About this Resource
Productive reading
Writing effectively
Who are you trying to convince?
Putting yourself in your assessor’s place
Identifying explicit criteria underlying audience feedback
Looking for feedback on what you are doing well and what needs improving
Feedback prompt list: reinforcing the good and avoiding the weak
Identifying the implicit criteria underlying audience feedback
Expanding what you learn from audience feedback
Familiarising yourself with the official criteria for assessment
Learning systematically from audience feedback
Learning from your writing for formative and summative assessment
Formative and summative assessment in writing for academic presentation
Criteria for academic presentation and developing a convincing argument
Comparing criteria for academic publication and assessing students’ work
Who needs convincing if your work is to get published in an academic journal?
Inside an academic journal editor’s world
Getting to grips with academic journal criteria for acceptance
Building your sense of audience: an interview with a journal editor
Top tips for postgraduate and doctoral research students who aspire to get published
Arguing convincingly
Mapping your field
Literature reviewing
Reviewing the literature systematically
Developing proposals
Top tips for postgraduate and doctoral research students who aspire to get published 


If you’re a postgraduate or doctoral research student, your top writing priorities will surely be your assignments and dissertation or thesis. However, you may also aspire to get one or more articles based on your work published in an academic journal. If so, you can increase your chances if you plan for publishing possibilities from the outset, discuss the possibilities for co-publishing with your supervisor, and take your supervisor’s advice about whether or when to try writing for publication during or after your studies.  It is obviously important not to let the idea of getting published intrude on your student work. So one option is to plan to finish your student work first, then build on coursework or your dissertation or thesis after you have finished the programme of study. Anofther is to harness opportunities to present at seminars in your institution and to give papers at conferences as an integral part of your work as a student.

Here are seven ‘top tips’ drawn from our experience that you might useful to reflect upon.

1.         Consider your own situation and set yourself a realistic publishing aspiration

2.         Think publishing - make it an integral part of your work

·        conference papers, book reviews, academic journal articles - as you work on your thesis (e.g. a literature review article, an article reporting your findings)

·        a book based on your thesis (which normally need considerable modification to meet the needs of a general audience rather than examiners)

3.         Ask your supervisor for support (but be realistic about the time your supervisor can give)

·        discuss your aspiration

·        consider a joint publication (who writes what and whose name goes first?)

·        ask your supervisor to comment on a draft

·        ask your supervisor to suggest topics and suitable journals

·        consider the ethics of publication (e.g. evidence given to you in confidence)

4.         Check out academic journals

·        check that your topic lies within the range covered (check back numbers)

·        ensure that the journal is refereed (look at the editorial policy or the publishers’ website)

·        look for any statement of the criteria for acceptance that the editor asks referees to use

·        take note of the required style of writing and presentation (e.g. whether appendices are acceptable)

·        follow the referencing procedures outlined in the author guidance in your text and your reference list

5.         Writing

·        write for your imagined audience (remembering that the primary audience is the editor and reviewers, who are informed but may not be knowledgeable about the detail of your work, and who you can expect to be critical but fair)

·        concentrate on the structure, focus, and linkage of your paper to develop a convincing argument

·        use a clear writing style and attend to presentation to ensure that you communicate effectively (e.g. one idea per sentence, short sentences, avoid jargon, follow journal rules about pagination, spacing, and references)

·        keep to length (follow the rules)

6.         Follow through

·        get clearance if necessary from your informants

·        follow journal submission rules on what to send and how (e.g. electronic submission)