Designing, Writing, and Publishing a Paper
Thanks to:
Frank van Tubergen
Utrecht University
supplemented by Werner Raub
Overview
1. How to choose a good research problem?
2. Some suggestions (tips & tricks) for writing
3. Some suggestions (tips & tricks) for submitting
and revising
Selecting a Research
Question
How have you chosen yours?
Not all research questions have the same a
priori chance of making you famous and of
getting your papers accepted by good
journals!
Selecting a Research
Question
Researchable!
Interesting!
Researchable Questions: neither too grand nor too
specific!
• What explains inequality?
• What explains income inequality?
• What explains the income inequality between men and
women?
• What is the effect of education on the income inequality
between men and women? (does education explain…)
• What is the effect of education on the income inequality
between men and women in the Netherlands?
• What is the effect of obtaining on the job training on the
income inequality between men and women among religious
people in Utrecht in 2008?
Or more formally..
• Research questions, elements:
• Explanandum (Y):
• Too broad? (Y=Y1+Y2+Y3) Too small?
• Check: question/theory same as analysis (e.g., inequality)
• Explanans (X):
• Do not leave X unspecified. Otherwise you get shopping list
theories such as y=f(x1,x2, … xk).
• Concentrate on a single causal mechanism as in y=f(x1 | x2,
x3,… xk), or just a few.
• Setting:
• Period & time
• Population
Two sorts of researchable questions
Explanatory (X=>Y)
“What determines the language skills of immigrants?” (but
too broad!)
“What is the effect of age at migration on the language
skills of immigrants?”
“Why do immigrants in Germany have better language
skills than immigrants in the Netherlands”
Descriptive (Y)
“What are the host-country language skills of immigrants
in the Netherlands, in 2008?”
… compared to 1998?
… compared to Germany?
Selecting a Research
Question
Researchable!
Interesting!
Interesting Questions
“There should be the possibility of surprise in
your research!”
(Rule 1 Firebaugh)
”The best social
research most
often is research
that brings fresh
perspectives and
new insights to old
and continuing
areas of concern”
(Firebaugh, 2008)
How to get there: Background (= prior knowledge=
current expectations)!
Problem
Theory
Test
Finding
Problem
Theory
Test
Finding
Problem
Theory
Test
Finding
You!
Theory
Test
Surprise!
Uninteresting question?
1. Your question is not new!
• Problem-formulation, theory, tests, findings…
Solution: Provide a state-of-the-art review of the
literature (=background=current knowledge)
• Progress in problem-formulation, theory, tests, and findings.
How to get there?
• Review articles
• Key papers (and go back.. and forth)
• People: discuss your project
Uninteresting Questions?
2. Your question is new, but so what?
• New = good or bad?
• Give good arguments, think about the surprise element:
• Important for understanding current puzzles
(anomalies)?
• Theory development? New idea?
• Improving previous tests?
• Focus on just one or two! “Every business should have
one "USP": a “Unique Selling Point.”
Some suggestions for
formulating new and
interesting research questions
Three possibilities (backgrounds)
1. Few prior studies
2. Well-established research
3. Well-established findings
Three possibilities (backgrounds)
1. Few prior studies
• Relate question to related, more established, research
2. Well-established research
3. Well-established findings
Three possibilities (backgrounds)
1. Few prior studies
2. Well-established research
• Many studies, no consensus… always surprise!
3. Well-established findings
Three possibilities (backgrounds)
1. Few prior studies
2. Well-established research
3. Well-established findings
• Empirical regularities… no surprise!
What if your research idea seems not to be very
interesting because it has been thoroughly researched
before and findings are well-known?
Don’t give up too easily!
Paradox:
“the more tightly you can link your research to key
empirical regularities, the more interesting it is for social
scientists” (Firebaugh, 2008)
Three possibilities (backgrounds)
1. Few prior studies
2. Well-established research
3. Well-established findings
• Empirical regularities… no surprise!
• Two options:
• Challenge the findings!
• Extend the findings!
THE FINDING
• Prior research: relationship between X and Y
X
Y
THE FINDING: AN EXAMPLE OF A REGULARITY
Interethnic
contacts
-
Negative
attitudes
CHALLENGE IT: SPURIOUS!!
Interethnic
contacts
Z
-
Negative
attitudes
CHALLENGE IT: REVERSE CAUSATION!!
Interethnic
contacts
-
Negative
attitudes
EXTEND IT: NEW CONTEXT!!
Interethnic
contacts
-
• Key subpopulation: e.g., immigrants?
• Other countries?
• Time periods?
Negative
attitudes
EXTEND IT: CONDITIONAL EFFECT!!
Q
Contacts
-
Negative
attitudes
EXTEND IT: INTERPRETATION (MEDIATION)
Q
Contacts
-
Negative
attitudes
EXTEND IT: NEW DETERMINANT
Contacts
Z
-
Negative
attitudes
Writing your article I
• Choose a “target journal” for your article in a very
early phase of writing. Design your article so that it
corresponds to the standards and conventions of
articles in this journal.
• Learn from examples: try to “imitate” good
research articles with respect to the outline of your
article and various “tricks of the trade’.
• Carefully think about (details of) the outline of
your article before you start writing draft versions.
• Make sure that your article is “balanced” with
respect to the length of the different sections.
