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An Early Career Researcher Network Workshop held on 3 May 2018
- Summary by Laura Knight, Co-Chair, CSSD Early Career Network, Research
Associate in Medical Education, UCL Medical School, Medical Sciences, UCL
The way we do social science research is
changing. Funders are showing a growing interest in collaborative,
interdisciplinary research which is leading to increasing numbers of
cross-disciplinary projects receiving funding. Many Early Career Researchers
(ECRs) are involved in these projects and, in the 'publish or perish' climate
of academia, getting this non-traditional content published is a new challenge
for them to overcome. The focus of the event
was to help ECRs write robust articles that will pass the reviewing stage, by
offering them advise and insight from journal editors and manuscript
reviewers. UCL ECRs were provided the
opportunity to discuss their experiences and concerns about this emerging
challenge - and a number of interesting discussions were had!
- Click on the panelist's name below to see their contributions:
Prof. Michael Reiss opened the discussion with a
fantastic overview of an ideal interdisciplinary manuscript; offering attendees
a greater understanding of what they should be including, and what they need to
consider when writing up their research.
Prof. Cheryl Thomas followed with an
very insightful walk-through of the challenges faced by authors when writing
interdisciplinary publications, as well as drawing attention to more common
errors that tend to be made when writing a journal article. Essentially,
attendees were shown where and how it often goes wrong for authors & what
can be done to avoid receiving the dreaded rejection email.
Prof. Sandy Oliver concluded the discussion with an interesting presentation about the importance of ensuring an article's 'fitness for purpose'. The importance of selecting the appropriate journal for a paper & strongly pitching a cover letter to an editor was explained to attendees; along with advice on how to handle the dilemma between doing a 'full picture' paper or splitting it into several more in depth papers (one per domain of collaboration). The event ended with a lively Q&A session where attendees shared, and sought advice on, their own publishing experiences.
Some key 'take away points' from the event include:
- Before writing, make sure you plan carefully: you need to know where the paper is going and how it's going to get there
- "Scene setting" and stating in simple language what the research was actually about, is crucial
- Make sure that results are presented clearly (and avoid over-complicated tables!)
- Being sure to avoid the temptation to overstate the significance of the research findings
- Seek advice from colleagues and, where possible, go through an internal review process before submitting
- Keep the article focussed on one topic. If you have another to discuss, you have another paper to write!
- When submitting, don't underestimate the importance of the covering letter to the editor
Panel
Professor Sandy Oliver
Co-editor of the journal Research for All
Professor of Public Policy, Deputy Director, Social Science Research
Unit, Institute of Education, UCL
Professor Michael Reiss
Joint Editor of
Palgrave's Studies in Alternative Education series, Chair of the Executive
Editorial Board of Research for All, Chair of Journal of Moral Education, Joint
Editor of Routledge's Foundations and Futures of Education series
Professor of Science Education, Curriculum, Pedagogy
& Assessment, Institute of Education, UCL
Professor Cheryl Thomas QC
(Hon)
Editorial board for Psychology, Public Policy and Law and Criminal
Law Review
Professor of Judicial Studies, Director of the UCL Jury Project
and UCL Judicial Institute, Faculty of Laws, UCL