1.1 Intuitive Thoughts

Before reading this chapter, we might try to quickly answer the central question of this chapter: Why do we publish journal articles? A graduate student told me: “By publishing journal articles, we are able to share our findings with other researchers in the field, and might get a response to improve our research.” Another graduate student said: “If we as scholars want to be influential global leaders, we need to publish. It is also required to publish articles for being academic faculty.” The third graduate student came up with three reasons: “(1) To present new knowledge or findings, (2) to propose a new perspective on particular topics, and (3) to state an opinion on current issues.” And, instead of answering the question, a student even asked several thoughtful questions: “Why do we not publish journal articles? What would happen if we did not publish journal articles? Does everyone have to publish journal articles?”

These intuitive thoughts are certainly legitimate and thoughtful, pointing out various reasons why to publish journal articles or questioning the necessity of publishing journal articles. Now, let us first read two short real-life stories, one is about Frank and another is about Nell. And then we will discuss a few key concepts regarding journal article publication and present a few practical suggestions.

1.2 Frank and Nell

Frank was an excellent doctoral student in an excellent doctoral program at an excellent university in China. He was finishing his dissertation and planned to graduate in May 2013. At that time he even received an excellent job offer. However, he had a major challenge. As one of the new requirements of a doctoral degree at his university, he needed to publish at least one article in a journal using English. Now he only had three months before the June graduation. He had never published even one journal article before. His PhD advisor did not know English, and would not be able to offer further help. He had a few good friends, but none of them had published English journal articles. He had done a few studies besides his dissertation, but did not know which one may lead to a quick publication. He was extremely anxious and even desperate.

Nell was also an excellent doctoral student in an excellent doctoral program at an excellent university in the USA and planned on graduating in 1999. Instead of writing a typical dissertation, she had been trying to use the alternative format (i.e., a journal article) rather than the traditional format (i.e., a dissertation) to meet the dissertation requirements. She wrote a proposal specifying and justifying her case of writing journal articles instead of a dissertation for graduation, successfully received the final approval from the Committee of Degree, an office to review and approve dissertation proposals and dissertations. After working diligently with her dissertation committee members, she submitted her dissertation, consisting of three parts, an introduction and two journal articles. On the next day of her dissertation defense, she submitted these two articles to two first-tier journals. After one year, both articles were published, one winning the International Reading Association’s Outstanding Dissertation AwardFootnote ¹ and another being reprinted in a book.Footnote ² Now she is a distinguished scholar and a full professor of literacy education at University of Michigan.

Comparing these two stories, we can easily see that both Frank and Nell were excellent doctoral students but their experiences of graduation were substantially different, which led to different impacts on their professional careers. Frank wrote a dissertation but desperately needed to publish one English journal article, a new requirement in some Chinese universities, for his degree. Nell completed her dissertation in a journal article format for her graduation and quickly published two journal articles for her subsequent academic career.

If we revisit the intuitive thoughts presented in the beginning of the chapter and compare them with the two cases, we can see that there are more reasons for journal article publication. It is not only to share our research findings with other researchers in the field but also to fulfill a doctoral degree requirement in some countries. It is not only needed to become influential global leaders or academic faculty but also has major impacts on doctoral students’ graduation and future jobs. In fact, these two stories involve various important concepts related to journal article publication. In the text that follows, we will discuss two core concepts, professional communication and scientific research.

1.3 Professional Communication

There has been a long debate on whether doctoral students should continue using the traditional dissertation route for their degree or if multiple articles should be allowed instead. For example, in 1999, one year before Nell completed her dissertation, she and her schoolmate, Beck, actually published a short articleFootnote ³ entitled “Education should consider alternative formats for the dissertation” in Educational Researcher, the American Educational Researcher Association official journal. In this article, they presented two major limitations of using dissertations in doctoral programs for subsequent professional work. First, a dissertation has a particularly limited audience, mainly the dissertation committee members. Second, it lacks generalizability, given the fact that a dissertation is often the first and last one for one to write in one’s entire life and is quite different from more generalizable writing in professional careers, such as journal articles and grant proposals. This article has been well-received, being cited 134 times according to Google Scholar.

