Is there a difference(s) between preparing a paper to be submitted to a conference (proceeding) and a journal?

Journal articles will usually be finished work; conference proceedings may be work in progress. If the work is complete it may be better to send straight to a journal.

Every journal and conference will state their specific guidelines for preparing a manuscript (length, format etc). I suggest you consult those in the first instance.

There are at least two more differences:

1. Money versus free

For Conference papers (proceeding), you usually need to register and pay certain amount of money. For journal papers, it can be free of charge, and receive free pre-prints.
However, there are open access journals which require “money”! These journals have been criticized on quality grounds, as the need to obtain *extra* publication fees could result in these journals to relax the standard of peer review. I was told to avoid these journals.

2. Open versus close

You can be openly praised for your research, but I have also seen postgraduate students look very *pale* after their presentations. Why? Some professors enjoy attending the presentations and attacking students' work publicly; your supervisor’s reputation may also be affected. Your work could be known useless openly!
However, reviewers’ comments from journals may hint that your papers are worthless; but only the editor, reviewers and you know this outcome. It could be kept as a secret. :-)

In the old model of publishing, there is no fee to submit to a journal, but end users have to pay to read the articles (either via personal or institutional subscriptions, or pay per access). This is still the approach of many older journals. In Open Access the process of manuscript review is pretty much the same - the difference is that if the article is accepted, the authors pay a fee and then any reader can access it for free. There is also a mixed model where some old style journals will let you enable open access on your article if you pay the fee.

Open Access is NOT the same as vanity publishing. Articles are still subject to peer review, can still get rejected etc. There are some great open access journals; there are some rubbish old style journals. It's not clear cut.

Open Access is not always met with the attitude that MeaninginLife describes. In medical sciences, Open Access is generally considered to be a very positive model, and people are keen to have more of it. The issue of who pays is still a little thorny, but research councils are starting to deal with that.

1. Question: I didn't know that submitting to a journal can be free. Hurmm... how could it be free? Even the top ones? Additionally, would the process of acceptance for a peer-reviewed journal be longer than a peer-reviewed conference?

A: Yes. It is FREE including the top journals. (Many universities are paying yearly subscription fees such that professors and students have access to these journal papers.) For peer-reviewed journals, the reviewers are professors who are very busy. They may read your paper line by line carefully. So, it could take longer time.
However, the process of acceptance for peer-reviewed conference depends on their deadline set; it also depends on the number of conference papers submitted. They may score the submitted papers, and determine the final selections. (For some conferences, postgraduate students could be the reviewers.)

2. Question: Wait, if a peer-reviewed (conference) paper has been accepted, why would it be considered worthless after the presentation? If the professors consider it worthless, then surely that's that fault of the reviewer.

A: Some brilliant professors may expose the weaknesses of the papers such that the validity of research results can be questionable. The reviewers cannot determine the reliability of the papers simply based on the abstracts; but they’ve helped the conference to be *profitable*.

3. Question: I assume for journal publications, unlike conference proceedings, there are no presentations?
Answer: My answer is yes and no. Yes, there should be no presentations.
However, if this journal publication helps you to achieve a Nobel Prize or equivalent, you may have to present this paper everyday or every week, for some time…

Lastly, HazyJane may have misrepresented my view. :-)
I am NOT against ALL Open Access Journals; BUT those open access journals that collect money to allow for publications; i.e. those that compromise quality to make profit.

Oh I didn't think *you* were anti-OA... but maybe the people who had advised you were! :) I agree that there are some dodgy OA set ups out there - but there are also dodgy subscription journals too. But in Medical Sciences there are some increasingly well regarded ones (http://www.plos.org/) - I am actually choosing one as my first choice for one of my thesis publications. If I can figure out who will pay...!

tt_dan it's hard to advise you specifically as you don't mention your field. But in general people in your own area might be best placed to give you advice as to which journals/conferences to look target or avoid.

To pay PLOS US$ 2, 900 for publishing a paper? It is worth more than 10 Longchamp bags. :-)

Another problem is this journal has 10% acceptance rate. It is possible for the reviewers to steal your ideas.

I feel that postgraduate students should go for journals that have approximately 30% acceptance rate. Alternatively, we could try a regional journal before international journal. There are more than 10, 000 journals free of charge.

UK funded PhD students need to consider new Open Access rules when submitting to any journals after 1st April 2013. These require research that has been funded by research council money to be published in Open Access journals. Check the RCUK website. It's a bit of a nightmare. It also applies to former PhD students whose PhDs were research council funded. This is causing me some issues at the moment, though I've tried to submit as many of my papers as possible before the 1st April deadline.

It's a particular problem in humanities because we have no tradition of Green Open Access publishing, where there is often an embargo before a paper can be freely posted elsewhere. So we have to go for Gold Open Access publishing, where fees (anything up to 2000 pounds per article) have to be paid to the publishers to permit open access. This is very different from science journals, where there is a strong tradition of Green Open Access. And in humanities the cost can often fall onto researchers directly, particularly early career ones, or independent scholars without access to university block grants.

So check the rules. Things are changing.

Generally I would say it is *much* harder to be accepted by a peer-reviewed academic journal than a conference publication. The numbers submitting are much greater, the competition much higher. The rate of acceptance is often miniscule. This is also why getting published in such journals, especially high quality ones, carries more weight.

Yes. HazyJane is right! It can happen to ALL journals.

If the journal has higher acceptance rate, say 30%, your paper will be published.
Thus, your ideas will be less likely to be re-packaged and submitted by the reviewer to another journal.

However, higher acceptance rate, say 80%, may suggest low quality journal. Even reviewer's comment can be very negative, but they still request for money to publish your work. Kind of scam journal...