Submitting a paper, and presenting it at a conference - conflicts?

Question

So, sorry if this is a daft question...

I've recently completed a paper that I'm hoping to submit to a journal later this week.

I think we have something important to say, and I want to disseminate the results more widely, in particular there's a conference I have my eye on. Their deadline is also at the end of this week.

Is it acceptable to submit the same paper to both journal and conference? Or will I get into trouble in the same way that I would if I submitted to two journals at the same time?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I have been in the same situation, written a paper, and wanted to disseminate the findings to a wider audience and hence, presented the work at a conference. I am in applied environmental science, and I feel that this is relatively common in my field.

My approach to this situation, bearing in mind there was to be published conference proceedings was to focus on a very specific element of the new methodological development that I worked on, and presented this at the conference, under a similar - but 'different enough' title than the paper. This parallel journal/conference writing also has to be used to be able to honestly answer the journal question, 'is this work being submitted elsewhere?'. Clearly you need to be able to answer no - its not.

This approach allowed me to go into some very fine detail of the new methods that was of interest to the specialist audience at the conference, that otherwise was far too detailed for the journal readership.

At the end of the conference presentation, I also signposted to the paper that was under review and the journal it was with, and some folk said post-conference that they would look for the journal paper when published.

So, in short, I would say that there has to be differences between the two submissions, but there is no problem in having them linked by common ground and to highlight an upcoming journal paper.

All the best.

Answer 2

This seems to depend on the field. But, in most fields, I think that you risk being rejected by both the journal and the conference. Journals, especially, want to publish what is new and ask you to assure them that you haven't submitted elsewhere.

If you happen to "sneak it through" in one instance, don't expect a happy reception in the future.

Again, in some fields, conferences are the main venue for presenting new work. Conferences in CS, for example, also publish proceedings in which the accepted papers are printed as a matter of course.

That said, an abstract of a paper submitted to a journal might be acceptable at an unrelated conference. Likewise a follow-on result to something submitted to one is probably acceptable to the other.

But the best way to be sure is to ask. Both the journal editor and the conference chair will give you the best and only valid advice. Both the journal and conference submission procedures probably already make it pretty clear what is allowed and what is not. If either objects to a double submission, then you should tread carefully.

Answer 3

It's a matter of editorial policy: both the journal and the conference certainly have a policy in place about such cases. If their policy is not clear from their website, you can send an email to the editor asking about it.

In my experience (computer science), it is common for a conference/journal to allow authors to "submit elsewhere" , but be careful: this often implies that you would have to withdraw one of them in case you are accepted to both. Another option is simply to submit different content: usually conference papers are shorter, so in the journal one you can afford to study a particular aspect of the topic in more detail, thus making it a significantly different contribution.