{"id":1646,"date":"2013-11-11T10:14:59","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T10:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T06:45:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T06:45:30","slug":"stories-behind-published-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers","title":{"rendered":"Stories behind published papers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"font-family:verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\">Those who are new to the field of academic publishing might have the impression that submitting research papers to journals and getting them published are orderly processes. The reality is, of course, different. In his book<em>\u00a0The Double Helix\u00a0<\/em><sup>[1]<\/sup>, Dr. Watson, the Nobel laureate who discovered the structure of DNA, gives a behind-the-scenes account of events leading up to the publication of the famous Watson-Crick paper in<em>\u00a0Nature<\/em>. Publishing research papers, despite the aura of objectivity that surrounds the process, is very much a human endeavour. The choice of the journal, the reviewers\u2019 personalities, prejudices, and preoccupations, and related work in progress elsewhere\u2014all of these and more affect the chances of publication, and it is important to be aware of this.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"font-family:verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\">Another interesting account, although of failure to get published in<em>\u00a0Nature<\/em>, is that given by Luca Turin <sup>[2]<\/sup>. This book tells a story of a paper that was submitted, rejected, re-submitted, reviewed by a fresh set of reviewers, and rejected once again.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"font-family:verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\">A particularly good source of such stories is the website \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/www.webofstories.com\/\">Web of Stories<\/a>\u2019\u2014a site well worth visiting.\u00a0The site\u00a0began as an archive of life stories told by some of the great scientists of our time. As the number of stories grew, it became obvious that some were on related topics, which gradually led to a web of connected stories. Recently, when I typed \u2018publishing papers\u2019 in the search box of the website, the site returned as many as 467 stories featuring renowned scientists from such diverse fields as biology, physics, computer science, and astronomy. The short video clips are recorded by the scientists themselves, and a transcript is provided for each clip. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"font-family:verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\">[1] Watson J D. 1968.<em>\u00a0The Double Helix: a personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA<\/em>. New York: Atheneum. 226 pp.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size:14px;\"><span style=\"font-family:verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\">[2] Burr C. 2002. The Emperor of Scent: a true story of perfume and obsession. New York: Random House. 332 pp.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those who are new to the field of academic publishing might have the impression that submitting research papers to journals and getting them published are orderly processes. The reality is, of course, different. In his book\u00a0The Double Helix\u00a0[1], Dr. Watson, the Nobel laureate who discovered the structure of DNA, gives a behind-the-scenes account of events [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":33313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2431],"tags":[2567],"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dealing-with-rejection","tag-author-tools"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Stories behind Published Papers,Academic Publishing,Submitting Papers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Stories behind Published Papers - In his book - The Double Helix, Dr. Watson, gives a behind-the-scenes account of events leading up to the publication of the famous Watson-Crick paper in Nature.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stories behind Published Papers,Academic Publishing,Submitting Papers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Stories behind Published Papers - In his book - The Double Helix, Dr. Watson, gives a behind-the-scenes account of events leading up to the publication of the famous Watson-Crick paper in Nature.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Editage Insights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Editage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-11T10:14:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-01-15T06:45:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Stories-behind-published-papers-original_0.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"656\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"437\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Yateendra Joshi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Editage\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Editage\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Yateendra Joshi\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Yateendra Joshi\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#\/schema\/person\/cddcdcb60c05f8fe00b1e54c1ebf7980\"},\"headline\":\"Stories behind published papers\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-11-11T10:14:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-01-15T06:45:30+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers\"},\"wordCount\":319,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/editage-insights-generic-banner_298.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"Author Tools\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Dealing with Rejection\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers\",\"name\":\"Stories behind Published Papers,Academic Publishing,Submitting Papers\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/stories-behind-published-papers#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/editage-insights-generic-banner_298.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-11-11T10:14:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-01-15T06:45:30+00:00\",\"description\":\"Stories behind Published Papers - 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