Publishing in eJournals

laurylaury

Hi all,

I'm currently a part-time Masters student and hope to eventually do a PhD and go into lecturing and research.
Bearing this in mind, I want to try and gather skills which will look good on my CV when I apply for funding etc
One idea I had was to send essays I have written and also write new articles to be submitted to peer-reviewed online journals.

I was just wondering if:
a) anyone has had any experience of this
b) whether it would actually impress the powers that be who would decide to let me onto a PhD course

Thanks in advance,
laurylaury

Voyager2002

It is highly unlikely that an essay written for a Master's course would be suitable for publication in an academic journal. Do by all means ask your tutors and take advice. You are right that if your work were to be published in a peer-reviewed journal that would indeed impress people who give access to PhD funding, but very few people are in a position to write such material until they have at least got well into their PhDs.

And it makes no difference at all whether a journal is published in on-line or paper form: the peer review process is the same. (Of course standards are higher for some journals than for others, and publishing in a 'crap' journal would not help you much, but standards do not correspond to on-line or paper form.)

agrinnall

I would be slightly more encouraging than Voyager, I know of several students who did the same Masters course as me (in different years) who had papers based on their dissertations published, although there's little chance of course work being suitable for publication. The thing to remember is the work for publication in a journal is not written in the same way as Masters work generally is, so you would need to practice your academic writing skills and get people in your university to take a look at it before submission so you can avoid wasting both your time and the journal editor's.

I have just had my first paper accepted for publication after a year of working as a research assistant post-Masters, and it needed a fair bit of polishing by my co-author (an experience academic) before it was ready for submission.

Person_one

I'm only a second year undergrad and a lecturer offered to help a group of us adapt our essays for possible publication, so I wouldn't be put off by 'only' being on a Masters!

I'd approach one of the academics in your department and ask for advice, maybe you could see if any of the other students on your Masters are thinking along similar lines and work together?

bewildered123

I'd second the advice to talk to a member of staff about your ambitions and get some advice. As you mention essays, I suspect you are humanities / social sciences? If so, it's not getting a place to do a PhD, it's getting the funding that's the big battle. Marks are incredibly important, increasingly you need the 1st at undergrad and distinction at Masters, so don't get distracted by ideas about publishing, as you could end up shooting yourself in the foot. A really good proposal is also needed and this is something that takes a lot longer, with a lot more input from the prospective supervisor, to stand a chance of funding than many people realise. Really, I'd encourage you to make sure the essentials of the application are in place before you try to add extras. Also ask a member of staff if that is really the best thing to do - in my field some relevant work experience might actually be more beneficial.

bewildered123

Oh and one other thought - there are outlets that publish student work but these won't really count for anything in academia. Be very wary though of the vanity puublishing sector - there are a growing number of dubious online 'journals' about, that will publish anything for a fee. Having something like that on your cv would actually look worse than nothing. It's probably only your Masters thesis, that will actually contain original research - if that comes back with a very high mark, ask the marker for advice on whether it's publishable, what changes would need to be made, and where to try.

laurylaury

bewildered123 wrote: »

I suspect you are humanities / social sciences? If so, it's not getting a place to do a PhD, it's getting the funding that's the big battle. Marks are incredibly important, increasingly you need the 1st at undergrad and distinction at Masters, so don't get distracted by ideas about publishing, as you could end up shooting yourself in the foot. A really good proposal is also needed and this is something that takes a lot longer, with a lot more input from the prospective supervisor, to stand a chance of funding than many people realise. Really, I'd encourage you to make sure the essentials of the application are in place before you try to add extras. Also ask a member of staff if that is really the best thing to do - in my field some relevant work experience might actually be more beneficial.

I am indeed in the social sciences.
And I didn't get a 1st for my undergrad, sadly, but I am averaging an A in my Masters so far so I'm just hoping to keep up the momentum!

The specific ejournal/website I'm referring to is http://www.e-ir.info/ and we have been asked to read one or two articles from it for class so the lecturers must think it's alright

Regarding asking one of the lecturers - one of them is all for encouraging us to put our work out there - even starting our own blogs on the subject.

laurylaury

bewildered123 wrote: »

Oh and one other thought - there are outlets that publish student work but these won't really count for anything in academia. Be very wary though of the vanity puublishing sector - there are a growing number of dubious online 'journals' about, that will publish anything for a fee. Having something like that on your cv would actually look worse than nothing. It's probably only your Masters thesis, that will actually contain original research - if that comes back with a very high mark, ask the marker for advice on whether it's publishable, what changes would need to be made, and where to try.

Thanks. Our course convenor has said he's more than happy to help us publish out Masters thesis if that's something we want to do.

I definitely wouldn't be paying to publish my work - I'm not quite that desperate

The site is this one http://www.e-ir.info/ and it accepts short essays from students and also other pieces from academics

cgk1

laurylaury wrote: »

Thanks. Our course convenor has said he's more than happy to help us publish out Masters thesis if that's something we want to do.

Be explicit and clear who is the lead author before you go any further...

celyn90

cgk1 wrote: »

Be explicit and clear who is the lead author before you go any further...

Yes, this is important. In my subject the work belongs to the supervisor/department not the student so it is a big no no to publish without your supervisor. It is of course possible to publish Masters level work (and indeed anything, to be honest, I am helping an undergraduate intern write something up at the moment - you get pure talent at any level) but you need to seek advice from your faculty - they will help you with adapting the style and even simple things like using the university affiliation often needs to be agreed. It isn't just a case of write it up and send it in.

I hope it goes well for you, I am all for students being proactive with things like this so wish you very the best of luck