Many scholars and educators have supported Nell and Beck’s proposal and discussed the usefulness of publishing journal articles.Footnote ⁴ However, other researchers and educators do not support this approach and have expressed various concerns.Footnote ⁵ In 2009, Aaron Bartula and John Worrall surveyed 1,346 faculty members from The American Society of Criminology and Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. They found that 697 (55.45 percent) faculty members thought that students should still be required to write dissertations, 583 (47.05 percent) faculty members were against the multiple paper option, and 568 (45.26 percent) faculty members did not believe that students could learn the same skills from the multiple paper option as from the dissertation. Several reasons were articulated by these faculty members: (1) The option is not appropriate in the field of criminal justice; (2) Writing a dissertation requires some skills (e.g., conducting more extensive literature review) that merely writing shorter papers does not require or cultivate; (3) Some of their students struggle with the dissertation. To skip this step in learning would seriously compromise their ability to do independent work. The multi-paper option appears to be a strategy to “water down” academic requirements and would be abused in practice; (4) It is difficult to deal with the authorship issue given the heavy guidance and collaborations involved with the committee; and (5) There are various program management issues such as how to do the doctoral defense and how to handle different quality control options, such as the number of published papers and types of journals for publications.

Currently, across the world, there are at least three options of doctoral training programs regarding the dissertation format. The first is still to use the dissertation as the only option to get the degree (such as the University at Albany and many other universities in the world). The second is to allow journal articles to replace the dissertation as the requirement of the degree (such as Nell’s university). The third is to use the dissertation and require journal articles to be published in English (such as Frank’s university in China). Obviously, innovations of doctoral training in the contemporary world are a complex topic beyond the scope of this book. Furthermore, the debate on dissertations vs. journal articles is far away from completion. However, this debate does concern the core question in this chapter: Why publish journal articles? One of the fundamental concepts behind this debate is professional communication. To understand this concept, let us start with the concept of communication.

In 1948, Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, published an article entitled A Mathematical Theory of Communication.Footnote ⁶ This article is one of the most cited journal articles, cited 70,502 times based on Google Scholar as of 2019. It is also one of the most influential journal articles, advancing information theory and laying a foundation for today’s digital revolution. In the beginning of this article, Shannon specified a model of an information system with five essential elements: (1) An information source that produces a message, (2) a transmitter that turn the message to a signal for transmission, (3) a channel that is the medium used to transit the signal, (4) a receiver that reconstructs the signal to the message, and (5) a destination that receives the message.

We can further simplify Shannon’s information system model into a general communication system model with three basic elements: sender (source and transmitter), medium (channel), and receiver (receiver and destination), as illustrated in Figure 1.1. There is an extremely wide variety of communication systems, such as human vs. animal, verbal vs. nonverbal, oral vs. written, business vs. political. However, these systems all generally involve these three basic elements, sender, medium, and receiver.

Figure 1.1 A general communication system with three basic elements.

Now, let us use these three elements to analyze doctoral dissertations and journal articles. For doctoral dissertations, the senders are graduate students, the medium is the dissertation, and the receivers are the committee members. In the education context, graduate students are trained to use the dissertation as the medium to communicate scientific messages to the committee members. The major goal is to train graduate students to develop their research skills. We can call it educational communication. All student writing in schools and universities (e.g., written homework, essays, term papers, theses, and dissertations) belong to this special type of educational communication. Dissertation is the highest among them. We can follow the three-element model of communication system to create Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2 Educational communication system with three basic elements.

For journal articles, in contrast, the senders are the authors of journal articles, the medium is the journal article, and the receivers are the readers of journal articles. In the professional context, authors used journal articles to communicate scientific research findings to readers. The major goal is to disseminate scientific knowledge. This process is often called professional communication. Business communication, medical communication, legal communication, scientific communication, and academic communication are among diverse types of professional communication. We can follow the three-element model of professional communication to create Figure 1.3. In this book, this model is consistently used as a basic framework to discuss and illustrate various concepts and procedures in journal article publications.

Figure 1.3 Professional communication system with three basic elements.

Comparing educational communication and professional communication, we can clearly see that doctoral dissertations and journal articles are both written medium for communication, but the former is essential for student training in educational settings and the latter primarily for communication in professional settings.

The concept of professional communication is particularly useful for us to understand why we publish journal articles. First, dissertations are in essence a scaffolding or a bridge to train graduate students for professional communication. They can be considered an initial step to acquiring professional communication skills that are needed in professional settings. Second, professional communication concerns various specific communication skills for communicating professional content in professional settings, including business communication, scientific communication, politic communication, medical communication, or legal communication. They are authentic (senders and receivers are real) and advanced (have to be sufficiently effective and efficient). Third, for those graduate students who aim to work in an academic setting, academic or scientific communication through journal publication is one of the core skills necessary in the academic setting. Learning to publish journal articles has a unique value for training professional communication skills. Fourth, even for those graduate students who will not become faculty members in academic settings, publishing journal articles can help them develop professional communication skills, one of the essential skills in various professional careers. Fifth, besides dissertations and journal articles, scientific communication can go through a wide variety of mediums, such as conference presentations, newspapers, books, magazines, blogs, and websites. Each medium has its own usefulness and limitations. Among them, however, journal articles are generally considered to be the most authentic, most widely used, and most effective tool for professional communication. Sixth, given the relationship between doctoral dissertations and journal articles, it is not surprising to see exceptional theses (e.g., the thesis by Claude Shannon)Footnote ⁷ and dissertations (e.g., the dissertation by Norm Chomsky)Footnote ⁸ that exemplify good professional communication; likewise, we see many published journal articles that are negative examples of professional communication in terms of poor quality or even serious misconducts.

