THE most important way for young academics to be evaluated (2nd most important for senior, grants/money is 1st).

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If it’s not published, it didn’t happen (you don’t get credit).

Before you can publish, you need to write it.

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• Start the manuscript draft early.
• Write the background section as you do your literature review. (Could eventually become a full review article. )
• Add “skeletons” for each of your findings as sections.
• Don’t pay any attention to formatting.

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• Assess scope. A paper should have a single focus/topic. It should be substantial but not sprawling.
• 1-2 main points (maybe a few side points). If you have more, consider splitting it into 2 papers.
• Everything that distracts from the main message should be left out or put in supplement.
• Finish writing/packaging around your main message.

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• Make sure the message is clear.
• Try to put yourself in the position of the reader (and reviewer).
• A paper should be ‘skimmable’: A reader familiar with the topic should get the main points by reading the abstract and looking at figures and tables.
• Make each section as self-contained as possible (you might not know order of Methods and Results).

• Spend a lot of time on the title.
• Spend a good amount of time on the abstract.
• Contemplate how to get readers/citers.
• Have a clear message/story.

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• Finalize list of co-authors.
• Decide on the journal(s) you want to submit to. Get input from others, especially co-authors.
• Finish editing your paper so it fits your target journal(s) audience.
• Pay attention to the main rules of the target journal (e.g., word/figure count), ignore detailed formatting.

• Quality (for instance impact factor). Don’t take any one metric too seriously, but use them to get a rough estimate of the quality of a journal.
• Audience fit
• Cost and Reach (open access or subscription-based)
• Type, e.g., society/non-profit or for-profit
• Speed (time to publication)
• Journal policies, e.g., regarding conference presentations, pre-prints, data availability.
• Other considerations (co-author wishes, special issue, etc.)

• If someone you don’t know invites you to submit, it’s most often not a good quality journal. Good journals almost never send unsolicited invitations to submit.
• Check if a journal has a real impact factor, check if it is indexed by PubMed, Web of Science. No guarantee either way, but a good check.
• Search online or ask senior colleagues to get opinions about a specific journal.

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• If you never get rejected, you are probably not optimizing impact.
• If you always get rejected 5+ times, you are wasting time/resources.
• Look at previous articles published in target journals, see if yours is likely similar (quality and type).
• Ask others who know the field to read the paper and suggest a journal (co-authors are good).
• You are likely not an impartial judge of your paper. At this stage you are either in love with or hate your project/paper.

• Send a final version to all co-authors, ask for approval. It’s often good to phrase email such that no reply means approval.
• Gather all other needed information and fill out all forms the journal requires.
  • Contact information for co-authors
  • Conflict of interest statements
  • Grant funding
  • List of suggested reviewers

• Make sure everything is reviewer=-riendly (e.g. line/page numbers, figures and captions in text if possible).
• Spend as little time on formatting as possible. More and more journals allow the 1st submission to be in any reasonable format.
• If you can suggest editors and reviewers, definitely do so.
• Write a good cover letter.

• You can get anything from outright rejection without review to acceptance without changes (the latter is rare).
• Share reviews with your co-authors. As courtesy, keep co-authors updated, even if you don’t require their input.
• Read reviews, especially negative ones, when you’re in a state of mind where you can handle that.

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• Rejection without useful feedback (e.g., editorial rejection): immediately move to the next journal (consult with co-authors if needed).
• Rejection with reviewer feedback: Go through it, address any useful comments - even if you plan to go to a different journal! You might get the same reviewers again at a different journal.
• If the reviews are clearly ridiculous, you could appeal to the journal. Success likely depends on how outrageous the reviews are, the fanciness of the journal and your status in the field (let the senior author do the appeal).
• Use any feedback to help you decide where to send it next.

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• Depending on how high you aim, expect to get rejected, possibly more than once.
• If you get rejected from your “safety journal”, critically reassess your paper.
• Do not try to publish in a journal that does not meet your and your co-authors minimum standards of quality. Papers in bad journals will count negatively for your career/CV.

