While I’ve never published a research paper and have no plans to do so, I realized I don’t even know how the process works. These are the bits and pieces I think I know (probably wrong about some):
Papers are annoying 2-column pdfs
Getting a paper published takes a lot of work beyond the research itself
When a paper has multiple collaborators or a student/professor relationship, there’s an awkward political negotiation about whose name is included and whose name goes first, last, or in the middle of the list
There are multiple journals you can submit to and maybe none will accept you, or maybe you’ll get multiple offers and then I don’t know if you have to pick one at most
When you submit a paper to a journal, the journal sends it out to your peers who submit anonymous feedback before publishing, which seems like more trouble than it’s worth these days because the peers might be slow or unfair, or be playing a zero-sum game competing with you
Many academic conferences have their own associated journals which you can submit papers to and in some cases getting accepted to that conference-journal means you get to give a talk at that conference
Paid-access journals currently have a monopoly on high-status research publication, and academia is stuck in this local maximum that’s hard to dislodge without a coordinated effort to agree on how to publish in a high-status place that isn’t a paid journal, and in the meantime the journals get to rent-seek in a way that tragically/comically undermines the ideal of academic research not being a capitalist enterprise
arXiv is a place where you can upload papers for free and people can download them for free, thereby bypassing the journals to some degree
Sci-hub lets anyone illegally download pirated papers that normally require access to a paid journal
Publishing papers is a valuable thing to do because it gives the content of the paper and its author(s) a certain social legitimacy, and allows future research to frictionlessly cite your findings
Can someone confirm or correct my impressions, and elaborate on any other interesting parts?
[Question] How does publishing a paper work?
While I’ve never published a research paper and have no plans to do so, I realized I don’t even know how the process works. These are the bits and pieces I think I know (probably wrong about some):
Papers are annoying 2-column pdfs
Getting a paper published takes a lot of work beyond the research itself
When a paper has multiple collaborators or a student/professor relationship, there’s an awkward political negotiation about whose name is included and whose name goes first, last, or in the middle of the list
There are multiple journals you can submit to and maybe none will accept you, or maybe you’ll get multiple offers and then I don’t know if you have to pick one at most
When you submit a paper to a journal, the journal sends it out to your peers who submit anonymous feedback before publishing, which seems like more trouble than it’s worth these days because the peers might be slow or unfair, or be playing a zero-sum game competing with you
Many academic conferences have their own associated journals which you can submit papers to and in some cases getting accepted to that conference-journal means you get to give a talk at that conference
Paid-access journals currently have a monopoly on high-status research publication, and academia is stuck in this local maximum that’s hard to dislodge without a coordinated effort to agree on how to publish in a high-status place that isn’t a paid journal, and in the meantime the journals get to rent-seek in a way that tragically/comically undermines the ideal of academic research not being a capitalist enterprise
arXiv is a place where you can upload papers for free and people can download them for free, thereby bypassing the journals to some degree
Sci-hub lets anyone illegally download pirated papers that normally require access to a paid journal
Publishing papers is a valuable thing to do because it gives the content of the paper and its author(s) a certain social legitimacy, and allows future research to frictionlessly cite your findings
Can someone confirm or correct my impressions, and elaborate on any other interesting parts?