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July 25, 2024

More Frequently Asked Questions

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/FAQ

The annual revision to Exchanges FAQ has finished – is your question there?

It may be the summer – although looking at the weather currently I’d be hard pressed to confirm that – which means, normally, it’s time for me to pick up on all the annual update tasks. This year though I’m hard at work trying to get our next two special issues out the door, which means I’ve got a lot less time and attention available for this sort of administrative delight. That said, this week I thought it was time to do a little spring (summer?) cleaning on our Frequently Asked Questions page. It might not be the most heavily visited part of our site, but I believe it collates a range of highly useful advice based on the sort of specific questions I get week in and week out from our contributors.

I was inspired to update it based on an excellent question I was asked by someone recently about funder acknowledgements. Incidentally, in recent years I’ve been increasingly encouraging our authors to think about this sort of information, as I’d been surprised how few of them seem to offer an acknowledgement as a matter of course. Now part of the solution would be to make it a semi-mandated field in the manuscript submission process. Given I’m not going to be able to make any changes on that any time soon [1], I thought adding something about it to the FAQ would make a suitable stab at gentle encouragement.

Of course, being the kind of person I am, once I’d tweaked one answer on the FAQ, I realised how long it had been since I last systematically updated it. By which I mean, I couldn’t honestly remember if I had ever updated the FAQ. Which I wasn’t overly happy with, and hence it became a key task for the week. So, one print out later I sat in my office with my editing blue pen [2] going through the list of questions and their answers, and in a few cases creating a few new ones to add in. Now, I am not going to suggest that all the answers to everyone’s questions are there now – but I think 80% of what I am asked regularly can now be found on the FAQ page, or indeed by following the links to the various other reams of guidance we make available for contributors.

Will it stop people asking me directly? No, and to be fair, I hope not: a bit of human interaction is always a good thing. If nothing else it helps provide a source of insight into the sort of information we need to be providing or clarifying for our contributors. I do hope though that the page as it stands offers a reliable source of information and perhaps even relief to our current and potential future contributors!

Naturally, if you’ve got a great question that’s not yet represented on the page – drop me a line. I’ll be only too happy to add it into our collection!

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Endnotes

[1] That is unless the IT Services and Library teams suddenly surprise me with hitherto unavailable developmental time. I am ever hopeful they will!

[2] Normally I edit in red or green ink, but the blue pen was to hand. #FascinatingFacts


February 01, 2023

Subscribe to the New Exchanges Newsletter

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/announcement/view/44

There's a new regular way to get a monthly update on Exchanges direct to your inbox - a newsletter!

I'm delighted to announce there's now an Exchanges newsletter which people can subscribe to online. Each month the newsletter will highlight recent developments from the journal, along with a reminder of current and forthcoming calls for content, opportunities to get involved and all the very latest on our podcast series too.

The newsletter will, mostly, be reusing the content we post to the IAS' monthly newsletter - so if you're already subscribed to that, then you probably will be up to date on things. But if not, and you'd like the make sure you're always fully appraised of everything going on with Exchanges - then signing up to the newsletter is a great way to achieve this.

Full details of how to subscribe are here: https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/announcement/view/44

For interest in this issue of the newsletter:

  • Focus in on top articles and episodes
  • Review of Exchanges workshops and events
  • News about the Exchanges Discourse podcast
  • Reminder of open calls for papers
  • Somewhat meta-textually...news on the new newsletter
  • Highlighting Exchanges' social media instances
  • Plus a regular guide on managing your list membership and what Exchanges is all about.

So, if you don't want to miss out on everything to do with Exchanges, and want to know more - subscribe today!


January 14, 2021

Getting Published: PG Tips Workshop

I had the pleasure this week (Tue 12th) to participate in my first teaching/seminar of the year. I had been invited, alongside my wonderful library colleague Julie Robinson, to participate in a 45 minute panel discussion for Warwick post-graduate students on the topic of ‘getting published’. Seasoned academic authors will likely realise 45 minutes is way too short a time to cover a great deal on this topic, but in the end, it seemed like we managed to pack a lot of content in what was a highly interactive and engaging session. So engaging, in fact, that we ran on for an extra 15 minutes or so due to popular demand.

Now, that’s the kind of session I like to deliver!

Thanks to David Richardson who hosted, we captured audience questions during the session. As a result, I thought it might be worth highlighting a few of the most salient ones and my responses as they refer to particularly apply to Exchanges.

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Q: If I wanted to submit an article to Exchanges, would it be better to submit an abstract or the full paper already?

A: Very much the author’s personal choice. As a journal we don’t expect, unless part of a specific call requirement, authors to send us pre-submission abstracts or draft versions of their papers. Some choose to do so, and I’m always happy to provide some feedback and guidance at this stage, although I’ll hold off any fulsome critique until the final manuscript is submitted. Likewise, I’m always happy to schedule a video-call to talk through an author’s ideas for their paper, if they might find that helpful. On the whole though, the bulk of our submissions are the full paper manuscript, received without any prior conversation or engagement with the author: which is perfectly fine too.

Q: What are the most important elements that should be in abstract if the journal you are targeting is only allowing you to submit an abstract rather than the whole paper?

