The publishing process

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Understand the different stages in the scholarly publishing process, including:

  • writing and formatting in the preferred style of the publisher or journal
  • understanding author responsibilities
  • submitting your article and what happens in editorial review
  • peer review and peer review training opportunities
  • avoiding unethical publishers.
  1. Publishing in scholarly journals
  2. The writing process
  3. Author responsibilities
  4. Submitting your manuscript
  1. Peer review
  2. Unethical publishing
  3. Book publishing

1. Publishing in scholarly journals

Reasons to publish

  • Build your academic profile  and establish your reputation
  • Communicate new knowledge and increase the impact and visibility of your research
  • Register your research results, the time frame and who conducted the research
  • Preserve a record of your research for the long term

Scholarly journals

A scholarly journal publishes high-quality academic or scholarly content that includes original research articles, written by researchers and experts in a particular academic discipline. Generally, scholarly journals follow the peer review process where manuscripts submitted for publication are evaluated by editors and selected experts (peers).

How can I tell if a journal is scholarly?

Check Ulrichsweb to determine the peer review status of the journal.

Also check that the journal:

  • is not a potential unethical publisher (see section 6)
  • has a list of editorial board members in the inside front cover or first few pages of an individual issue
  • has information for authors regarding the peer review process
  • publishes articles that offer new theories, report primary results of original research in an academic field, or summarise previous research
  • articles include the source of information, such as author/date references in the text, footnotes or bibliographies
  • articles include the name and academic affiliation of the author at the beginning or end of the article. Articles in an academic journal are never anonymous.

Choosing a journal

The Think section of Strategic scholarly publishing outlines factors to consider when choosing which journal to publish in, including journal quality, publisher reputation and practices and relevance to your topic.

High-impact publishing

The Nature Index provides an overview of publications produced by individual Institutions, drawn from a selected group of 82 high-quality science journals evaluated by a panel of active scientists, independent of Nature Research. The Nature Index provides a snapshot of high-quality research output at the institutional, national and regional level, and provides guidance for the following questions:

  • How much high-quality scientific research tracked in the Nature Index is produced by my institution?
  • How does this compare to other research organisations across the world, in my region or in my broad field?
  • Which institutions make the biggest absolute contribution to high-quality scientific research tracked by the Nature Index globally, in my region or in my broad field?

See The University of Queensland research profile on the Nature Index to discover:

  • Research highlights
  • Top articles by Altmetric score
  • Counts of research outputs
  • Domestic and international collaborators
  • Relationships and affiliations

  UQ policies

Next steps

  1. Set up an ORCID iD before you publish to establish your unique identity as a researcher
  2. Use the Strategic scholarly publishing  - Think, Check, Submit, Promote, Track method to ensure you publish in the most effective outlet.

Contact the Librarian Team if you need help.