PHREE Spring Conference

1. Publish or perish?
A guide to submitting papers
for peer-reviewed publication
Ian Brown
Louise Savory
Erlend Aasheim

2. A brief history of scientific publication
• First scientific journal
was Philosophical
Transactions
• published by the Royal
Society in 1665
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/publishorbedamned.shtml

3. • Now more than 2,000 publishers producing more
than 1.6 million articles in more than 20,000
journals
• Traditionally subscription-based
• Rise of open access journals since 2000
Source: http://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/content/v09n03/mcguigan_g01.html
A brief history of scientific publication

4. Source: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/124
The rise of open access publishing

5. With thanks: http://tinyurl.com/carolinetomes
Why should I
try to publish?
To share
learning and
disseminate
knowledge
To build your
reputation as
an academic
To challenge
the accepted
scientific view
In response to
another
publication
To attract
research
funding
To contribute
to the research
impact of your
department
Because your
supervisor has
told you to
To achieve KA9
academic PH
competences
It looks good
on your CV
To improve
population
health and
wellbeing
To reduce
health
inequalities
To demonstrate
something is or
isn’t (cost)
effective
To share a
useful new
method
Failure to publish
negative findings
distorts the evidence
base

6. What could I submit?
• MPhil dissertation
• Service work evaluation
• Case reports – e.g. from health protection
placement
• Systematic review
• Comment piece / letter to editor

7. Some recent examples

8. Choosing where to submit
• ‘High impact’ general medicine journals
e.g. Lancet, British Medical Journal
+ Wide readership
+ High impact
+ Great for CV
–Only accept a minority of papers
–Laborious process of review, revision and
publication
–A more specialist paper may be more suited to a
specialist journal

9. Choosing where to submit
• Specialist public health journals
e.g. Journal of Public Health, Journal of
Epidemiology and Community Health
+ More likely to reach an interested audience
+ Tend to accept a greater proportion of papers
–Lower impact than general medical journals
–Less likely to attract media coverage
–Laborious process of review, revision and
publication

10. Choosing where to submit
• Open Access journals, e.g. PLOS Medicine, BMC
Public Health, BMJ Open
+ Papers can be published within weeks not months
+ Some OA journals accept all papers so long as they
are methodologically sound
+ Full paper available to everyone
–Many have high fees to cover costs
–Variable quality and impact

11. Deciding on a journal
• Where were the articles you cited published?
• What journals do you read?
• Who are your target audience?
• Use an online tool like JANE
http://www.biosemantics.org/jane/
• Check the Journal’s website for information
• Send an exploratory e-mail to the editors
• Look out for calls for articles on your topic
• Check impact factors

12. Journal Impact Factor
• A measure of the frequency with which the
‘average article’ in a journal has been cited in a
particular year
• Helps evaluate a journal’s relative importance,
especially compared to others in the same field
• Impact factor >5 considered very good
• e.g. BMJ - 17, Journal of Public Health - 2, BMC
Public Health - 2

13. Exercise
• On your tables
• As a table discuss the barriers to paper
submission (5 minutes)
• Then, in pairs discuss a piece of work that you
could turn into a paper
• What would be the key PH message? (5 minutes)
• Share with the table, and choose one barrier
and one idea for a paper to feed back to the
room (5 minutes)

14. Co-author etiquette
• If it’s your paper, you should be the first author
• Often the main supervisor or principal
investigator is last
• Link those positions in between to relative
contributions made
• Shared 1st authorship is becoming more common

15. Co-author etiquette
• ICMJE criteria for authorship:
1. Substantial contributions to the conception or
design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or
interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for
important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the
work
Source: http://tinyurl.com/ICMJEcriteria

16. Preparing your manuscript
• Contact your academic supervisor for advice,
contacts, facilities
• Befriend a tame statistician
• Use reference manager software (e.g. Mendeley)
• Read the journal author instructions
• Refer to STROBE or other relevant guidelines
• Base layout on similar articles from the journal
• Be patient. It can take months or years, even
working full-time!
http://www.strobe-statement.org/

17. Peer review
• Usually two subject experts and a statistician
• Many journals will give authors the opportunity
to recommend or veto potential referees
• Once you have registered to submit your paper,
you may get requests to review future papers
• Contributing to peer review is part of academic
life
• Critical appraisal skills are needed
• Subject expertise helps to put articles in context

18. What do editors and
peer reviewers look for?
Is the information in your manuscript…
• New? (not published elsewhere)
• True? (conclusions valid)
• Relevant? (to the readership)
Does it have impact, presentation or citation potential?
Is it well-written, conforming to manuscript instructions?

19. Possible outcomes of submission
• Rejection without peer review
• Rejection with referees’ comments
• Opportunity to submit a revised manuscript
addressing referees’ comments
• Unqualified acceptance

20. A selection of recent StR publications
• Aasheim ET. Fan charts. Tidsskr Nor Legeforen 2013;133:196.
• Aasheim ET, Seymour M et al. Acute hepatitis A in an elderly patient
after care worker travel to high endemicity country . Hum Vaccin
Immunother. 2013;9:2480-2482.
• Savory LA et al. Changes in diet, cardiovascular risk factors and
modelled cardiovascular risk following diagnosis of diabetes: one-year
results from the ADDITION-Cambridge trial cohort. Diabet Med.
2014;31:148-155.
• Shankar AG, Lee A, Reddy H, Seymour M. Bordetella pertussis infection
in a child with completed primary immunization: A case report. Hum
Vaccin Immunother. 2013;9:322-324.
• Yip JL et al. Area deprivation, individual socioeconomic status and low
vision in the EPIC-Norfolk Eye Study. J Epidemiol Community Health.
2014;68:204-10.

21. Questions?