Will a top journal at least read my introduction?
I'm currently preparing an article for a very good journals in mathematics (AMS, Acta, Advances, etc.). I have never had a result worthy of these journals until now. I would like to know whether I can count on the editors to at least read my one-page introduction before making a decision. Or could they stop after the abstract? The reason I ask is currently my abstract is very short and gives zero background. If someone were to only read it, they could undervalue my paper.
publications journals editors
add a comment |
I'm currently preparing an article for a very good journals in mathematics (AMS, Acta, Advances, etc.). I have never had a result worthy of these journals until now. I would like to know whether I can count on the editors to at least read my one-page introduction before making a decision. Or could they stop after the abstract? The reason I ask is currently my abstract is very short and gives zero background. If someone were to only read it, they could undervalue my paper.
publications journals editors
12
Why did you write an abstract that leads people to undervalue your paper?
– henning
3 hours ago
2
There will typically be a maximum length for any abstract: use it. The well written abstract allows the expert to determine if the paper is at all relevant for her own research. Journals receive many, many submissions, so do not give them any reason to do a desk reject of your paper.
– Carl Christian
2 hours ago
2
Can you include a cover letter with your submission?
– Anyon
2 hours ago
add a comment |
I'm currently preparing an article for a very good journals in mathematics (AMS, Acta, Advances, etc.). I have never had a result worthy of these journals until now. I would like to know whether I can count on the editors to at least read my one-page introduction before making a decision. Or could they stop after the abstract? The reason I ask is currently my abstract is very short and gives zero background. If someone were to only read it, they could undervalue my paper.
publications journals editors
I'm currently preparing an article for a very good journals in mathematics (AMS, Acta, Advances, etc.). I have never had a result worthy of these journals until now. I would like to know whether I can count on the editors to at least read my one-page introduction before making a decision. Or could they stop after the abstract? The reason I ask is currently my abstract is very short and gives zero background. If someone were to only read it, they could undervalue my paper.
publications journals editors
publications journals editors
asked 3 hours ago
Douglas SirkDouglas Sirk
11714
11714
12
Why did you write an abstract that leads people to undervalue your paper?
– henning
3 hours ago
2
There will typically be a maximum length for any abstract: use it. The well written abstract allows the expert to determine if the paper is at all relevant for her own research. Journals receive many, many submissions, so do not give them any reason to do a desk reject of your paper.
– Carl Christian
2 hours ago
2
Can you include a cover letter with your submission?
– Anyon
2 hours ago
add a comment |
12
Why did you write an abstract that leads people to undervalue your paper?
– henning
3 hours ago
2
There will typically be a maximum length for any abstract: use it. The well written abstract allows the expert to determine if the paper is at all relevant for her own research. Journals receive many, many submissions, so do not give them any reason to do a desk reject of your paper.
– Carl Christian
2 hours ago
2
Can you include a cover letter with your submission?
– Anyon
2 hours ago
12
12
Why did you write an abstract that leads people to undervalue your paper?
– henning
3 hours ago
Why did you write an abstract that leads people to undervalue your paper?
– henning
3 hours ago
2
2
There will typically be a maximum length for any abstract: use it. The well written abstract allows the expert to determine if the paper is at all relevant for her own research. Journals receive many, many submissions, so do not give them any reason to do a desk reject of your paper.
– Carl Christian
2 hours ago
There will typically be a maximum length for any abstract: use it. The well written abstract allows the expert to determine if the paper is at all relevant for her own research. Journals receive many, many submissions, so do not give them any reason to do a desk reject of your paper.
– Carl Christian
2 hours ago
2
2
Can you include a cover letter with your submission?
– Anyon
2 hours ago
Can you include a cover letter with your submission?
– Anyon
2 hours ago
add a comment |
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
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No, there's no such guarantee. A top journal gets an awful lot of submissions, and you can expect them to be aggressive in rejecting papers which do not make a strong case for their importance, in the way that involves the least work for the editors.
If the editor, after reading the abstract, does not understand why the results would be highly interesting and significant, I would fully expect them to reject the paper without reading the introduction or any other part of the paper. (I can even imagine cases where they could make such a judgment by only reading the title.) As such, your abstract definitely should provide motivation for your results, such that a reader who is generally familiar with the area can see why they are of interest.
If your abstract just states the result ("we show that every snark is a boojum"), then it had better be such a well-known topic that every reader in the field would immediately know why it is of interest to know that every snark is a boojum. If that is not the case, then your abstract should briefly explain why people should care, perhaps relating it to previous work. ("Previous work of Smith showed that every reticulated snark is a boojum. In this paper, we show that the assumption of reticulation is unnecessary, thus resolving a conjecture of Jones.")
add a comment |
To my knowledge search engines for scientific publications like SCOPUS or ISI Web of Science don't even index any words of your manuscript apart from the abstract and the title (google scholar is indexing everything). Therefore, if the online submission system or journal guidelines for submission don't allow you to write a submission letter to further explain, why you think your manuscript is of high importance, then, as Nate pointed out, only title and abstract are read at all.
