Submitting a paper to an academic peer-reviewed journal, where to start?

Writing your first paper for a peer-reviewed journal can be scary. You are putting your research, its findings and interpretations out to a wider and knowledgeable audience who may criticise any aspect of it. However, once you have made the mental step that you really want your work to be out in the open, and you are about to draft your paper, then you need to decide to which journal you like to submit. This short paper raises some of the issues novice authors would need to consider. We also outline the process of submitting a paper to an academic journal based on the collective experiences of the three authors. All of us have all published widely, acted as reviewers or referees for many different academic journals and are members of editorial boards

Supplement 1) Peer-reviewed paper

Abstract This study was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary fatty acids (FA) on the fertility and hatchability of laying hens at the end-of-lay period (69 -77 weeks of age). Five isoenergetic (12.4 MJ ME/kg DM) and isonitrogenous (170 g CP/kg DM) diets were formulated using different lipid sources (30 g/kg inclusion) to manipulate the dietary FA profile. The control diet was formulated using a 50 : 50 blend of linseed and fish oil, while fish oil was used in the polyunsaturated n-3 treatment. Sunflower oil was used in the polyunsaturated n-6 treatment, while in the mono-unsaturated n-9 diet high oleic acid (HO) sunflower oil was used. Lastly, tallow was used as a lipid source in the saturated FA diet. One hundred and twenty five hens (n = 25/treatment) and 50 cockerels (n = 10/treatment) of the Hy-Line Silver-Brown genotype were randomly allocated to the five dietary treatments at 20 weeks of age. From 69 weeks of age, hens were inseminated with 0.06 mL undiluted semen from cockerels within the same dietary treatment. Between 71 and 78 weeks of age (49 days) a total of 588 eggs-per-treatment were collected, individually marked (date and hen number) and incubated in a single-stage still-air incubator. Eggs were candled on D7 and D14 to determine embryonic mortalities and a 24 h window for hatching was allowed (D21 + 24 h). Although the fish oil treatment resulted in the lowest egg weights (59.3 g) and fertility (84.6%), it recorded the highest hatchability (76%). In contrast, the sunflower oil treatment recorded the lowest hatchability (58.2%) of all treatments, despite its high egg fertility (89.6%). Results of the study suggest that the dietary fatty acid content, in particular the n-3 and n-6 levels, need critical consideration in terms of concentration and ratio in the formulation of breeder diets to limit embryonic mortalities during incubation

Supplement 1) Peer-reviewed paper

Abstract The FAO publication, Livestock's Long Shadow, indicated that livestock is responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas production thereby creating the perception that livestock is a major cause of global warming. Methane (CH 4 ) makes up 16% of total world gas emissions and is the second most important greenhouse gas (GHG) after carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). Ruminants are important to mankind since most of the world's vegetation biomass is rich in fibre and only ruminants can convert this vegetation into high quality protein sources for human consumption. In spite of this important role of livestock, it is singled out as producing large quantities of GHG that contribute to climate change, since enteric fermentation is responsible for 28% of global CH 4 emissions. However, the net effect from livestock is only a 4.5% contribution to GHG. The livestock industry should be aware of the effect of livestock on climate change and therefore it is important that mechanisms are put in place to mitigate this effect. The improvement of production efficiency through increased production per constant unit, crossbreeding and genetic improvement may be a cost effective and permanent way of reducing the carbon footprint of beef cattle. _______________________________________________________________________________

