, readability, formatting articles
Attention to detail

8. What roles are there? (2) Section or journal editor:
Responsibility for a type of article or whole journal
Contact for authors and reviewers
Editorial board member:
Setting direction of a journal
Developing ideas for new issues
Technical support:
Managing a journal publishing system

9. Writing for publication – what to write?
Research articles – academic or practice-based? Writing for peer review?
Writing by yourself or with a co-author?
Other types of article:
Evidence summaries
Opinion pieces
Reports – conferences, projects
Book reviews

10. Research articles – what to cover?
Why this topic?
What previous work has been done?
What were your key questions?
When and where did the study take place?
How did you try to answer the questions?
Who was involved?
What were the results?
What do they mean?

11. Titles...
‘Evaluating the E-learning Guidelines Implementation Project: Formative and Process Evaluations’
versus
‘“Throwing a Sheep” at Marshall McLuhan.’
Sword, H. (2012). Stylish Academic Writing. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

12. Activity
What could you write about? What type of article and what would be the topic? Discuss your ideas with the person next to you. Write a title – there will be chocolates!

13. Tips for writing... the big picture
Focus!
Where to start?
Use your LIS skills!
Make time and space to write
Write / present your ideas in other formats
Draft and draft again
Proof read thoroughly (ask someone else, too)

14. Tips for writing... practical things
Follow the template / author guidelines for the journal you’re submitting to...
...including using the journal’s preferred referencing style!
Make sure all citations have reference list entries (and vice versa)
Define acronyms, abbreviations and local terms at first use
Check permissions for diagrams and images

15. Where to publish? Who do you want to read your article?
Which journals serve that audience?
Which journal published articles you’ve referenced?
Read journal scope and guidelines
Read other articles from that journal

16. Peer review and assessment criteria
Originality
Literature review
Clear research design and suitable methods
Clearly written
Suitable for the journal / interest to audience
Length
Relevance / implications for LIS practice

17. Decisions might be:
Accept for publication without amendment (very unusual)
Revisions required
Major revisions required followed by further review
Resubmit elsewhere
Decline submission

18. Responding to comments
Editors and reviewers want to help you improve your article
List or number suggested revisions
You can query, discuss or disagree with suggestions
List the revisions you’ve made
More revisions may be suggested

19. Once published... Celebrate! Share the link
Archive in a repository – but acknowledge and link to the original article, too

20. Activity
How would you like to get involved in publishing? What are your next steps? List 3 ideas about how you could follow up from this session and discuss with the person next to you.

21. Thank you!
Your titles... Any questions?