Therefore, writing a concise abstract and putting the right keywords into (-> search engines) it is crucial to get at all one foot into the review process.
On the other side I have read abstracts which consist of not much more then 1-2 lines/one sentence. The author is then mostly a famous professor who knows that he is known and his paper enters the review process. Still, I think when then a 3-4 pages manuscript is following for the sake of finding his manuscript via a search engine with some keywords, it would be nice to write a longer abstract.
Top journals are also more inclined to take a deeper look on a submission if the topic is trendy and more researchers care about it or work on it.
I also doubt that manuscripts are read in a linear way, from title to conclusion. With so much literature to choose and to read, the editor might overjump your introduction and look into the conclusion first. That's how I read published papers, I rather overfly the whole paper (conclusion paragraph, graphs,...) before deciding to read it completely from the beginning.
add a comment |
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2 Answers
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active
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2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
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active
oldest
votes
No, there's no such guarantee. A top journal gets an awful lot of submissions, and you can expect them to be aggressive in rejecting papers which do not make a strong case for their importance, in the way that involves the least work for the editors.
If the editor, after reading the abstract, does not understand why the results would be highly interesting and significant, I would fully expect them to reject the paper without reading the introduction or any other part of the paper. (I can even imagine cases where they could make such a judgment by only reading the title.) As such, your abstract definitely should provide motivation for your results, such that a reader who is generally familiar with the area can see why they are of interest.
If your abstract just states the result ("we show that every snark is a boojum"), then it had better be such a well-known topic that every reader in the field would immediately know why it is of interest to know that every snark is a boojum. If that is not the case, then your abstract should briefly explain why people should care, perhaps relating it to previous work. ("Previous work of Smith showed that every reticulated snark is a boojum. In this paper, we show that the assumption of reticulation is unnecessary, thus resolving a conjecture of Jones.")
add a comment |
No, there's no such guarantee. A top journal gets an awful lot of submissions, and you can expect them to be aggressive in rejecting papers which do not make a strong case for their importance, in the way that involves the least work for the editors.
If the editor, after reading the abstract, does not understand why the results would be highly interesting and significant, I would fully expect them to reject the paper without reading the introduction or any other part of the paper. (I can even imagine cases where they could make such a judgment by only reading the title.) As such, your abstract definitely should provide motivation for your results, such that a reader who is generally familiar with the area can see why they are of interest.
If your abstract just states the result ("we show that every snark is a boojum"), then it had better be such a well-known topic that every reader in the field would immediately know why it is of interest to know that every snark is a boojum. If that is not the case, then your abstract should briefly explain why people should care, perhaps relating it to previous work. ("Previous work of Smith showed that every reticulated snark is a boojum. In this paper, we show that the assumption of reticulation is unnecessary, thus resolving a conjecture of Jones.")
add a comment |
No, there's no such guarantee. A top journal gets an awful lot of submissions, and you can expect them to be aggressive in rejecting papers which do not make a strong case for their importance, in the way that involves the least work for the editors.
If the editor, after reading the abstract, does not understand why the results would be highly interesting and significant, I would fully expect them to reject the paper without reading the introduction or any other part of the paper. (I can even imagine cases where they could make such a judgment by only reading the title.) As such, your abstract definitely should provide motivation for your results, such that a reader who is generally familiar with the area can see why they are of interest.
If your abstract just states the result ("we show that every snark is a boojum"), then it had better be such a well-known topic that every reader in the field would immediately know why it is of interest to know that every snark is a boojum. If that is not the case, then your abstract should briefly explain why people should care, perhaps relating it to previous work. ("Previous work of Smith showed that every reticulated snark is a boojum. In this paper, we show that the assumption of reticulation is unnecessary, thus resolving a conjecture of Jones.")
No, there's no such guarantee. A top journal gets an awful lot of submissions, and you can expect them to be aggressive in rejecting papers which do not make a strong case for their importance, in the way that involves the least work for the editors.
If the editor, after reading the abstract, does not understand why the results would be highly interesting and significant, I would fully expect them to reject the paper without reading the introduction or any other part of the paper. (I can even imagine cases where they could make such a judgment by only reading the title.) As such, your abstract definitely should provide motivation for your results, such that a reader who is generally familiar with the area can see why they are of interest.
If your abstract just states the result ("we show that every snark is a boojum"), then it had better be such a well-known topic that every reader in the field would immediately know why it is of interest to know that every snark is a boojum. If that is not the case, then your abstract should briefly explain why people should care, perhaps relating it to previous work. ("Previous work of Smith showed that every reticulated snark is a boojum. In this paper, we show that the assumption of reticulation is unnecessary, thus resolving a conjecture of Jones.")
edited 2 hours ago
answered 2 hours ago
Nate EldredgeNate Eldredge
109k36313410
109k36313410
add a comment |
add a comment |
To my knowledge search engines for scientific publications like SCOPUS or ISI Web of Science don't even index any words of your manuscript apart from the abstract and the title (google scholar is indexing everything). Therefore, if the online submission system or journal guidelines for submission don't allow you to write a submission letter to further explain, why you think your manuscript is of high importance, then, as Nate pointed out, only title and abstract are read at all.
