Writing My First Paper: Links to useful articles

I have recently begun to take steps down the long and winding road to publishing research from my Msc Dissertation. To help make my journey easier and in an attempt to prevent myself from 'lost', I conducted a quick search for articles/chapters on writing publishing work. I was so pleased with what I found, that I decided share links to them in the hope that they could be of benefit to others. Some of them repeat the same advice but for me this just adds to their credibility. Oh yeah, and most of them can be accessed for free!

 If anyone has any tips or advice, or useful papers they wouldn't mind sharing I'd like to hear about them. 

As always, thanks for reading! 

Mike

So here is the list:

From Qualitative Dissertations to Quality Articles: this a paper talks about the authors experiences of turning their Dissertation into Published papers.   This is not a technical paper but reading about someone else's experiences helped me feel more prepared and it was full of good advice. The paper outlines seven lessons the author learned: 1) a summary of dissertation won't do, 2) why a thick description of findings is needed, 3) the advantages of collaboration, 4) the necessity of adhering to guidelines, 5) the need to revise and resubmit is quite common. In particular, the advice on a paper not being a summary of a dissertation, but it is better to be written based one research aim, but it is also important to remember quality over quantity!

Bowen, G.A. (2010). From Qualitative Dissertation to Quality Articles: Seven Lessons Learned. The Qualitative Report, 15 (4) pp. 864- 879.

Available online from:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nova.edu%2Fssss%2FQR%2FQR15-4%2Fbowen.pdf&ei=Zc4nUeOIHeag0QXljIH4CQ&usg=AFQjCNH90ZzpoGeLYvxjs5UMGTUhwEs5Rw&bvm=bv.42768644,d.d2k

Qualitative research articles: guidelines, suggestions and needs: Provides advice on common mistakes to avoid and some practical solutions to them.  It also discusses the difference between Qualitative and Quantitative research and that therefore the criteria for validity and resolvability should also be different. Yardley (2000) provides a bit more detailed overview of this if anyone is interested. 

This can be accessed online from:

http://www.h2mw.eu/redactionmedicale/2011/07/Qualitative%20research%20guidelines_Aout%2009_0860210505.pdf

Crescentini, A. and Mainardi, G. (2009). Qualitative research Articles: guidelines, suggestions and needs. Journal of Workplace Learning, 21 (5), pp. 431- 439. 

Yardely, L. (2000). ‘Dillemmas in qualitative health research. Psychology and Health, 15 pp. 215-28.

How to write publishable Qualitative Research: This was a book chapter I obtained from a quick Google search. Whilst not a published article, it was by far one of the best paper's I read - it was full of useful bits of advice. The common reasons why articles get rejected was particularly useful.  This chapter also contained practical advice on writing an article, criteria for evaluating articles. Overall, it well worth a read. 

It can be obtained from:

http://www.parint.org/isajewebsite/bookimages/isaje_2nd_edition_chapter6.pdf

Starting to publish academic research as a doctoral student: this is useful as it is targeted at graduate students. It discusses the different types of articles that can be written including those based on theoretical perspectives and literature reviews. Uniquely it also discusses other ways to develop academic writing and publications, such as writing paper and book reviews. It was very useful for considering how I could develop a wider scope in my academic writing and publications -  I would add Blogging to the list

!

Stoilescu, D. and Mc Dougall, D. (2010). Starting to Publish Academic Research as a Doctoral Student. The international Journal of Doctoral Studies, 5 pp. 78-92. 

Available online at:

http://ijds.org/Volume5/IJDSv5p079-092Stoilescu299.pdf

Writing your first article: what editors really want: talks about all the stages involved in publishing, and for me this was particularly valuable because I have little experience with the publishing process. Whilst this is written for a particular journal, the advice provided could be taken further. 

Fields, A.J. (2009) Writing your first article: what the publisher's really want. New Zealand Library and Information Management Journal. 

Available online here:

http://conferences.alia.org.au/libtec2009/Documents%20for%20Links/FieldsALIA09.pdf

The Do's and Dont's of Journal Writing:  This paper also discusses some of the common reasons why articles do not get published, with a different section for Qualitative and Quantitative researches - this paper focuses on the difference between a PhD thesis and a journal article. Whilst it is written as a guideline for Journal of Workplace Learning the authors say the advice might  be relevant for publishing in other journals. 

