Where to Publish

[uoftpremed]

hey all,

 

anyone know where to publish a student written literature review? would journals except a lit review form a non-expert? or should i aim for like a student run journal like uoft medical students journal? or an undrgrad journal? i know i cant aim for too high but i also dont wanna sell myself short

your thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated!

[osteon]

1. Review articles are normally commissioned by the editor for most journals

2. The chances of having your review published without an expert co-author is slim in a normal journal

3. For med school applications, and probably residency too, I don't think it matters where you publish. For instance, no one is going to know that Circulation has an impact factor of 15 while the American Journal of Cardiology has an impact factor of 3. Same goes for student journals - most won't even know it's a student journal.

 

Conclusion: in order of priority, ask these questions:

 

1. Where is it most likely to get accepted?

2. What journal is going to publish it the fastest?

3. Who will publish it for free?

4. What is the impact factor of the remaining journals under consideration?

[peachaso]

I think it does matter where you publish for medical school admissions and especially for residency admissions, but publication in an undergraduate journal is better than nothing.

[osteon]

You really think a family doc is going to know about journal impact factors on a med school admissions committee? Heck, even a specialist doc wouldn't know about journals outside of their discipline. AND, if they are just a doctor and don't engage in much research themselves, they will have zero idea about journal quality even within their discipline. I have witnessed this with my own eyes. No one cares outside of academia, which most doctors are not really a part of (I don't consider a doctor an academic just because they affiliated with an academic institution). Even within academia no one knows the difference if it's outside of your primary research area. Early in your career, quantity trumps quality by far

[JohnDakota]

Most specialists won't know the impact factor of all the journals within their field. They may know a 'range' of possible IF for the ones in their field, seeing as the IF changes year to year, but they certainly wont know the ones outside of their field.

 

OP: If you honestly think this work is worth publishing, then go speak to a specialist in the field. You can communicate with them via email for or, if there is one at your university, go speak to them in person. Tell them you've researched/written something on X topic, and think with some revisions it could be published. Given that you demonstrated enthusiasm for the field, and initiative in performing the research/writing drafts, I'm sure they'll look it over, and possibly publish it with you if it's good enough.

 

That route would get you a publication, and a great character reference.

[uoftpremed]

great advice - thanks so much!

1. Review articles are normally commissioned by the editor for most journals

2. The chances of having your review published without an expert co-author is slim in a normal journal

3. For med school applications, and probably residency too, I don't think it matters where you publish. For instance, no one is going to know that Circulation has an impact factor of 15 while the American Journal of Cardiology has an impact factor of 3. Same goes for student journals - most won't even know it's a student journal.

 

Conclusion: in order of priority, ask these questions:

 

1. Where is it most likely to get accepted?

2. What journal is going to publish it the fastest?

3. Who will publish it for free?

4. What is the impact factor of the remaining journals under consideration?

[uoftpremed]

hey thanks for replying! so i did have a supervisor, it was part of a course.

my supervisor is not exactly a complete expert in all of the things i wrote about though. should i ask my supervisor where to publish? or should i now approach someone else who is more of an expert in all the things i wrote about? i am sooo confused lol. and do i am for a student run jorunal or an actual journal journal? it got great marks when assessed by my supervisor so i think it is good but how do i know if it is good enough for a real journal? i would tell you what its about and be more specific but i am sure that would give me away lol

 

Most specialists won't know the impact factor of all the journals within their field. They may know a 'range' of possible IF for the ones in their field, seeing as the IF changes year to year, but they certainly wont know the ones outside of their field.

 

OP: If you honestly think this work is worth publishing, then go speak to a specialist in the field. You can communicate with them via email for or, if there is one at your university, go speak to them in person. Tell them you've researched/written something on X topic, and think with some revisions it could be published. Given that you demonstrated enthusiasm for the field, and initiative in performing the research/writing drafts, I'm sure they'll look it over, and possibly publish it with you if it's good enough.

 

That route would get you a publication, and a great character reference.

[JohnDakota]

my supervisor is not exactly a complete expert in all of the things i wrote about though. should i ask my supervisor where to publish?

 

I'm sure you'd be pleasantly surprised to what your supervisor is an 'expert' in. I'd go speak to them first. At the very least they'll be able to give you an idea of how the publication process operates within that field, and if what you've composed is publication quality material.

 

it got great marks when assessed by my supervisor so i think it is good but how do i know if it is good enough for a real journal?

 

I'm glad you've asked that second question. A 'good mark' in an undergraduate course usually means you've read the correct background and written something that's logical and coherent. The measure of if something is publishable is quite a bit higher - generally you have to advance the field in some meaningful way. This may sound counter-intuitive when considering review articles - how could review articles advance anything, right? They're supposed to review the work performed in the field, as a whole or in some perspective, weigh the evidence for some principle, and advance a theory of what's known, how well we know it and where the field should go from here. In the most reasonable sense; It takes years of immersion in that field to get a genuine feel for where the field is and where it should be going.

 

i would tell you what its about and be more specific but i am sure that would give me away lol

 

heh.. I'd doubt it. I couldn't really be bothered to figure out who you are. I've got to figure out why 90% of my experiments are failing at the moment - just a normal day in research.