A: There’s a lot written online and by other authors on this subject, I personally like Rowena Murray or Helen Sword’s writing on this topic and would advocate seeking out their work. However, in brief, the abstract should be the article in miniature, containing the key ideas or arguments, along with a taste of the most significant finding or conclusion. What it should do is whet the appetite of the reader, from your prospective editor to the wider academic community, and draw them in to want to read (or accept for consideration) your paper. The abstract should also closely resonate with your paper’s text, with each abstract line approximating an introductory sentence within the article itself. This provides essential structure and signposting to guide the reader through your writing, methodology, methods, arguments, findings and conclusions in a structured and more readily comprehensible manner.

Q: Do you have any advice about how to choose the journal to publish in?

A: Aside from suggesting you consider a wonderful, friendly and highly early-career author focussed title like Exchanges I would suggest thinking about:
(1) Who are your audience and what titles are they reading?
(2) Where are your peers/supervisor publishing?
(3) Consider, but don’t be a slave to, journal metrics/impact factors etc – although be wary as ‘significant journals’ are more likely to reject your submission.
(4) Do you know or have contacts with any editors? Knowing someone will be receptive to discussing your submission can be a big help in choosing your destination.
(5) Especially for a first paper, consider seeking out early-career specialising journals. They may be more forgiving of initial errors, formatting oversights or typographical errors than some of the more core/mainstream titles.

Q: How different should a journal [article] drawn from thesis or dissertation work be?

A: This is a common and understandable issue for first time authors. An article manuscript needs to be its own discrete and contextual entity, with a slightly different authorial voice than you would likely use within your thesis/dissertation. Especially too, where you’re adapting a chapter, you need to ensure the piece can stand entirely on its own legs, supported naturally by appropriate citation. You might even need to consider simplifying the work, because there may be too many contrasting central ideas or themes in your original text to coherently present in your article. You should also consider adopting the style/voice of other pieces which appear in your chosen target journal or field, to enhance your chance of acceptance.

Q: How does one go about proposing a special issue to Exchanges or working with/for this journal as an editor?

A: As to the first part, I’d recommend listening to our recent podcast on exactly this topic. Then coming and having a chat with myself as editor-in-chief about the idea. One thing to bear in mind, we have a lead time of at least 12 months from initiation of special issue to publication, so this isn’t going to be something we can achieve overnight. There’ll also be some expectation of work from the proposer to bring the issue to publication too, part of which may well be involvement as an associate editor. We do issue periodic calls for associate editors, usually via our twitter account (@ExchangesIAS) and the journal's announcement pages - so you should follow and visit these periodically.

Q: What are the main outcomes after articles are peer-reviewed? Are articles rejected by journal editors when reviewers actually suggested major corrections?

A: At Exchanges we have four major post-review outcome: acceptance (rare!), revisions requested and then acceptance (most), additional reviews (occasional) or decline (aka reject). Hence, usually after peer-review there will be a period of revision and rewriting by the author, and in the case of where there are major (extensive) revisions requested by the editor, the piece may need to undergo a further round of peer-review, and minor corrections ahead of acceptance for publication. Different journals will handle these post-review steps slightly differently, indeed some take ‘major revisions’ to equate to reject and request the author work on them for a future resubmission. Read their author guidance to find out how it works for each specific journal/publisher.

Q: Is it better for your cv and career to publish with your supervisor or independently?

A: This varies enormously and is often affected by discipline. STEM authors are often members of team projects, and frequently only publish as one of a number of authors, with sole-authored works rare. Conversely, AHSS scholars often are lone or at most pairs of authors. That said, if you have a good working relationship with your supervisor, it can be a really great learning experience to co-author a paper with them. Just remember, just because they’re your supervisor, if you’re doing most of the writing, be prepared to insist on being the first named author on the work! You may find though, that co-authoring a paper with an established author like your supervisor might make it easier to publish in a ‘higher’ ranked journal…but there are not guarantees, and I’ve heard of many supervisors who are busy/get distracted and don’t come through on their contribution to an article: so approach, with caution!

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These are only a handful of the topics we touched on in the session, hence if you have questions of your own about publishing, and especially in Exchanges, then please leave a comment or get in touch with me. I look forward to talking more about this fascinating, and essential, area of academic development.


December 03, 2020

New Podcast Episode: A Conversation with…Dr Julia Gauly

Writing about web page https://anchor.fm/exchangesias/episodes/A-Conversation-withDr-Julia-Gauly-enac6f

“Criticise other people as you would like be criticised… .That’s what I try to keep in mind…that’s a small sentence, which can make such a difference”

>Listen to: A Conversation with...Dr Julia Gauly

We reach episode 10 in the first season of The Exchanges Disocurse podcast series, with a delightful interview with Dr Julia Gauly. An early career fellow at the IAS and based at the Warwick Medical School, Julia’s work focuses on evaluating sexual health information provision and, especially as a route to enhancing accessibility and public health, the impacts from increased its availability via local pharmacies. Julia also takes the time to share her own learning journey with respect to publishing, along with providing some words of advice for first time and other early career authors.

Episode 11 is already recorded, a conversation this time with Dr Isabelle Heyerick and later today I'll be recording episode 12 which will focus on the 'cultural representations of nerds' forthcoming special issue in 2021. I'll be joined by the two leads for that special issue to chat about what it means, and also discuss the planned event tying into the issue.

Please do have a listen, and if you like what you hear share the love! If you'd like to get in touch with the podcast with an idea for an episode, or to propose a guest, then you'll find our contact details here.


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