Kekale, T., Weerd - Nederhof, P. Cervai, S. and Borelli, M. (2009). The Do's and Dont's of writing a journal article. Journal of Workplace Learning, 21 (1) pp. 71- 80.

Taking a stand

I once heard that "academia is in a state of polite warfare", and as a PhD student, I think I run the risk of becoming a 'casualty' of that war.My home field of Psychology is fractured - it has many sub disciplines, sub divisions each with their own idea of what counts as 'important scientific research'.  As an undergraduate I could study these debates from an impartial stand point, but now as a PhD student I no longer have the 'luxury' of being impartial. I must decide which methods, theories and ideas to use, and be able to defend my decisions. In other words - I need to take a stand and pick a side in the 'war'.  

One of the biggest debates in psychology is whether is a science.  The notion that psychology is not a science is a insecurity which rests at the heart of psychology, and has lead to the  belief that scientific psychology research is based on numbers, not words.  This idea has been shouted from the pulpits of psychology with great ferocity, so much so, it would not be unreasonable to see it as 'dogmatic'. Without naming names I have met PhD students who blindly accept quantitative as the method of psychology study, and rarely consider the viability of qualitative methods. Some  even mock those who use qualitative methods - seeing  this research as 'second rate' and 'unscientific'.  The idea of whether qualitative research is or is not scientific is a debate for another time, but suffice to say I believe qualitative research is not less objective or valid that quantitative research.    Having this belief sets me apart from mainstream psychology, which is quite risky considering I am trying to enter the field as a researcher. 

We as PhD students do seem to spend a large portion our time trying to be accepted by the academic community. Following the 'in crowd' and accepting dominant beliefs without question would seem to be an easy, direct route to acceptance - especially for those students who aspire to be well respected and win renown.  It could improve job opportunities and limit the risk of being marganisled and, in my case, branded as 'unscientific'.  But, is it the right? What if the minority actually has a better approach? 

This 'debate' seems to run through a lot of what I do at the moment; from deciding what writing style to use, which theoretical perspective to take,  who should be involved in my research and how I will eventually analyse my data. For me, I could not just blindly follow one approach - I need good reason and evidence to decide why I should. I usually go through a process of choosing which approach is best for what I want to achieve, by comparing and contrasting different approaches and whether they 'fit' with the aims of the research. I try to do this regardless of what 'mainstream' psychology accepts.  This could have consequences for my career, but if I decided to use a method which  is ill fitting but would be widely accepted, I would be sacrificing the validity of my research and my own personal integrity.

I realise that by now this might sound a lot like a personal manifesto (*), but these are decisions which all PhD students make and this is why I wanted to write a post about 'taking a stand' in academia.  If anyone else has struggled with deciding whether to take their own path or follow the majority I would like to hear from you, and how you resolved the issue. 

*this could be because I was listening the the Les misreables sound track whilst writing this - it's very good, go see it if you haven't!

 

Kate Middleton: a new medium for disseminating research?

I'm sure many of you have found it difficult not to have heard about storm that has been kicked up over Forbes comments that being a lecturer is one of the "least stressful jobs of 2013" (see link at the end) Responses to this have highlighted the need to raise the public awareness of our research. So here's what we do; conduct our research on Kate Middleton

She has become a national obsession, pastime and idol. ..   there's even an app to copy her clothes (called repli-kate-me). Kate  seems to  a provide a' middle' ground between the Royal Family and the rest of us it. She Simulates interest and understanding of what it is to be Royal . Perhaps this is because she started out as one of us non-Royal folk, so her life seems more relevant to ours. 

Kidnapping a member of the royal family would not pass ethics boards (and I am in no way advocating that we do), but it would certainly help spike the general public's interest. Could you imagine how widely read research with titles such as: 

Westernisation in the Daily Mirror: on the cultural reception of Kate Middleton.
 

 Kate's Anatomy

 Dilemmas in Coding Qualitative Research: Kate Middleton's daughter, a princess or a  pauper?

                or my personal favorite...

On the Origin of Kate by Means of Princely Selection
 

Do academics also need a link between academic and 'non-academic folk' to stimulate interest in academic work, to show that the work is relevant to the general population?  Researchers do disseminate their work, but this seems largely restricted to other researchers.  I wonder how many even send the results, or even a reference to the finished paper, to their participants?