1.4 Scientific Research

In a keynote speech delivered at the Fifth International Conference of Scientific Editors, Otto Kinne, a renowned German marine ecologist and publisher, summarized the scientific research process as a cycle that comprises production, quality control, dissemination, and consumption of knowledge.Footnote ⁹ Here, since journal article publication concerns dissemination of knowledge as part of research processes, we can consider the importance of journal publication not only from a specific perspective of professional communication but also from a much broader perspective of scientific research. In the text that follows, we discuss three pairs of basic concepts involved in scientific research using Figure 1.2.

First, as illustrated in Figure 1.4, three pairs of concepts represent three processes. That is, (1) the basic research processes with two basic skills, designing research and complete research, (2) the professional research processes with two core competences, seeking external grants and publishing journal articles, and (3) the overall scientific process with two major goals, advancing scientific knowledge and improving human life.

Figure 1.4 Three cycles of scientific research.

Second, Figure 1.4 further illustrates that these three pairs of concepts are related to each other in three cycles, from the smallest to the largest. The inner cycle starts with designing and ends with finishing with research findings. The middle cycle starts with seeking grant funding and ends with publishing journal articles. The largest cycle starts with advancing knowledge and ends with improving human life as the two ultimate and fundamental goal of scientific research.

Third, overall, the ultimate goal of journal article publication is not only to disseminate knowledge, but more importantly to advance knowledge and improve human life. If research findings are not disseminated to broader readers through professional communication systems, they are just some homework papers quietly sleeping in the corner of a desk drawer. If journal articles cannot contribute to scientific knowledge and improve human life, these articles are just a pile of useless printed documents for recycling. Thus, the publication should serve for improving human life. That is ultimately why we publish journal articles. In other words, publishing journal articles can better disseminate observed research findings but more importantly can help advance scientific knowledge and improve human life.

1.5 Practical Suggestions

After seeing the intuitive thoughts of students, two real-life cases (Frank and Nell), and two core concepts (professional communication and scientific research), we can use Figure 1.5 to summarize the core content of this chapter. In brief, there are two major reasons why we publish journal articles, that is, to develop skills of professional communication and ultimately to advance scientific knowledge and to improve human life.

Figure 1.5 Journal article publication, professional communication, and scientific research.

Publishing journal articles is important in both engaging in professional communication and advancing scientific knowledge and improving human life. Based on the discussion in this chapter, we have the following practical suggestions for new writers.

First, make sure to understand the important value of publishing journal articles for professional communication. Journal article publication is one type of human communication. It shares the key elements of human communication. However, journal article publication concerns professional communication. It allows researchers to disseminate research findings in various professional settings. Through journal article publication, we as new writers can certainly use it for practical reasons, including fulfilling the doctoral degree requirement, sharing our findings with other researchers in the field, or becoming successful academic faculty. But more importantly, we can use it to develop our professional communication competence, a competence that is highly useful and generalizable for being able to communicate effectively and efficiently in various professional settings.

Second, make sure to understand the ultimate value of publishing journal articles for advancing scientific knowledge and improving human life. Professional communication is important to disseminate new research findings. However, it is still only one step of the entire scientific research process. Publication is not just for publication. Publication itself is not the final goal. The ultimate goal for publication is not just to put writing in print. Instead, publication is to advance scientific knowledge and improve human life. Only those published journal articles that have advanced scientific knowledge and improved human life fulfil their ultimate value.

Last, for new writers or international writers, just like reasoned writers or native English writers, we should motivate ourselves to publish journal articles. Only if we understand journal article publication from both the professional communication perspective and the scientific research perspective can we then maximize our motivation and effectively meet the various challenges faced when publishing journal articles. As a homework assignment to enhance our understanding of professional communication and scientific research, we could identify a research project we are currently conducting. Then think carefully and create a short list of how to publish it as a journal article in order to disseminate research findings in a professional setting, to develop our professional communication competence, and ultimately to advance scientific knowledge and improve human life.