Why is it so hard to publish an academic paper?
Why is it so hard to publish an academic paper?
PolicyViz Newsletter #31
Hi all,
I’m way behind on things this week, so I don’t have a draft blog post to share with you. I’m slowly—very slowly—working on a blog post about qualitative data visualization. I have a chapter dedicated to qualitative dataviz in my book, but all of the blog posts I see on the topic pretty much just mention word clouds and quotes. There are lots of ways to visualize qualitative data, so I want to provide some public content for folks who don’t have my book.
I’m also a little frustrated at a recent academic publishing experience, which is what I’ll share with you today. A colleague passed to me a special call for papers from a journal in the health care field title, “Visualizing of Health Data for Lay Audiences.” If this doesn’t scream “Practitioners! Come write for us!” I don’t know what does.
So, I got together with another practitioner friend to write an article about color in data visualization (the paper is very nearly accepted, so I’ll share snippets with you soon). The submission guidelines were confusing in their own right—they have multiple types of articles (e.g., Reviews, Communications, Perspectives, etc.), word counts, abstract requirements, all the good stuff. The original call didn’t mention any of this, so we wrote up our first draft with a logical structure with logical header titles.
After submitting—through what can only be described as an awful online experience—the editor came back requesting that we format the paper and place it within one of the aforementioned structures. They didn’t provide any guidance as to which format they would prefer (or why). And because this was a special call, and because it was a special call our work doesn’t nicely fit into one of their structures, we just did our best and kind of guessed. In the end, we had to shoehorn our content into one of their structures.
Well, I received comments back from the editor and reviewers about a week ago. I’d say 20% of the comments were on content (and generally useful comments, I will say). The rest of the comments were all on structure—this section doesn’t really match what the journal would define as this section; there should be this section over here; and this section over here. Fine, fine. We changed the structure and answered the content questions and resubmitted.
Done.
This morning—yes, I’m writing this on Tuesday morning (Happy ❤️ Day)—I received a follow-up email from the journal requesting additional formatting changes; a separate document that has track changes from the original (not mentioned anywhere previously); and several new disclosure/acknowledgement sections, with little guidance on how to actually write those sections.
Look, I’m all for honesty and transparency in academic publishing. And we all know academic publishing has major problems, but maybe one reason for those problems is that publishers don’t know how to (a) attract people from outside the field (particularly for special calls) and (b) how to help those authors successfully submit a paper! It seems like they only care about trying and not actually getting good, useful work to their readers.
I’ve complained about this for years with the IEEEVIS publishing and conference submission process, one that I’m guessing many readers of this newsletter are aware. The online portal is clunky and confusing; the templates are difficult to use; and the required structures aren’t universally applicable for every kind of work.
I know many others are frustrated by these existing practices and working to make changes to the industry—for example, Mike Morrison and Matthew Kay both have efforts underway—and their work can’t come soon enough. I often wonder what the world would be like if academic authors and academic publishers had focused on generating content that policymakers and decisionmakers could actually use rather than just writing for each other (for all disciplines). Well, whatever, that’s just a pipe dream.
Anyways, that’s pretty much all for this week. Enjoy the podcast, links to stuff I’m reading, and check out the shop for your last chance to get card games.
Take care and thanks,
Jon
PolicyViz Podcast with Stefanie Posavec and Sonja Kuijpers
Check out this week’s episode of the PolicyViz Podcast! Stefanie Posavec and Sonja Kuijpers join me to talk about their work on the new climate change book from Greta Thurnberg. We talk about their process, how to work with data and visuals from multiple authors, and why you should buy the UK, not the US, version of the book.
Match It Game—Last Chance
After the recent credit card fraud attack and changes at my fulfillment company, I’ve decided to remove the Match It data visualization card game and the Graphic Continuum laminated sheet from my online store at the end of the month. I’ve reduced the prices of each to be nearly at-cost, so this is the lowest you’ll be able to get them. It’s possible I’ll offer some for sale in the future and ship from my home, but the more likely scenario is that I’ll just donate them to a school (if you’re a K-12 educator and interested in getting a set, please reach out).
Things I’m Reading and Watching
Books
Building Science Graphics by Jen Christiansen
The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones
Articles
The Era of Evidence by Montesinos and Brice
Blog Posts
Women in the Workplace 2022 from McKinsey
Why Did Black and Latino Homeownership Increase During the Pandemic? by Amalie Zinn, Jung Hyun Choi
Videos
TV, Movies, and Miscellaneous
Last of Us, HBO Max
The Kings Speech, (my kids hadn’t seen it), Amazon Prime
Worth, Netflix
Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
YouTube videos are back!
I recently posted a short Excel tutorial on number formatting and a data visualization critique video of an interactive map. I’ve also recorded—and am in the process of recording more—Excel and Tableau tutorials. My favorite thing so far is that I bought the Camtasia video recording and editing tool, so I’m trying new openings and animations throughout. Check them out and let me know what you think!