I was chatting with a former grad student of mine—bless her heart, she was trying to get her thesis chapter out as a paper—and the stress was palpable. She was sitting there, looking at her meticulously crafted manuscript, the culmination of three years of her life, and she whispered, "Okay, so what do I actually do to publish my research paper without losing my sanity?"
It’s a question that haunts every academic, isn't it? Because after the high of finishing the final draft, you crash straight into the terrifying reality of the submission machine. That machine, I promise you, is powered by glacial pace, conflicting reviewer opinions, and endless formatting checklists. It's less a smooth process and more like trying to cross a minefield while blindfolded.
Let's just be honest: the academic publishing landscape in 2025 is an utter zoo. It’s a battleground against paper mills, against AI-generated slop flooding the system, and against the sheer, crushing volume of manuscripts. You need a strategy, a map, and maybe, just maybe, a stiff drink.
Phase One: Preparation Is Everything (Or, Why You Get Desk Rejected)
Before you even think about the button that says "Submit," you need to stop. Seriously. Stop.
The number one reason good work gets desk-rejected—meaning the editor tosses it without sending it to peer review—is not because your science is shaky. It’s because you didn't read the manual. This is where most people, perhaps through understandable fatigue after months or years of data collection, trip over the simplest, dumbest stuff.
The Journal Whisperer: You have to choose your journal like you choose a spouse. Scope matters! If your paper is about deep-sea nudibranchs, don’t send it to The Journal of Terrestrial Botany just because they have a high impact factor. Find a journal—maybe a great one like Ijisrt, if your topic fits—that wants your work, not one that merely tolerates it. You should be able to rattle off the last three articles they published. If you can't, you don't know the journal well enough.
The Formatting Frenzy: Each journal has its own bizarre, unique set of formatting rules. They want APA-7. They demand 10pt Times New Roman. They only allow six tables. This is tedious, soul-crushing work, but it’s non-negotiable. If you don't follow their rules, you are signaling to the editor that you are either careless or arrogant, and they will bin your manuscript faster than a stale slice of pizza. Use a checklist. Triple-check the references. I know, I know—it's redundant, but it's the gatekeeping price we pay.
I often tell my students: think of the editor as an overworked air traffic controller. They are looking for reasons to reduce their load. Don't give them a reason to divert you immediately.
Phase Two: The Great Unknown of Research Paper Submission
So, you’ve hit the button. Congratulations. You've officially entered the scholarly purgatory.
The moment you finalize your research paper submission, you step onto the longest, slowest treadmill imaginable. The immediate next step is the Initial Editorial Screening. This can take a week; it can take a month. During this time, the editor is doing the dreaded desk-rejection check, looking for fit, ethics issues, and whether the abstract actually makes sense.
If you pass, your manuscript gets status-updated to "Under Review." This is both a relief and the start of a whole new anxiety.
The Reviewer Shortage: You see, everyone wants to publish, but nobody wants to review. We're all drowning in emails, and being a peer reviewer is unpaid, invisible labor, so it’s getting harder and harder for editors to find experts who have the time to actually read your 25-page magnum opus. This is why the entire cycle—from submission to first decision—can take anywhere from three months (fast, usually open-access) to ten months (top-tier, traditional). Don’t expect overnight miracles. The average is a gut-churning five to six months. Just breathe.
The Reviewer Contradiction: When (and if!) you finally get your decision, it will likely be "Major Revisions Required." You'll have two reviewers. Reviewer A will say your qualitative methodology is genius, but your literature review is too short. Reviewer B will say your literature review is too long, and you should use quantitative data instead. What do you do? You address everything. You don’t have to agree with every single piece of feedback, but you must respond to it politely, point-by-point, with an iron-clad justification for any suggestion you ignore.
It's a bizarre dance, a scholarly kabuki theatre, where you have to treat every reviewer like a brilliant, if slightly confused, deity.
The "Slightly Imperfect" Truth About the Process
Let’s talk about a few things that academics often leave out of the polished "how-to" guides.
The Emotional Toll: It’s personal. You poured your soul into that paper. A rejection (and yes, you will likely get rejected, maybe even multiple times—it's normal) feels like a physical punch. Don't respond immediately. Walk away. Go for a run. Eat some ice cream. Rejections aren't a statement about you; they're a statement about that specific paper at that specific journal on that specific day. Seriously.
The Paywall Paradox: The rise of Open Access (OA) is fantastic for knowledge dissemination, but the Article Processing Charges (APCs) can be a monstrous obstacle, sometimes running into thousands of dollars. You need to know before you ever decide to publish my research paper if you have institutional funding or grant money to cover that cost, or if you should stick to a subscription journal that doesn’t charge the author. It’s an ethical and financial tightrope walk, and you need to look at Ijisrt's policies or any other journal's policies first.
The Plagiarism Panic: In the age of AI, journals are using more aggressive detection tools. Run your own paper through something like Turnitin before you submit. Not because you cheated, but because poorly paraphrased material, even from your own earlier work, can flag as self-plagiarism and lead to an instant retraction. Be meticulous.
You know, the publishing journey isn't a single, straight road. It’s more like a series of winding, muddy trails, but every successful paper—the ones that genuinely advance human knowledge—has trekked this path. It just takes grit, persistence, and perhaps a truly frightening degree of patience.
Scholarly Slog Q&A: The Questions That Keep You Up
Here are the things I often get asked when people are facing the daunting task of a research paper submission.
Q: Is it okay to submit my paper to two journals at once to save time?
A: Absolutely not. This is academic misconduct, plain and simple. It's called "simultaneous submission," and if you get caught (and they have systems for catching it now), you can be blacklisted by the entire publishing house. Don't be that guy. Pick one journal, commit to it, and if they reject you, then you go to the next one. It’s a serial process.
Q: How do I know if a journal is predatory? I saw one that promised to publish my research paper in 72 hours.
A: RUN. RUN FAR AWAY. No reputable journal with a proper peer review process can publish my research paper in three days. Predatory journals are scams; they take your money (the fake APC) and publish junk without real review. Check directories like DOAJ, look at the journal's editorial board (do you recognize any of the names?), and check if they have a real physical address. If they email you every week begging for submissions, they're probably a problem. Sites like Ijisrt should provide transparency on their review times and process.
Q: My paper got rejected. Do I change the journal first, or do I revise the paper first?
A: You always revise the paper first. Every rejection comes with free, expert feedback from reviewers. Take that feedback—even the parts you hate—and use it to make the manuscript stronger. Then you find the next most appropriate journal, reformat it perfectly for them, and send it out. Sending the same, flawed manuscript elsewhere guarantees another rejection. That feedback is gold.
Q: I have to wait six months for a decision. Is it okay to email the editor and ask for an update?
A: Once. After three or four months, a polite, professional follow-up email is acceptable. But don't pester them. The editor has not forgotten you, I promise. They are just struggling to herd cats (the reviewers). A single, friendly email is fine. Two emails a week is obnoxious and will make them resent your manuscript.
Q: What is a preprint, and should I post one?
A: A preprint is simply a version of your academic paper that you post online (on a dedicated server like arXiv or bioRxiv) before it has been formally peer-reviewed and published. This is becoming more common! It gets your findings out fast, establishes your priority, and allows for early community feedback. Most major journals now allow preprints, but check your target journal’s policy first. It’s a great way to accelerate your dissemination while the slow, painful peer review process grinds along.
https://www.ijisrt.com/research-paper-publishing
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