Hello, I'm a second year History PhD student and was wondering what opinions people have as regards the value of getting published in PG journals? Obviously they are far less valuable than established academic journals, but are they worth publishing in at all? As it stands I'm having a couple of articles published in PG journals this year and am waiting to hear back from two academic journals whether they will publish my articles (one of the latter has yet to tell me if they want my article despite having submitted it over seven months ago!).
Thanks for the detailed response Huxley. I certainly think that PG journals are worth publishing in, hence why I'm having two articles published in PG journals, but was just curious as to how others in the academic community perceived them. Some people I know (fellow PhD students), have a fairly dismissive attitude towards them, but I'm glad that isn't universally the case!
I'm in a field where there are no 'postgrad' journals that I've heard of, and the idea seems strange to me, but I would say that if you want an academic career you need to concentrate on publishing in outlets that would be deemed REF-able. There is no advantage in multiple publications in places that will not count, when in the early stages of the REF cycle, one hit in a good journal could make a new PhD a good prospect. Go for quality over quantity. On the 7 month wait, I understand from historian friends that that under a year is regarded as OK, but maybe ask your supervisor what the norm for that journal is, and whether an update request is appropriate or not.
Hi, personally I would stay away from publishing in PG journals. I say this because of several things. Firstly, there is no reason why you should think publishing in these journals in the first place as one should be aiming for mainstream academic journals (you need to be aspirational!) It is quite possible that your submission to a PG history journal could very well get a major review with a major history journal (and one that is REFable) so in one sense one is selling one's research short and if a good deal of your research is within these publications you are going to have trouble further down the line with finding new material for the mainstream journals. Second factor is the REF factor. PG journals would not be worthy for consideration for REF and would have completely no value on a CV at all, nothing. Tbh I am snobbish about seeing people listing PG publications (never happens in geography because there are not really any), only because I think you are wasting your time and research for the above reasons. Invest time and effort into working up excellent REFable articles. These take time, I worked one up for 1 year in my 2/3rd year and doing another one now for the past 6 months.
[quote]Postgraduate journals are worth publishing in because they put you in front of your peers and obviously being published looks good on your CV. When submitting articles to more prestigious journals in the future the editors will see that you already have a publishing history.quote]
I would also suggest that this is a rather naïve comment. 'putting you in front of your peers' No because whilst peers may not have any papers they may be working on major journals and thus trump you (unless you are also developing major journals yourself). If your peers are not doing anything and you are publishing in a PG journal you may be you are 'putting yourself ahead of your peers' however for reasons stated earlier PG publications are worthless. One the question of 'future editors will see that you have already have a publishing history' this is false because editors do not care about this, I never published anything but went straight to a top journal, so long as the research article is great then everything is fine.
Thanks for your responses bewildered and hutzy998, particularly as regards to the importance of the REF. I certainly agreed that PG articles are of limited use in terms of future employability but I think they have at least some value in getting used to the process of writing for more prestigious journals. Perhaps in that respect they have a similar value to book reviews, i.e. won't get you a job but worthwhile doing anyway as long as you don't do too many of them. I also have a couple of articles which may get published in established academic journals next year so I should have that angle covered, at least to a certain extent.
This is a very interesting debate.
On the one hand (as Bewildered and Hutzy seem to be arguing) only established academic journals have good research in them.
On the other hand (as Huxley and Marstonmoor seem to think) postgraduate journals are good places to learn about publishing and also a place to get your work out there before going for bigger journals.
My questions for everyone are these -
1) Are the two points of view mutually exclusive? Can these opinions not be combined?
2) Why can PG publications not be submitted to the Research Excellence Framework?
3) Is the Research Excellence Framework not just for staff of Universities?
I will add that in no place does this document say Postgraduate Journals are not acceptable places to publish work.
The document focuses more on the type of work that can be used as evidence NOT the place it is published in.
In fact the "Unclassified Quality" of work, is work of a quality that "falls below the standard of nationally recognised work. Or work which does not meet the published definition of research for the purposes of this assessment", and work that is published in PG Publications can of course be of a standard which "meets the published definition of research" (defined in my previous post above).
Having read this I cannot see how the journal is at all relevant other than being a publication.
If the research was in a Postgraduate Publication and was One star Quality i.e. "recognised nationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour" then Huxley you are correct.
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