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Few months back I presented a paper in conference and sent the same for possible publication in the conference proceedings. I got no response for a long time and with the consent of my supervisor sent the same paper to a journal with some modifications in the paper. I want to know is it okay to send the same paper to both? As far as I feel, its not right, still I need opinions. Thanks in advance.

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    Check both conference and journal requirements. We can't tell you. However it is usually the case that conferences forbid such a thing.
    – Stephen Tierney
    Jun 18, 2014 at 10:46
  • "... sent the same for possible publication." Does this mean a publication in the conference proceedings?
    – adipro
    Jun 20, 2014 at 22:10
  • @adipro yes... for conference proceedings
    – monalisa
    Jun 21, 2014 at 6:29

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Apparently conference has different meanings in different disciplines. In the fields with which I am familiar, conference publications are either limited to abstracts or are published in proceedings which are just as official as a journal In the former case there is of course no problem but in the latter sending the same paper off to a conference (for proceedings publication) and to a journal would not be correct. Therefore, you need to figure out what norms apply in your field, particularly whether the conference proceedings is a real publication.

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  • I am from mathematics background. And the conference publishing is the special issue of Springer.
    – monalisa
    Jun 18, 2014 at 10:12
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    Thanks, I just want to be clear that this varies in case someone tries the same in another field than yours.
    – Peter Jansson
    Jun 18, 2014 at 10:14
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    The special issue of Springer what? A Springer journal? (In which case you've submitted the same paper to two journals and must withdraw one.) A Springer lecture note series? (In which case the situation are possibly more complicated.) Something else?
    – JeffE
    Jun 18, 2014 at 10:43
  • In mathematics, it is not common at all to publish a paper both in conference proceedings and in a "regular" journal. This is true even if some changes were made in between. You should discuss this concern with your advisor, and do it soon. It is not a enormously big deal to withdraw a paper from consideration, and that is almost certainly preferable to publishing the same paper twice.
    – Oswald Veblen
    Jun 18, 2014 at 10:48
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    @dgraziotin It's common in CS for the "same" paper to be published first in preliminary form in a conference proceedings and late in archival form in a refereed journal. But some conferences forbid submitting to the two versions simultaneously, and some journals require significant differences between the two versions. Many conferences, especially in Europe, publish their proceedings as a LNCS volume.
    – JeffE
    Jun 19, 2014 at 1:30
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You could start from reading the journal publication agreement. It usually is very explicit on whether it is permitted or not to re-publish the results which appear in conference proceedings. In my discipline it is typically not permitted unless significant changes to the text and content have been introduced. Therefore, you should decide for yourself how significant were the modifications you made.

If the new paper is "much more" than a conference one, you could keep both, but you should tell the journal editor that this work is based on a conference proceedings which are yet in review.

If the new paper is not significantly different from the conference, you should withdraw one of them before the reviews arrive.

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In any field it is unacceptable to have a paper published twice. Therefore, you should look at

  1. Which kind of publication conference has. If it is a formal one, with a known (or even less known) publisher, ISBN, indexing - then it counts like a publication and you cannot publish it as it is in a journal. If those are abstracts proceedings, or sth printed just for distribution to the conference/workshop participants - it should be safe to submit it somewhere else.

  2. Journal/Conference requirements - in most cases it will be specified that they look for novel papers, not published and not under submission somewhere else.

  3. Most conference publishers (but it is more complicated in your case, as you publish proceedings of best papers in journal, not in proceedings book) would allow you to submit significantly revised/extended paper to a journal.

In your case it is probably best to contact the conference organizers and check if any formal publication planned and if your paper is selected for this publication (if it is not clear from the conference website and reviews). And do not submit to a journal before you clarify all those things - as you can get your paper retracted as double submission, with your department being informed about this...

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    In any field it is unacceptable to have a paper published twice — This is not correct. Computer scientists are not only allowed but strongly encouraged to publish the "same" paper in both a conference proceedings and in a journal, both versions formally published with an ISBN/ISSN, indexing, etc. In some subfields, the journal version is required to have a significant fraction of novel content over the proceedings version; in other subfields (like mine) the conference and journal versions of the same paper can be essentially identical.
    – JeffE
    Jun 20, 2014 at 12:10
  • I also know some civil engineering journals that accept the papers which are presented in the conferences in the past. But I am not sure about the published journal papers to be presented in the conferences.
    – enthu
    Jun 29, 2014 at 13:08
  • @JeffE I don't think it is ethical to publish the "same" paper in a proceeding and then a journal. Even in computer science, I saw most of the papers published in NIPS then JMLR are quite different. They may share the same idea, but the journal paper extended a lot not only in the results aspect but also in the idea part.
    – Xiaorui Zhu
    Jul 23, 2021 at 20:18
  • @XiaoruiZhu Publication ethics vary between fields; in some fields it is considered unethical to publish a journal paper whose results have previously been publicly announced in any form whatsoever. Speaking personally, I don't consider conference+journal publication (or more broadly, technical report + arxiv preprint + workshop abstract + plenary talk + conference proceedings + journal paper + dissertation) of the same paper unethical, as long as they are very clearly identified as different versions of a single work.
    – JeffE
    Jul 29, 2021 at 14:38

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