[souljaboy]

I think you're overestimating how good your review is. A literary review written by an undergrad pretty much doesn't mean anything even if you get a good mark. You're graded based on your current level and that class's grading standards, but you're competing against actual professors and post grads when you try to publish stuff. Why would an actual journal care about a review written by someone barely in the field when reviews and original research by established PhDs might not get published? In rare cases it can happen if you do an extraordinary job, but bUnless your supervisor specifically said that this is so amazing that we could probably publish it if we fix it up for a few months, then it's not happening. Most student run journals don't care about reviews either since it's mostly for posting original research.

[jmatt1122]

I think you're overestimating how good your review is. A literary review written by an undergrad pretty much doesn't mean anything even if you get a good mark. You're graded based on your current level and that class's grading standards, but you're competing against actual professors and post grads when you try to publish stuff. Why would an actual journal care about a review written by someone barely in the field when reviews and original research by established PhDs might not get published? In rare cases it can happen if you do an extraordinary job, but bUnless your supervisor specifically said that this is so amazing that we could probably publish it if we fix it up for a few months, then it's not happening. Most student run journals don't care about reviews either since it's mostly for posting original research.

 

Agreed. I guess it's possible that your work is outstandingly good, but I honestly doubt it. And that isn't meant to put you down or anything, but it sounds like you might not quite appreciate the expectations that come with publishing a review. Maybe some background on yourself/situation (long-term research involvement, other pubs already, interest by a professor to help publish it) would lend some credibility to your intentions, but as of now this reads as an eager undergrad who is proud of an assignment and thinks it's publishable.

[uoftpremed]

..............fwnoonndsnvnsd

[uoftpremed]

Lol I know you weren't trying to be mean but that was mean LOL. In terms of my background I have three other papers. 1 is published. 1 is sent out for review. 1 is in manuscript revision/editing stage. It is all clinical research. Clearly I love research! The reason why I am uncertain about this stuff is bc this is my first lit review ever... I feel as though I need to be very strategic bc if I am too high an waste time on the submission and meeting all of those specific requirments jorunals have then it will take forever. But if aim lower then i might sell it short.. So I guess what I will do is email my supervisor and ask her opinion. If she is unsure I will contact anothr UofT researcher who I know is well-equipped to answer my questions. I am still getting a feel for how professional relationships work in this field. I feel like it would be bad if I just approached another prof to help me publish when my prof looked my work over a few times already... It doesn't seem right...

 

Agreed. I guess it's possible that your work is outstandingly good, but I honestly doubt it. And that isn't meant to put you down or anything, but it sounds like you might not quite appreciate the expectations that come with publishing a review. Maybe some background on yourself/situation (long-term research involvement, other pubs already, interest by a professor to help publish it) would lend some credibility to your intentions, but as of now this reads as an eager undergrad who is proud of an assignment and thinks it's publishable.

[JohnDakota]

I have three other papers. 1 is published. 1 is sent out for review. 1 is in manuscript revision/editing stage. It is all clinical research.

 

LOL.. and this is why I've always thought the pub numbers method of evaluating someone's research productivity is absolutely hilarious.

 

Good on you for getting 1 published, and working on two others. Having said that, most other fields would never see an undergrad publishing/authoring 3 papers. I could maybe see it in organic synthesis if the PI was particularly nice and put everyone involved in any element of the work on the paper. But consider fundamental biochemistry/gene cloning work. Anyone doing a PhD in that kind of research would be lucky to get 3 pubs out of that degree - forget an undergrad. A traditional protein purification/gene cloning? One, maybe two publications if the PhD student was starting with no ground work laid before arriving in the program. Two, maybe three if the student started with good, reproducible ground work to kick-start their project(s).

[uoftpremed]

I am so confused with your last paragraph of comments lol!

( I hope to be a clinician scientist. Maybe do an MD/PHD but I def not in orgo or any lab related research. I hate that stuff.This was all clinical) And so what do you think now about the lit review situation then?

 

LOL.. and this is why I've always thought the pub numbers method of evaluating someone's research productivity is absolutely hilarious.

 

Good on you for getting 1 published, and working on two others. Having said that most other fields would never see an undergrad publishing 3 papers. I could maybe see it in organic synthesis if the PI was particularly nice and put everyone involved in any element of the work on the paper. But consider fundamental biochemistry/gene cloning work. Anyone doing a PhD in that kind of research would be lucky to get 3 pubs out of that degree - forget an undergrad. A traditional protein purification/gene cloning? One, maybe two publications if the PhD student was starting with no ground work laid before arriving in the program.

[JohnDakota]

I am so confused with your last paragraph of comments lol!

 

With experience, and effort to network with scientists from other research fields, you will realize quickly that the time it takes to do all the necessary work to publish something in any field differs, dramatically, from field to field.

 

Where you've said you've been involved with 3 publications as an undergrad, most fundamental research programs (eg. signal transduction model elucidation, traditional biochemistry, protein purification, gene cloning/characterization, etc...) could maybe squeeze one publication out for an undergrad as a 2nd-3rd author. PhD students in those fundamental research programs can reasonably expect to get 2-3 decent publications out of their work if they discover something novel, and that can be wrapped up nicely for publication.

[uoftpremed]

Oh LOL. So I am guessing you are in one of those fields and it sucks that you cant publish so much and that med schools assess research productivity based on your publication record? I sympathize with you. That really does suck. But I am sure they will see your committment in how long you have spent in the number of years you've spent! And at least from what I have seen, this pressure to publish exists even for physicians with academic appointments and research institute affiliations. You have to "push out a certain number of publications per year" to prove your productivity. This can compromise the way a study is conducted and the rigor with which patients are excluded or included.