An Introduction to Preparing your Journal Article for Publication

 All academics, especially scholars who are at the start of their career, need to publish articles on a regular basis. For this reason, editing and proofreading services are in high demand in academia, and they are widely used to speed up the manuscript preparation process.

Both among students and full-time researchers, university professors, and other faculty members in higher education, editing and proofreading services, and even book proofreading services UK, can be helpful if used wisely. However, it is especially true that the work of professional editors and manuscript formatters plays a vital role in preparing journal articles for publication.

In this article, then, we provide an introduction to preparing your journal article for publication. By the time you’ve finished these steps, you will be well on your way to submitting your freshly prepared journal article to your publisher.

 

1. Choose a journal

Before writing your journal article, you need to have a clear idea of where you will publish it. This is because each scholarly journal has a different area of specialism.

Most journals have a narrow scope, and to increase your chances of publication, it is best to choose a journal with as narrow a scope as possible.

For example, if you’ve written an article on a topic such as how a clownfish gets its stripes, you could submit your article to a world-leading scientific publication such as Nature. However, if you’re a new author, it might be best to aim for a narrower publication such as the Journal of Fish Biology.

 

Image: The Journal of Fish Biology covers all aspects of fish biology and marine ecology

2. Follow submission procedures

Every journal has a series of guidelines that you must follow when you submit your manuscript. These publication guidelines will be readily available online (search for something like “Submission Procedures” or “Author Guidelines”).

 

3. Editing and proofreading

As you will learn by reading your journal’s Author Guidelines, editing and proofreading are carefully considered by the publication’s team when evaluating your manuscript in the peer-review process.

If your article is accepted for publication, it is still very likely that you will need to edit it further in order to respond to your reviewers’ comments. However, perfecting your manuscript to the best possible level before submitting it for the first time is still critical.

For this reason, considering working with a professional editor or proofreader at this point can be worthwhile. Editors and proofreaders can help you in different ways, and they may yield a reasonable return on investment – especially if you have a tight deadline.

 

Image: Editors and proofreaders can rapidly improve your written work

4. Submission

The final step in your journey to becoming a published academic is to submit your application.

In your initial application, it is important to contextualise your research using a cover letter. Rather than telling the reviewer about your journal article (which they can read about in your abstract), briefly describe your academic history, the significance of your research, and your contributions.

It is uncommon in academia for a journal article to be published after only one attempt. Usually, even if your article is not rejected, you will receive a set of recommended revisions, which you can use to prepare a new manuscript for another attempt.