Getting Published: From Understanding to Mastering the Publication Process in a Peer-Reviewed Journal

This seminar covers various aspects of getting published with advice especially for early career researchers. Getting published in a peer-reviewed journal is a central goal for nearly all scientists for personal satisfaction and as a central metric for advancing in a career. To get published, the manuscript must represent a good, hopefully exciting "story". The story states the problem studied, the approach, method, findings, interpretations, and conclusions. Editors increasingly look not only at the quality of "storytelling" but the degree of advancement in the field, the potential impact, and excitement the paper may generate among peers and the community at large.
To be published, a manuscript must pass two barriers: the editorial and the reviewer barriers. To make that happen, care must be taken in crafting the manuscript, assuming that the research is done well, including appropriate use of English, good design of graphics, etc. I will reveal the "secrets" that convince editors your work is worthy of being reviewed and published. I will also touch on publication ethics, plagiarism, and copyright, with ample time for questions.

André Anders is a Senior Scientist and Leader of the Plasma Applications Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, California, and the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Applied Physics. He grew up in (East) Germany and studied physics in Wrocaw (Poland), Moscow (Russia, then Soviet Union), and Berlin (then East Germany), to obtain his PhD in physics from Humboldt University, (East) Berlin, in 1987. Since 1992 at LBNL, he works on plasma technologies for materials, and in particular on thin film deposition. His publications have been cited more than 11,000 times. He was the 2015 Chair of AVS' Advanced Surface Engineering Division. André is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), the American Vacuum Society (AVS), the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and the Institute of Physics (IOP, UK).