Writing your article II
• Be consistent between sections with respect to the
sequence in which you address different issues.
• For example, in the theory and hypothesessection you introduce your hypotheses in a
certain sequence. Make sure that the sequence
in which you introduce your variables in the
methods-section corresponds closely to the
sequence in which you introduce your
hypotheses. Make sure that the sequence in
which you present your results again
corresponds closely to the sequence in which
you introduce your hypotheses.
Writing your article III
• As much as possible, use one and the same “pattern” for
formulating your hypotheses.
• Make sure that the different sections of your article are wellrelated to one another. For example:
• What you “announce” in your introduction should be
“implemented” in your theory and hypotheses-section, in your
methods-section, and in your results-section.
• Conversely, major features of your theory and hypothesessection, of your methods-section, and of your results-section
should have been “announced” in your introduction.
• Make sure that your conclusion and discussion-section is nicely
linked to your introduction. Do not come up with issues in your
conclusion and discussion-section that come “out of the blue” and
are unrelated to earlier sections.
• There is not one unique “ideal model” for a research article.
The best way to design your own article will depend, among
other things, on your relative emphasis on theory formation
versus empirical research, the kind of data you use (for
example, survey data versus experimental data), and many
other features.
Writing your article IV
• Put yourself in the shoes of a “model reader”: an
intelligent social scientist who is not an expert in your
specific field. Make sure that such a reader can easily
“digest” your article.
• Be prepared that you will have to prepare quite some
draft-versions of your article before you can complete
the final version.
• Some small, but often useful additions:
• Results-table: include column with predicted signs of
coefficients.
• Distinguish between +, -, 0, ?
• Special layout for variable labels
• Be consistent in your terminology, don’t use different
labels for the same concept
Typical features of good articles I
• Note: this list below is obviously neither “complete”, nor
does each good article include all features mentioned
• A good article (GA) has a clear and narrowly defined
“focus”. Often, a GA is somewhat “repetitive” with
respect to this focus.
• A GA embeds a clear and narrowly defined problem that
is the focus of the GA in a broader context, for example,
in some overarching scientific or societal problems or a
theoretical “approach”, etc.
• A GA often comes up with some theory, hypotheses, or
results that are – at first sight – counterintuitive and
surprising.
• A GA often comes up with alternative or competing
hypotheses.
Typical features of good articles II
• The sequence of hypotheses in a GA follows some “underlying
logic”, for example:
• By (different kinds of) independent variables.
• By (different kinds of) independent variables.
• From simple to complex hypotheses.
• A sequence of competing hypotheses
• …
• A GA argues that and why the data used are appropriate (or at
least more appropriate than other available data)
• Hypotheses are often tested using different and
complementary analyses
• Statistical models are employed that “fit” with the hypotheses.
Ideally, theory and statistical models are integrated, at least
to “some degree”.
• A GA often presents not only some theoretical (and more or
less ad hoc) arguments, why certain hypotheses have not
been supported or have been rejected, but also offers some
(preliminary) tests of those arguments.
Submitting your article
• Think about the journal to which you want to submit
(and do so in a very early phase of writing – see above).
• Make sure that your submission complies with the
journal’s rules for how to prepare articles for submission
– carefully consult the journal’s guidelines for authors.
• Prepare a careful cover letter when you submit:
• Indicate why you submit to this journal and why
your article would fit well in the journal.
• Don’t hesitate to suggest, using decent language,
reviewers for your article.
• Don’t hesitate to mention, using decent language,
experts in the field who should not be used as
reviewers.
Revising your article
• Be prepared that you will have to revise and resubmit your
article (and be prepared that you may have to do so several
times).
• In your revision(s), you will have to account for the comments
of reviewers and the editor of the journal.
• Submit your revision(s) together with a carefully drafted cover
letter that explains in detail how you accounted for the
comments of reviewers and the editor of the journal – do
spend time and energy on the cover letter: the editor and
subsequent reviewers must be able to clearly see that your
cover letter and your revision address all concerns of the
previous reviewers and of the editor and how your revision
accounts for these concerns.
• Don’t feel obliged to do everything that reviewers and
editors suggest to do but when you don’t follow their
suggestions, argue carefully why you don’t.
Useful additional literature
• There is quite useful literature on scientific writing, for
example
• Bem, Daryl J. (2003) Writing the Empirical Journal
Article, in J.M. Darley et al. (eds.,) The Compleat
Academic: A Career Guide, Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association, pp. 185-219
• McCloskey, Deirdre N. (2000) Economical Writing,
Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
• Also consult references such as the Chicago Manual of
Style
A FINAL WORD: WHAT IF….
• your paper is rejected?
Academic journals reject almost all papers. In the leading
general journals in social science, only about 5 percent
of the submitted manuscripts get accepted.
WHAT IF….
• your paper is rejected?
You are in good company!
"We don't like their sound, and guitar
music is on the way out." Decca
Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles,
1962.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
Bill Gates, 1981, rejecting proposals for
larger computer memory.
"This is typical Berlin hot air. The product
is worthless" Letter sent by Heinrich
Dreser, head of Bayer's Pharmacological
Institute, rejecting Felix Hoffmann's
invention: Aspirin.
Who the hell wants to copy a document
on plain paper???" 1940 Rejection
Letter to Chester Carlson, inventor of
the XEROX machine.
© Sala-i-Martin