Okay, I am not complaining- I am delighted that the hardest paper I have ever written has been accepted after a long drawn out revise and resubmit job!! I was dreading having to resubmit it again to another journal! But it's a horrible theoretical framework/conceptual paper, and quite honestly I hope I never have to read it again. That aside, I can't actually believe it's going to be published. I mean really, it's just a paper by a little PhD student criticizing the whole field and putting forward a conceptual model that I think would be beneficial for future research, and comparing it to current models and methodologies to highlight why I think it's a good idea. It just feels as though I am doing something that I am nowhere near qualified to do, let along write about and have it published. It's not a fantastic journal, but a perfectly respectable one, and as I said, I am obviously really really pleased- I'm not ungrateful! But there's just this little feeling of unease telling me that actually I'm a bit out of my depth with what I've written. Anyone ever had this? I know we nearly all have feelings of inadequacy at times during the PhD, but has anyone had anything published that you were a bit unsure about?!!! Cheers, KB

Hi Keenbean, i have never been published, but I am sure if they have accepted it, especially if it is a little controversial, then they must have thought it not only good enough to publish but also interesting and important enough to potentially start a lot of discussion and debate.
As for the 'little PhD student' bit, we all feel like that (Lord knows me especially) but you must agree that they dont accept work out of feeling sorry for you, you really are up to it! Congratulations, and double congratulations given that you found the paper hard to write and a difficult topic. That is probably because the paper is a difficult topic, as it challenges some conceptions that are established. Enjoy! I only wish I was in that position too!

KB - been there. It took a summer-to-summer the whole process, the 9000 word beast had nothing empirical in it, and will doubtless be read (And sneered upon) by the 'greats'. To top it all the copyeditor introduced mistakes in it which they corrected in a later issue as an addendum (or whatever these are called). I haven't looked at the paper copy - it sits on my shelves.

Argh.