Writers’ Lab: On where PhD Research gets published

Recently, I was browsing the #phdchat hashtag, when I found a great question by @larkened :

As a PhD student, is it best to publish as much as possible even if in low impact factor journals? I'm being encouraged that way :s #phdchat

— louise (@larkened) November 25, 2013

I typically use a waterfall technique: I shoot for the publication in which I’d love my research to appear, and if that gets rejected, I try to submit elsewhere.

Admittedly, I don’t always follow up so well. I have a paper sitting on my hard drive that got rejected in 2012, and I haven’t come to the point to rework it yet. To my defense, I have to say that I wrote the paper for a special edition of a journal, aiming at comparing European and North-American practice, so I’m still in doubt as to where else it would fit. It’s one of those looming tasks on my to-do list – and since it was my first rejection ever, it has some -ahum- emotional baggage on it.

Anyway, let’s focus on what matters to PhD students who want to publish. (Read: you gotta publish, it’s so important!):
Be bold.
Aim high.
Ditch the imposter crap.

I think aiming high might encourage you to go the extra mile (it does for me, at least, I figure that some people might see it as unmotivating to try and reach for that extra bit).

And here’s the Storify that has excellent comments from more experienced researchers on this topic – absolutely worth reading: