Questions tagged [publications]
Questions related to academic publications including online and traditional journals, books, and conference proceedings.
1,401
questions
181
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What does the typical workflow of a journal look like? How should I interpret a particular submission status?
What steps does a manuscript typically go through from submission to publication (or rejection) in a typical journal? How are these steps referred to, in particular by editorial systems, and how long ...
161
votes
20
answers
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How do you judge the quality of a journal?
A colleague and I recently submitted a paper to a journal with an impressive-sounding name, the "International Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Computational Research". According to ...
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135
votes
8
answers
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How do I identify predatory and low quality journals? With Beall's List gone, how can I tell if a journal is spam?
Jeffrey Beall removed his list of predatory journals from the internet this past Sunday. While the reasons for his doing this are not yet public, this is a real loss of a valuable service. Does anyone ...
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226
votes
15
answers
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I believe I have solved a famous open problem. How do I convince people in the field that I am not a crank?
I am interested in the situation where you have a very interesting result. For instance, you have solved a very important open problem. However, you are not known in the field and do not have any ...
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99
votes
9
answers
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When should a supervisor be an author?
I understand that in a lot of big-lab fields it is common for the principal investigator to append their name to a paper even if they did not write the paper, design the experiment, or collect data ...
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155
votes
11
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Does one need to be affiliated with a university to publish papers?
Assume you have already completed your undergrad and have been working for a number of years. Does one need to be part of a university or a learning institution to publish papers?
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163
votes
18
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What does first authorship really mean in field X?
In my field (theoretical computer science), authors of any paper are always listed alphabetically; our papers don't have "first authors". (Well... hardly ever.) In most other disciplines, ...
37
votes
3
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Is my paper under review (or similar) for too long and if yes, how should I react?
I submitted a paper to a journal, and I suspect that it is handled too slowly.
How can I decide whether my suspicion is correct? What handling times should I expect?
Given some expected handling ...
40
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7
answers
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How can I determine whether a conference is reputable?
I recently received an invitation to a conference and I'm trying to determine how reputable it is. Is there a good way to go about this?
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2
answers
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What to put in "affiliation" field when submitting paper without affiliation?
Recently my paper is reviewed (by a professor from independent third party) and accepted by a journal. But, my employer allows me to publish this paper only without its name there.
Publishing house ...
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137
votes
7
answers
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Choice of personal pronoun in single-author papers
Which personal pronoun is appropriate in single-author papers - 'I' or 'we'? Could the use of 'I' be considered egotistical? Or will the use of 'we' be considered to be grammatically incorrect?
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38
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4
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Choosing my name as an author when publishing a scientific paper, can I use my "unofficial" first name?
I have one official first name which appears on my ID card. I have another first name which friends call me by. Is it possible to use my unofficial first name and official family name to publish ...
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115
votes
4
answers
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What are "fake", "shady", and/or "predatory" journals?
This question is in response to this very interesting question. The original post mentioned that they wish to retract their paper from a "fake" journal. I don't know what a fake journal is but better ...
- 1,846
56
votes
4
answers
4k
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Attributing contributions to academic work that occur in Stack Exchange
Sometimes we may ask questions on stack exchange or online forums wherein the response is helpful or even essential to a piece of work that gets published in an academic journal. If this occurs, how ...
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91
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9
answers
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Attitudes towards self-plagiarism
I am planning to write several papers exploring various aspects of the same scientific question. Each of these papers must have an introduction which motivates it and explains the relationship between ...
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75
votes
4
answers
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I'd like to use a figure from a paper; what's the best way to do this?
So, I've seen a really nice figure in a paper; what's the best way to 'get a copy'?
Will it be on the publisher's website?
Do I need to draw my own version?
Email the author?
And, finally, how does ...
- 2,232
55
votes
7
answers
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Does "corresponding author" carry an implied meaning?
After reading the question Mentor trying to be first author?, I got the impression that (at least in the writers' field) the "corresponding author" flag could carry an implied meaning, such as "did ...
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40
votes
6
answers
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If I publish under a pseudonym, can I still take credit for my work?
Is it possible to publish under a nom de plume (pen name, pseudonym)?
... and still take credit for the work?
I may have a chance to publish with the professor I am working with soon and if I am on ...
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39
votes
3
answers
16k
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Changing affiliation on publication
I am moving from one job to another (postdoc to tenure track) this summer and I have papers in several stages of being written, these go from handwritten notes with all the necessary arguments to ...
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52
votes
3
answers
23k
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What does author order indicate?
When you look at a paper, what order to you assume the authors are in? Most important/most work done first or alphabetical? In my group we usually use alphabetic order, but I've been wondering if that ...
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44
votes
2
answers
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How "submitted", "to appear", "accepted" papers are evaluated in a CV?
Assume a search committee is reading my CV and in the publication section they notice some of my papers are only submitted or claimed to appear in a journal (or accepted for publication in a journal). ...
user4511
28
votes
4
answers
7k
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Ways to get free and legal access to research papers as a researcher
I’ve discovered that website like ResearchGate offer the possibility to ask the paper editor to provide his paper for free. Many are collaborating.
Are there any other ways for researchers to obtain ...
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25
votes
2
answers
8k
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Is it acceptable to publish a paper using an affiliation with a former employer?
Recently I've changed jobs, and consequently the field of research has also changed. But I'm still getting proposals for publications in the previous field, and it is interesting for me to accept some ...
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245
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8
answers
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How do you cite a Github repository?
I am working on a honours thesis and have developed a Fortran library that I would like to cite in it.
In some places they suggest to quote the documentation of the project but this is something I ...
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90
votes
5
answers
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Why upload to academic preprint sites like arXiv?
The recent question about the legality of uploading to arXiv made me realize that I don't have any understanding of why one would upload to a preprint site. (I don't work in a field where they seem ...
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37
votes
6
answers
18k
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Using first person or third person in papers?
Are there written or unwritten rules for avoiding the use of first-person while writing research papers? I was advised at the beginning of my grad school to avoid use of first person - but I still don'...
- 2,026
81
votes
15
answers
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Preprint services other than arXiv (for other fields)
While arXiv is great, it covers only topics in physics, mathematics and computer science.
Are there any good preprint storage places for other scientific disciplines?
71
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8
answers
15k
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What should you do if you spotted a non-trivial error in a highly cited paper?
I have seen question on here regarding a citation error in a paper here:
What should I do if I found a citation error in a published paper?, but the nature of this problem is very different.
...
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58
votes
3
answers
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Is it necessary to ask permission before including someone in the acknowledgements of a research paper?
I had the impression that obtaining written permission before including someone in acknowledgements was required. Therefore, I just wrote to someone asking for written permission to include him in the ...
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3
answers
8k
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What should I do if I submitted an article to a predatory journal?
Call it stupidity or bad luck but I am guilty of submitting my research article to a journal which is listed in Beall's List of Predatory Publishers.
It is my first article and I don't have much ...
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102
votes
11
answers
12k
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E-mail address to use in publications
It is customary to use one's academic e-mail address as contact address in publications; I have seen once or twice an @gmail.com address being used instead, but it simply looked unprofessional.
...
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72
votes
6
answers
17k
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What to do if reviewers reject a paper without understanding the content?
One of my friends submitted a paper to a reputable communications journal and received some reviews a week back. The paper was rejected, but the review comments were abysmal:
The language was so bad ...
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16
votes
3
answers
30k
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Why do I have the "required reviews completed" status on my submission in Elsevier?
I had submitted my paper in an Elsevier journal one year back. Now, status update on the submission tracking says "Required reviews completed." However, for the last two weeks still there is no change ...
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69
votes
7
answers
15k
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Is it possible take take part in a research project if I'm not a part of a university?
I graduated with a Masters of Engineering, concentrating in digital signal processing, in particular medical and audio, almost two years ago. I've always been interested in research, but due to ...
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61
votes
2
answers
10k
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How can I withdraw a publication from a predatory (fake) journal and resubmit to a legitimate journal?
I have published a paper in a fake journal. I want to withdraw the paper from that journal.
After successful withdrawal from the fake journal, can I can submit the same paper to a legitimate journal?...
- 611
53
votes
3
answers
14k
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My research work stolen and published as his own by the co-author without my consent
My research paper was stolen by the co-author and published as his own. What do I do? All the data the paper is based on is my own work. I got it accepted in another journal but now I cannot get it ...
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42
votes
5
answers
17k
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Is it possible to keep publishing under my professional (maiden) name, different from my married legal name?
I have a question about my choice of name for publication.
I recently got married and legally changed my name to my husband's surname (for example's sake: from Hunter to Jones).
So, despite legally ...
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41
votes
4
answers
17k
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Requesting raw data from previously published research
I am working on a mathematical model to help explain some experimental results and generate new hypotheses. Unfortunately, I have neither the resources nor interest to gather experimental data, but in ...
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26
votes
6
answers
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How can editors and reviewers detect data manipulation?
I am preparing a paper in the field of Computer Science.
In order to report test results, we usually run a number of tests and report the average of those tests.
For each test, we generate random ...
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17
votes
3
answers
3k
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What should someone who works at a tech company that isn't associated with the work list as affiliation?
I am preparing to submit a paper with a friend who is working at a tech company. The company that he is working with is in no way associated with our research work. Is it appropriate to list his ...
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196
votes
4
answers
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Rediscovery of calculus in 1994: what should have happened to that paper?
There's a well-known paper in academic circles that features a rediscovery of the trapezoidal rule for numerical integration by a medical researcher:
“A Mathematical Model for the Determination of ...
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165
votes
8
answers
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Why don't researchers publish failed experiments?
The following might be a slight generalization for all fields but something I've noticed especially in the field of Scientific Computing:
Why don't people publish failures? I mean, if they tried some ...
user107
66
votes
10
answers
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Should academic papers necessarily carry a sober tone?
I was reading this paper titled "Optimal Symmetric Rendezvous Search on Three Locations." While talking about the history of search problems, the author mentions the following anecdote in passing.
...
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64
votes
2
answers
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How to acknowledge a deceased advisor’s contributions to a paper?
One of my advisors suddenly passed away while I was in graduate school. We had some discussions and ideas about future publications, but he passed away before any of the work was completed. When the ...
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42
votes
4
answers
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How common is it for a paper to be wrong?
I am a student in computer science and I recently started working on my M.Sc. thesis. Now I am reading a 2011 paper with about 170 citations that was published in a well-known conference.
In part of ...
user35129
35
votes
4
answers
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Indicating a name change after publication
My wife has publications under both her maiden name and her married name. How should she indicate that this is the case on her CV, if she wants to mention publications from both time periods?
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27
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6
answers
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How much time does each stage of paper in Elsevier Editorial System (EES) take? [closed]
We have submitted a paper to an Elsevier Journal and now I want to know how much time each stage in article lifecycle take?
There is an article in Elsevier site which describes different status of a ...
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26
votes
0
answers
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What do you do when you find yourselves with an unreadable/inaccessible paper? [duplicate]
Since I started my life in Academia, I sometimes found that there are some seminal papers to which I cannot get any access.
Either they are very old, and the journal that published them charges for ...
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20
votes
4
answers
1k
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Referencing the reference?
Suppose I have a paper with the following text:
Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you [3],[4].
As one can see, the author got the information from two other references.
...
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48
votes
2
answers
15k
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Why are conference papers so important in computer science (CS)?
From my understanding many CS conferences are highly selective and the papers are peer-reviewed. The CS field also seems to publish traditional journal articles. I do not understand the difference ...
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