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• Major revision: Is often worded to sound like a reject, so read the email carefully, ask a senior co-author.
• Read through reviewer comments. Then let things sit for a few days before you start addressing the comments.
• If you think you can address all criticism or make a good case why you shouldn’t, do the revision.
• If they ask for something you simply cannot do, decide if it’s worth resubmitting or not. In that situation, it’s okay to contact the editor and ask for guidance.

• Depending on how large the revisions are (and what software you use), you might or might not want to use track changes.
• Write a document that lists every point raised by the reviewers and an explanation of how you addressed it.
• This is not the time or place to argue! Thank the reviewers, acknowledge their comments, address everything one way or another showing that you are responsive.
• If there’s a point you can’t or do not want to change, be as polite as possible in your refusal. Playing “verbal judo” can be useful.

• “This is a good point. We addressed it, see new part X in the manuscript.”
• “We weren’t quite able to do Z, but we did X and Y to show that Z is likely not a problem. We added all that additional analysis into the main text/SM.”
• We agree our study has limitation Y. We now discuss this more explicitly in section X.”
• “We are not sure we understand this comment. We think the way we did X is correct. We reworded our text to make this and our assumption Y clearer.”

Don’t start every response with “we thank the reviewer” but do it here and there wording it differently. Remember, they do this for free as a service and generally try to help.

• Usually, either on the first try (happens rarely) or after revisions, you receive a conditional acceptance.
• The conditions are usually to make any small changes still requested by the reviewers and to make any formatting changes requested by the journal.
• At this stage, and not earlier, you need to follow all the journals formatting guidelines.
• This is also your last chance to make further (minor) edits. Go through the paper once more and send it to your co-authors for final feedback and approval.

• Check all versions you get carefully!
• Journals are notoriously bad at screwing up at this stage. They mess up equations, leave out sections, etc. You need to check at every step!
• Try to be as responsive as possible (though if you can’t turn it around in 24h, let them know and it will be fine).

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• Time to publication can vary a lot between different fields and different journals.
• High-profile journals usually try for a quick turnaround.
• Journals like Science or Nature have full-time staff to make initial decisions usually within 24 hours.
• If your paper goes out for review, expect a few weeks to a few months for most good-quality biomedical journals.
• If you asked to do revisions you should do them on a similar timeframe of weeks or months.
• The duration of the whole process depends on the number of times you will need to resubmit before it’s accepted.

• Work on all aspects of your writing/presentation (text, structure, grammar, style, figures, flow,…).
• Read many papers and as you do, not only pay attention to content but also presentation to learn from good and bad examples.
• Read books on (non-fiction) writing.
• Most ‘good writing’ practices apply to all kinds of writing and presenting.

Being a good writer/presenter might be even more important for general career advancement (especially outside academia) than being a good researcher!

• Understand there is luck and “fashion/trendiness” involved.
• Fancy journals are more worried of accepting a “bad” (i.e. not highly citeable) paper than to reject a great one.
• If you have the option to be a reviewer, take it. It’s a good learning experience.
• As long as you did good work, you’ll be able to publish it somewhere eventually.
• High quality, peer-reviewed papers are the gold standard. However, other types of publications (non-reviewed), blog posts, etc. can also count. Try to publish what you did one way or another.

If it’s not published publicly (in whatever form), it didn’t happen (you don’t get credit).

• Ten simple rules for structuring papers.
• Ten Simple (Empirical) Rules for Writing Science
• Ten Simple Rules for Writing Research Papers
• Ten Simple Rules for Getting Published
• Ten simple rules for writing a response to reviewers.
• Ten simple rules for scientists: Improving your writing productivity
• Successful Scientific Writing and Publishing: A Step-by-Step Approach
• The RoMEO service provides information regarding pre-print (and other) policies of different journals.