Supplement 1) Peer-reviewed paper

Abstract The effect of different inoculum sources, obtained from the faeces of ungulates, i.e. horses (H), wildebeest (WB) and zebra (ZB) and combinations of inoculum sources on the fermentation of maize stover (MS) was investigated. Combined sources (CS) were: (1) H+WB, (2) H+ZB, (3) WB+ZB and (4) H+WB+ZB. Fresh faecal inocula were cultured in the laboratory on MS and lucerne (mixed in 1 : 1 ratio) with salivary buffer for 72 h at 38 °C prior to application as an inoculum or extraction of crude protein (CPZ) for enzyme assays. Crude protein was precipitated using 60% ammonium sulphate and analyzed for exocellulase, endocellulase and hemicellulase specific activities (µg reducing sugar/mg CPZ). An in vitro fermentation study was done by transferring 33 mL of laboratory cultured faecal inoculum into 67 mL of salivary buffer containing 1 g MS and incubating for 72 h at 38 °C. Exocellulase specific activities differed among the seven inoculum sources. Exocellulase activity ranked the different microbial sources according to their fibrolytic potential as follows: 1 > 2 > 4 > H > ZB > WB >3. Total gas, true degradability (TD), microbial yield and total short chain fatty acids (SCFA) were higher in the CS than in the individual systems. Systems 1 and 3 had the highest TD (714mg/g CPZ) and total SCFA (680 mg/g CPZ), respectively. True degradability, total gas, total SCFA, partitioning factor and degradability efficiency ranked the microbial ecosystems according to their fibrolytic potential as follows: 3 > 1 > 4 > WB > 2 > ZB >H. Inoculum sources differed in fibrolytic digestion, with microbes from CS (1) and (4) proving to be the best. Further investigation is essential towards using inoculums sources as possible feed additives in ruminants

Reformation places and the use of senses in their design: seclusion spaces and heightened sensory awareness/responsiveness

This article was given as a paper in 5th International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences’ in the University of Cambridge, UK, 2-5 August 2010; it was submitted and peer-reviewed before being published.ADT funds, University of Derb

Self build design and construction processes and the future of sustainable design education

The paper was given during the First Annual International Conference on Construction, 20-23 June2011,in Athens, Greece; it was submitted and peer reviewed after the conference again and selected to be included in a book as a chapter.Research groups' funds

Do Congressional Earmarks Increase Research Output at Universities?

For twenty years universities have been able to bypass peer-reviewed research competition for federal funding and seek a direct appropriation of funding from Congress. Proponents of this earmarking claim that this funding helps the university build the infrastructure needed to be able to compete for peer-reviewed funding. Opponents claim this funding is used poorly and is less than productive than peer-reviewed funding. This paper attempts to answer this question by examining whether earmarked funding, when treated as a stock of capital, increases the number of academic articles published and/or the number of citations per article published. Using two panel data sets that span 1980 to 1998, incorporating university and year fixed effects, and using an instrumental variables estimation, this paper shows that while the number of articles published increase, the number of citations per article decrease. Depending on the data set used the annual increase in articles ranges, on average, between 8 and 14 percent. The annual decrease in citations per article ranges between 9 and 57 percent. If we concentrate only on earmarks for agriculture, earmarks that often are for small discrete projects, the results suggest the effect from an increase in earmarked funding is not statistically different from zero for both publications and citations per publication. These results suggest that earmarked funding may increase the quantity of publications but decreases the quality of the publications and the performance of earmarked funding is lower than that from using peer-reviewed funding.congressional earmarking, research funding, universities

On the shoulders of students? The contribution of PhD students to the advancement of knowledge

Using the participation in peer reviewed publications of all doctoral students in Quebec over the 2000-2007 period this paper provides the first large scale analysis of their research effort. It shows that PhD students contribute to about a third of the publication output of the province, with doctoral students in the natural and medical sciences being present in a higher proportion of papers published than their colleagues of the social sciences and humanities. Collaboration is an important component of this socialization: disciplines in which student collaboration is higher are also those in which doctoral students are the most involved in peer-reviewed publications. In terms of scientific impact, papers co-signed by doctorate students obtain significantly lower citation rates than other Quebec papers, except in natural sciences and engineering. Finally, this paper shows that involving doctoral students in publications is positively linked with degree completion and ulterior career in research.Comment: 41 pages, 7 figures, forthcoming in Scientometric