12 Points to Cross-check Before Submitting your Paper to a Journal

12 Points to Cross-check Before Submitting your Paper to a Journal

You need to be very careful about picking the right journal while building your career as a researcher. You don’t want to get this wrong especially if you don’t want to spoil your professional reputation or let go of your funding opportunities.

SCI, Springer, Elsevier, ISI,IEEE and Scopus are a few reputed journals that most researchers choose to publish their articles. But whatever you choose, you need to make sure you analyze each aspect of the journal, before you actually submit your paper. Although these aspects may vary from one journal to the other, here are a few Points you need to check for, before submitting your paper to any journal:

1. Make sure your work involves authentic research

It is the kind of efforts that you put into research that determine how well your work will be received. Apart from just gathering information, you should also focus on evaluating and analyzing the information. Evaluate your sources for authenticity and make sure you cite them while using any information.

2. Take care while identifying topic

Developing a good research topic is a skill you need to have, if you want to be a successful researcher. You can ask your instructor to assign you a topic; but he or she might want you to select a topic that interests you.  Here are a few ways you could use, to identify a topic for your research:

• Write down the concepts or keywords that interest you. Find out if you can make a topic out of them.
• Make sure you choose a topic that has enough research material available.
• Read some background information about the topic before selecting it for your paper
• Make sure the topic is not too narrow or too broad
• Choose a topic that you can modify during your research
• Identify a topic that can work as your thesis statement
• The Topic must be unique and effectual your journal paper.​

3. Collect Data from Authentic Sources

Whether you are collecting primary data or secondary data, you have to make sure the source you are using is authentic. Inaccurate data can impact the findings of your study, rendering your research false or invaluable. You can conduct surveys and interviews if you want to collect primary data. For secondary data, it would be to better to check out literature sources such as text books, reports of government or private companies, magazines, newspapers, and articles or papers that are published online.

4. Figures, tables, images, and diagrams to be described appropriately

Figures, images, diagrams, and tables can make it easier to explain complicated concepts in a simple way. Most of the times your readers may just glance through these display items without going through the text.

• Make sure the display items you use are attractive and well-designed.
• Use display items of high quality to make your work look professional.
• Make sure the figures that you have used supplement your text
• It is better to use tables when you have large amounts of data to present
• Use proper legend captions for all your figures, images, tables, and diagrams
• Don’t manipulate images to improve or change your results

5. Maintain flow and accuracy in your writing

Flow and cohesion are essential aspects of journal writing. Always focus on the bigger picture and see how you can relate the different parts of your article.  You can share your work with your supervisor or mentor to get a view on how it might seem to the reader. Alternatively, you can even read it out loud. If you can’t read a particular sentence in your normal pace, you might have to change it. Here are a few Points you can do to keep up the flow and accuracy of the content in your article:

• Identify the main idea you want to communicate through the paragraph
• Determine the relation of the paragraph to the immediate next one
• Identify the action words in your sentences and turn them into main verbs
• Avoid using passive voice as much as possible
• Make sure the readers can connect your sentences
• Double check the sources from which you have collected your facts
• Remove extra words and make sure your writing is precise

6. Make sure you use the right language and tone

As an author it is very important that you pay absolute attention, not just to what you have to say, but also to how you need to say it. Focus on your writing style and tone. Analyze your audience and think about the purpose of writing the article. Check the context in which you are writing your paper and then decide on the language and tone you should stick to. You need to make sure the language that you use is:

• Specific and concrete
• Clear and precise
• Formal
• Constructive
• Concise
• Familiar

7. Describe the results and analysis properly

The first Point that a reader will go through when he sees your research paper, is the results. This is where you present your findings. Any questions, either theoretical or empirical, that you might have mentioned in the first part of your paper should be addressed by these results. If it is a qualitative paper, you might have to organize your results in a thematic or analytical format. Make sure your findings are easily understandable.

8. Include Scope of Future work

While most authors include conclusion in their paper, not everyone includes a section for future work. Including scope of future work in your article will give your readers information about what you are going to do next. Make sure this section is short and concise. Limit it to a sentence or two but make sure it explains the idea. Apart from pointing to a possible research path, make sure you explain the significance of this path.

9. Make sure you use recent references

You have to include a references page at the end of your paper. Written in APA style, this page should contain all the sources that you have used in your paper. This makes it easier for your readers to find citations. Always make use of a uniform font while writing references. The sources need to be in alphabetical order. You can use the website title or the title of the work if you don’t see an author’s name in the source that you have provided. Always check the date of the source before mentioning it in your references.

10. Ensure Plagiarism-free Content

Plagiarism is a strict No-No when it comes to journal submission. Using the words and ideas of others, whether intentionally or coincidentally, is considered as an unethical practice in the world of research. It is often termed as a serious intellectual as well as academic offense. Not only will your paper be rejected, you will also end up losing your reputation and credibility as an author. Here are a few ways to avoid plagiarism in your work:

• Understand the ideas and paraphrase them instead of copying and pasting text
• If you have to take text from another paper, make sure you use quotes
• In case you are borrowing ideas or words that are not your own, you need to cite them
• Also cite any content that you might be using from your previous paper
• Keep track of the sources that you refer to, while preparing your paper. You can use citation software to manage your citations.
• Run your paper through a plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin or Urkund before submitting it

11. Choose your journal as per the topic you have selected

Before selecting a journal to get your paper published, make sure you are aware of its aim and scope. Your paper should ideally fit into its scope. Find out if there are any articles similar to yours in the journal you have selected. Assess the reputation of the journal based on its impact factor, audience reach, as well as turnaround times.

12. Prepare your Paper as per the format of the Journal

If you go through a few articles that have been published in the journal, you will know what kind of format you need to follow. Find out how many sections are there in the structure and understand the function of each section. Talk to your professors and check if you are on the right track.

It might take a long time for the work that you have submitted to get published in a journal. There may be multiple reviews and you may have to make some corrections according to the journal comments. In fact at least 3 reviewers should approve your research for your paper to be accepted. Following the above tips can make this easy.