Publishing as a PhD Student

Photograph: Connor Brook 

Heidi Gardner is a 3rd year PhD student at the University of Aberdeen’s Health Services Research Unit. Her research is part of a wider initiative called Trial Forge, which is an evidence-based approach to designing, running, analysing and reporting clinical trials. Currently her work focusses on improving strategies to recruit participants into clinical trials. As well as participant recruitment, Heidi is interested in research waste, reporting of science and health-related topics in the media, and public engagement.

To find out more about Heidi’s research and her thoughts on doing a PhD, head over to her blog: www.heidirgardner.wordpress.com, and follow her on Twitter: @heidirgardner.

Publishing is something that’s drummed into PhD students right from the beginning; you need to publish, you need to prove your work is publishable, and you need to learn how to manage the peer review process. Moving from reading journal articles, to being expected to write at that level can be incredibly intimidating. I’m about to enter my third and final year as a PhD student (eek!), and I’ve published one paper as first author, and one as a co-author. Honestly, I think I’ve been very lucky with my supervisory team; they’ve encouraged me to publish, and to get involved with other projects that will lead to further publications. Now that I’ve gone through the publication process as both first author and co-author, I thought I would share a few tips on how to get your work published. 

Publish when you have something to say

The pressure to publish is real, and even at the very start of my PhD I was thinking about how I could build my reputation. Thinking ahead isn’t necessarily a bad thing; but don’t let yourself panic about not publishing. Take time to get to grips with your project, and then work on a first publication that you can really get your teeth into. My first author publication was the protocol for my systematic review (you can read it here), and it took almost a year from first thought to final publication. A year on and the review itself is not published yet – I’m still writing it. These things take time, but rushing to publish early and not having a cohesive piece of work won’t help things. 

Choose the right journal

This is a crucial step, and requires a good deal of research when you’re new to publishing. The ‘right’ journal should have a track record of publishing the types of article you plan to submit; so don’t submit a clinical trial protocol to Nature. I chose the Journal of Systematic Reviews for my first publication – for pretty self-explanatory reasons. This journal is also open access which was important to me, and it has a good track record within my research field. Ask your supervisors, other PhD students in your department, and then have a look at which journals you tend to read similar papers from. The most important thing for a first submission it’s important to set your sights on a realistic journal; the last thing you want is to get your first rejection at this stage. 

 Expect revisions

Anything other than an outright rejection means that you have some room for negotiation with the journal editor, so take revisions – whether major or minor – as a positive. Before publishing I thought that it was normal to get a few minor revisions and then the paper would go ahead to publication. That was not the case for me. I went through 2 major revisions, and then 2 minor revisions before the paper was published. At first I found this quite upsetting, but my supervisor encouraged me to continue working on the article, and ensured I didn’t feel like I’d failed either. One thing that really important to remember when you get peer review comments back, is that you are much closer to your researcher than your reviewers are. Don’t be afraid to defend the decisions you’ve made and explain why you shouldn’t make all of the changes they have suggested. Ultimately, the journal editor has the final say and if you can demonstrate why you’ve conducted your study the way you have, then you should be fine.

Work as a team

Working as part of a team is an integral part of being involved in research; you cannot publish alone. Firstly, you don’t have the expertise to critique your own search strategy, statistical analysis and research methods to a high level. You are not an information specialist, a statistician, and a methodologist. Get other people involved and work together to make your paper the best it can be. Teams are also really helpful when you get comments back from peer reviewers; don’t just respond yourself, ask for input from other people and ensure each comment is addressed by the experts you’re working with.

Get involved with other projects

Offering to lend a hand with other projects is a brilliant way to network and build your reputation, and to get an extra publication or two as well. Just as you require a team to strengthen your work, at times others will ask you to be part of their teams. If you have time for additional projects, they are linked to your PhD work, and you like the people you’ll be working with; say yes. It might mean doing a few extra late nights in the office every now and again, but you need to demonstrate that you can be a reliable and effective collaborator – that’s what research and publishing is all about.

Publishing is a long process, and one that can require a thick-skin at times. Take your time, ask for help, and try your hardest not to feel disheartened when you get asked to change something for a third time. Once you’ve gone from initial submission to final publication, the feelings of frustration soon fade away to be replaced with pride and a real sense of satisfaction. If you publish PhD-related work, then you can always use bits of text in your thesis too – just make sure to reference the publication so that you’re not self-plagiarising. I’m really glad that I’ve had the opportunity to publish so early on in my research career, and even though peer review comments can sometimes be really (REALLY) annoying, in the end this level of professional critique means you come out with a paper you can be proud of.