Therefore, writing a concise abstract and putting the right keywords into (-> search engines) it is crucial to get at all one foot into the review process.
On the other side I have read abstracts which consist of not much more then 1-2 lines/one sentence. The author is then mostly a famous professor who knows that he is known and his paper enters the review process. Still, I think when then a 3-4 pages manuscript is following for the sake of finding his manuscript via a search engine with some keywords, it would be nice to write a longer abstract.
Top journals are also more inclined to take a deeper look on a submission if the topic is trendy and more researchers care about it or work on it.
I also doubt that manuscripts are read in a linear way, from title to conclusion. With so much literature to choose and to read, the editor might overjump your introduction and look into the conclusion first. That's how I read published papers, I rather overfly the whole paper (conclusion paragraph, graphs,...) before deciding to read it completely from the beginning.
add a comment |
To my knowledge search engines for scientific publications like SCOPUS or ISI Web of Science don't even index any words of your manuscript apart from the abstract and the title (google scholar is indexing everything). Therefore, if the online submission system or journal guidelines for submission don't allow you to write a submission letter to further explain, why you think your manuscript is of high importance, then, as Nate pointed out, only title and abstract are read at all.
Therefore, writing a concise abstract and putting the right keywords into (-> search engines) it is crucial to get at all one foot into the review process.
On the other side I have read abstracts which consist of not much more then 1-2 lines/one sentence. The author is then mostly a famous professor who knows that he is known and his paper enters the review process. Still, I think when then a 3-4 pages manuscript is following for the sake of finding his manuscript via a search engine with some keywords, it would be nice to write a longer abstract.
Top journals are also more inclined to take a deeper look on a submission if the topic is trendy and more researchers care about it or work on it.
I also doubt that manuscripts are read in a linear way, from title to conclusion. With so much literature to choose and to read, the editor might overjump your introduction and look into the conclusion first. That's how I read published papers, I rather overfly the whole paper (conclusion paragraph, graphs,...) before deciding to read it completely from the beginning.
add a comment |
To my knowledge search engines for scientific publications like SCOPUS or ISI Web of Science don't even index any words of your manuscript apart from the abstract and the title (google scholar is indexing everything). Therefore, if the online submission system or journal guidelines for submission don't allow you to write a submission letter to further explain, why you think your manuscript is of high importance, then, as Nate pointed out, only title and abstract are read at all.
Therefore, writing a concise abstract and putting the right keywords into (-> search engines) it is crucial to get at all one foot into the review process.
On the other side I have read abstracts which consist of not much more then 1-2 lines/one sentence. The author is then mostly a famous professor who knows that he is known and his paper enters the review process. Still, I think when then a 3-4 pages manuscript is following for the sake of finding his manuscript via a search engine with some keywords, it would be nice to write a longer abstract.
Top journals are also more inclined to take a deeper look on a submission if the topic is trendy and more researchers care about it or work on it.
I also doubt that manuscripts are read in a linear way, from title to conclusion. With so much literature to choose and to read, the editor might overjump your introduction and look into the conclusion first. That's how I read published papers, I rather overfly the whole paper (conclusion paragraph, graphs,...) before deciding to read it completely from the beginning.
To my knowledge search engines for scientific publications like SCOPUS or ISI Web of Science don't even index any words of your manuscript apart from the abstract and the title (google scholar is indexing everything). Therefore, if the online submission system or journal guidelines for submission don't allow you to write a submission letter to further explain, why you think your manuscript is of high importance, then, as Nate pointed out, only title and abstract are read at all.
Therefore, writing a concise abstract and putting the right keywords into (-> search engines) it is crucial to get at all one foot into the review process.
On the other side I have read abstracts which consist of not much more then 1-2 lines/one sentence. The author is then mostly a famous professor who knows that he is known and his paper enters the review process. Still, I think when then a 3-4 pages manuscript is following for the sake of finding his manuscript via a search engine with some keywords, it would be nice to write a longer abstract.
Top journals are also more inclined to take a deeper look on a submission if the topic is trendy and more researchers care about it or work on it.
I also doubt that manuscripts are read in a linear way, from title to conclusion. With so much literature to choose and to read, the editor might overjump your introduction and look into the conclusion first. That's how I read published papers, I rather overfly the whole paper (conclusion paragraph, graphs,...) before deciding to read it completely from the beginning.
answered 2 hours ago
user847982user847982
1,261412
1,261412
add a comment |
add a comment |
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12
Why did you write an abstract that leads people to undervalue your paper?
– henning
3 hours ago
2
There will typically be a maximum length for any abstract: use it. The well written abstract allows the expert to determine if the paper is at all relevant for her own research. Journals receive many, many submissions, so do not give them any reason to do a desk reject of your paper.
– Carl Christian
2 hours ago
2
Can you include a cover letter with your submission?
– Anyon
2 hours ago