The internet is a wonderful place full of all sorts of information,  but little of the information on topics that is 'accessible' to the general public seems to come from academics. As a recent  article in the Guardian asks - where is all the research?  (see link at the end)

There are many blogs, sites and groups 'out there'  to help disseminate and stimulate interest in Academia and help demystify certain ideas or concepts (Dorthoy Bishops Blog, the Psychology Network in linked in are a few I use).  

 In the past governing bodies such as the American Psychological Association have taken action to clarify what science has told us about certain topics (i.e. IQ , but this has been infrequent. 

So, do we need a platform which can get bring together information  from a discipline in one place?  Could we benefit from one blog/site which contains accurate,  yet brief and plainly written 'summaries' of topics which are presented in such a way that interests the general public? To help them see that we as academics do work hard, and that our work is relevant to them? Or do we really need Kate Middleton to make our work seem relevant and interesting? 

If anyone knows of any sites like the one I suggest I would be really interested to see it. For now I shall end on a question, which I have been thinking on for a while: 

Do we have a responsibility to disseminate our research? If not for our own sake, at least for societies?  After all knowledge can be a dangerous thing,  and incomplete knowledge even more so.

Thanks for reading!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/01/03/the-least-stressful-jobs-of-2013/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2013/jan/10/research-communications-uk-university-websites).

What am I doing and how did I decide what to do?

                After reading over my recent posts I noticed that I haven't actually explained what my PhD on, and  considering this is a blog about my PhD this seems like a bit of an oversight.  

                If there is anyone else out there like me (I'm so sorry if you are) your current notes on your PhD will be fractured and organised in such a way that only you, or a crack team of MI5 agents, could ever hope to understand them. This is not through a lack of organisation on my part, but just because I've get to join all of my ideas together into one whole.

                This means that I until recently I could not, no matter how hard I try, give a nice and simple answer to what my PhD is on. It's gotten that bad that a lot of people have just stopped asking. However, recently I had a breakthrough - I am researching community interventions in mental health. It's nice to be able to say it and I feel like I finally have a vague idea about which direction is up.  But, to all of you experts out there your first questions are going to be what  do you mean by community and mental health and intervention. I'm afraid I don't know enough to give you that answer (basically, watch this space).  I'd be really interested to hear from people who are researching in similar areas. 

               If anyone else out there is in the early stages of their research I would like to briefly share some tips and ideas which helped me find an area of study: 

                I think it is safe to say that very few of us will find identifying a suitable area/topic for PhD research easy-  especially for those doing 3 year PhD's who are expected to know within the first few months.  There are of questions which need to be answered in order to decide what counts as a suitable topic, and in all honesty, a lot of these questions cannot be answered within the first few months of research. Many will require many, many hours reading pervious research before we can safely say that  'yes this might work'. 

                Having said that, one of the best pieces of advice I was given by my Supervisor is to give myself the time to 'fish around' for idea and look for something I am really enthusiastic about.  At first I found 'fishing around' for idea's a challenge, especially when I identified a topic and wanted to spend all my time researching it, but once I learned to restrain myself a little I found I was reading about allsorts of different and interesting areas. This advice has stopped me from running with my first idea and has given me the time to find something that I really want to do. In fact my PhD topic is a combination of various different ideas I have gotten from 'fishing around'. 

                I have also found that thinking about what I see as important research and what I want to gain from my PhD helped me decide on what topic to research - after all  it is my PhD and my career which will be determined by it.  For me I've always been interested in mental health and I have always wanted to research into it and my PhD is turning out to be a great opportunity for me to explore under researched areas of mental health which I feel are important (i.e. ways of preventing rather than just 'curing' mental illness). Also, I am now able to design my research so I develop skills I wanted to gain, such as experience working with community stakeholders and partners. 

                Over time what I want to get from by PhD will probably change, but I hope to keep a record of this, so, if possible, I can alter my research to accordingly.  Obviously, what I want to do will not be the only factor which determines what I do in the end but I think it should play a big part in it.

                I hope you all have a good holiday!

Mike.

p.s. if anyone wants to get in touch with me my email address is mjwalton13@live.co.uk.