Hi guys,

I am in the middle of writing a journal paper. It is my first attempt. I have almost completed the data analysis and will start the write up very soon. I did not consult my supervisor before I worked on the paper because (I think) she is not familiar with the topic of my paper. Although I am not sure if my paper can be published, I still want to try in order to improve my CV.

But do you think that I should let my supervisor or other professors who are familiar with the topic have a look at the paper after I have finished it? Do you also think that I should choose a high-ranking journal to get the paper published? Once my paper is rejected, I can go for another journal (maybe a low-ranking one).

Thank you for your help.

Tung

Your supervisor or someone else don't see to see the paper. I was once advised by my advisor not to show my pre-published work to anyone, but journal editors, as information from pre-edited papers can be stolen! Yes, you can try high ranking papers and then if you aren't that lucky, try low ranking ones. If the worst comes to the worst, try some postgraduate papers.

Hi dotdottung,

is this paper coming from your PhD (e.g. making up a chapter or part of one)? If so your supervisor(s) should probably be recognised as authors and would need to see the paper before it's submitted to give feed back. I rarely, if ever, advise any one to go ahead and submit to journals without getting advice first - even if its just about how the article has been written - in which case it's not so important if your supervisor is an expert in that particular topic.

Thanks for your replies, Marasp and Lemonjuice.

The paper is not from my thesis. It focuses on another topic I am interested in.