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Monday, 5 June 2017

[How to] Publishing A Research Paper | Practical Advice

First Paper is Always a Memorable Benchmark

Research is Addictive, You’ll need more and more of it!

Having published 3 research papers I guess I’m eligible to provide information on this “Frequent Asked Question”. So without any further time-pass lets just get into the topic.

Publishing A Research Paper

Why is A common Question

       It is a great way to express your works and communicate with a larger set of audience for your works through active research oriented websites. having connections with top people and learning from them as well as being a mentor to others.
    Generally students are expected to publish research papers as a part of their academic requirements, they publish their project works, seminars, etc. This is usually to inculcate a sense of technical documentation and improve their logical skills. Publishing a research paper adds a great load to your CV or Re’sume making you more appealing as a candidate for a job. So get ahead!

How To Start

      You don’t need to be a scientist or a graduate for doing so, even under-graduates can make miracles happen (Microsoft, Dell, Facebook, ……).  Publishing a research work isn’t just a job reserved for the scholars though it suits them. Simply any student with some concept and facts backing that concept can publish a research paper.
    To start all you need is a great concept and the willpower to prove it. Documentation is just an ordinary labor you’ll have to deal somehow. So just get an idea or concept, it could also be a comparative study, Case Study or anything else depending upon the niche you wish to pursue.
Basically I have divided the entire procedure into 4 simple steps, like the four columns supporting a structure Winking smile

Step 1 Determination of Topic and other specifications
Step 2 Conducting the study/ research
Step 3Organize and present the work in proper format
Step 4Finally Publish in a journal

      So in the step-wise procedure…

Step 1:

Determination of Topic and other specifications

         For Publishing a research paper your topic could be a research and development work, A new concept that you've developed/working upon, Case studies or comparative studies. So finalize your area of work. This may include accumulating all the recourses that you need to conduct the study.
Step 2:

Conducting the study/research

          You need to present proper facts and observations in the paper and for that It is essential that you conduct proper research, analysis, literature review and experiments. Conduct all the required calculations and experiments and record your observations or inferences. I personally remember well how we’d used the dark room of our Physics lab in our College. Also you’ll need to carry out simulations if you’re not able to practically conduct any concept. In one of our projects we’d tested the concept on software subjecting the model to all real-time conditions. So publish a paper that could receive citations, it is required that the thesis is backed well by all facts. You may refer to the literature from other peoples work and it is actually better if you do this as a main process so that you can have better idea on what would be the scopes of development that you could propose. So this phase could be said to be one of the most uncertain situation in the entire procedure.

Step 3:

Organize and present the work in proper format

        Having all the data you need to indent it in a proper format that has been specified by the journals you’d wish to publish your paper with. This simply involves compiling of all data into a single file with proper headings, descriptions, tables, figures, etc. Common templates can be found on the web and particularly on the website of the publications. So adjust your manuscript as per the templates and included all the citations of works that you’ve referred or used while preparing your manuscript. Conduct all spelling checks and provide captions to all figures and tables also provide a short description about it in the corresponding paragraphs or text.

Final Step:

Publish in a journal

        With the manuscript ready, seek a journal of your choice and niche of your work. Generally I prefer having it in IJIRSET, though it would be much better if you could find a journal with higher Impact factor. Impact factor is like the app ratings in the Google Play store, it determines the status of the publication. Impact factor is dependent on a number of factors explaining it would be a new post, we’ll have it sometime later; for now assume higher the impact factor better is the journal. So aim for a journal with high impact factors.
There are basically two categories of Journals:
  1. Open Source
  2. Subscription Based

Open Source Journals
     These are freely available and could be referred or used by anyone, anywhere just as the Open source software. The reader doesn’t need to pay anything or purchase any subscription to access the journals. These are often referred to as ‘Open Access Journals’. The fee or the charges for publishing in these sort of journals is borne by the publisher/Author i.e. the person who prepared the research paper.
Subscription based
      These require you to have a subscription in order to access the libraries, most institutes have some package subscriptions with such publications that allow the users to access the journals for free on their intranet. My college does has a subscription with ASCE, Sci-Direct, etc. check out your college library for information on this topic. Having a subscription allows you to access top quality research material from the best research scholars. The user is the payer here and in most cases the author doesn’t needs to pay anything for publishing the paper.
Now after having selected the journal you need to conduct the following:
1. Handle them your manuscript: In order to publish the work the publication needs to have the matter or content. You’ll have to either upload or email your publisher with the manuscript.
2. Review of Manuscript:  This is done by the publication, they have a panel of reviewers who actually go through the entire content and check for technical faults, indentation errors, plagiarism and copyright issues. After having the review they provide you with a reviewers guideline referring which you need to make the necessary changes to your manuscript.
3. Payment: After doing all the changes and submitting the final manuscript, depending upon the type of Journal you need to make the payment which is either online or offline through challans.
4. Issuing of Publication Certificate: Congratulations! once you’ve completed with the above steps, your paper will be published and the publication will award you with a publication certificate.
And with this the entire adventure ends….
Please comment with your experience and Queries regarding the procedure, we’d be glad to answer your doubts…

Check This Video For Details on the Publication Procedure:

Thanks for reading..