Academic writing tip: Hit “Submit”

Last week I participated in a 3-day long workshop on transboundary water governance and transboundary river basins (I will be writing about it later this week or today). I really enjoyed having an intimate conversation with my colleagues. However, one of the things that I reflected on the most as I was participating in the workshop, as well as writing my goals for 2014 was my desire to increase my conference-paper-to-journal-article conversion rate.

Of course, I feel thrilled to have 4 publications in press this year (2 journal articles, one in Spanish and one in English, and 2 book chapters, also one in Spanish and one in English). That will also be complimented with two additional book chapters in Spanish, and hopefully four other journal articles (they’re already under review).

I am obsessed right now with my conference-paper-to-journal-article conversion rate. And there’s a simple reason for that. I have way too many conference papers that, at the time, were fantastic, and were a theoretical and empirical contribution, and I just didn’t have the mental or physical energy to push them to become journal articles. Luckily (and strangely) enough, the fields haven’t moved forward so much that I still have got a chance to publish those as journal articles.

But as my good friend Jeremy J. Schmidt tweeted a few days ago, the secret in academic writing (as in ANY writing) is to hit “SUBMIT”. I know it is scary to send your paper (which you crafted so thoroughly) to be judged by two, three or sometimes four reviewers. But you will never get anywhere if you don’t send the paper out.

The rule for finishing a paper: hit "submit"

— Jeremy J. Schmidt (@jeremyj_schmidt) January 15, 2014

Mariana Medina summarized one of the biggest challenges (and pet peeves) of academic peer review quite well: there’s almost always one reviewer who makes our lives difficult. Or rejects our paper!

Why is it always reviewer 3? #justsaying

— Mariana Medina (@ma_me_ga) January 18, 2014

But the truth is, if we don’t get our work through peer-review, we probably won’t get it published. So one of My Goals 2014 is to Hit Submit often.

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