Getting Published

[MRM]

I was wondering what everyone's experiences were when trying to get technical material published.

Here's the situation; I've completed a self-financed project involving writing a technical paper.

I submitted the paper as a technical note to ASTM geotechnical testing journal in May 2004. About 4 months later, I was delighted to get a response (rejecting it in its current form) along with some great comments to improve it. I did some more work and made the improvements along with some others I was able to think of. I resubmitted the revised paper in November 2004.

I received word from the GTJ secretary stating that it was again rejected and the comments are attached. This was not a surprise as I thought it would have to go through at least a few more iterations before it would be ready. The problem is this; even though the attached letter said that the revised paper was reviewed and that comments were attached, comments weren't attached. I contacted the secretary asking if the comments were available because it appeared they were left off. She responded a few days later stating only, "The revised paper was reviewed and rejected." No comments regarding the revised paper review were included.

A couple of questions,
1) Although I have never been one to give up when I hit some bumps in the road, is trying to get technical material published possible considering I'm unknown to the technical community? Should I wait until I'm a little better known, or after I get a PhD?
2) Does this sound like it is just an isolated incident of a secretary not wanting to go too far out of their way to give someone a simple answer to a reasonable question, or are most publications geared this way to an unknown individual?
3) Since I've finished my first paper, I've been working on a second for the last 8 months or so. I will admit that it has more substance than the first. When I go to try to publish the second, is there a particular publication that anyone could recommend? How about submitting it to a conference such as the U of Minn. geotechnical conference, for example. I would enjoy presenting it somewhere if it is worthy.

What say you? As always, thanks for your opinions.

 

[SlideRuleEra]

MRM - First, I have neither written nor published a technical paper, so all I can offer is opinions. Why not start by offering to speak to local technical groups on your area of interest. You say that you are unknown to the technical community; if what you have to say is worthwhile, you will become known - but you may have to kick-start the process.

Another option could be to start a website & post (effectively publish) it yourself. Then you could inform the people you speak to to go there and download the paper.

If you want to, I will consider creating a page for you (at no cost) on my website (like I have for BigH's contributions) and post your paper there. Will be happy to include your contact information (Name, Short Resume, Email adddress, etc.) so interested parties can contact you directly. Until you see the power of the internet first hand, it is hard to appreciate it - my simple website (hobby) is on course to get 9000 hits this month. As a do-it-yourself example, Google on "SlideRuleEra" and see what happens - if your paper is popular, the same may "happen" to you & your reputation - automatically.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[SlideRuleEra]

You may be a little better known that you though, here is another "experiment" - Google on "MRM eng-tips". Expand the Google results page. The fact that Google picks up these links is because people go there to read what you have posted.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[VAD]

Getting published in the Geotechnical Testing Journal may not be easy as the folks may be looking at information that makes an impact - something they consider innovative, new etc.

Lack of comments the second time around may mean that you have not adequately addressed the reviewers previous comments. Nonetheless, If they said to you that comments were attached then you should have received same.

You can try submitting same to a conference if your paper meets the theme of the conference. It may be easier to get your paper published at such a conference.

Slide Rule Era has given you some good advice as well.

 

[jheidt2543]

MRM:

I too have never published a paper, but am working on two at the present time and have many of the same questions that you bring up.

One thought might be that your paper may not fit the editors of the ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal's areas of interest. Why not submit the paper to one of ASCE's Journals? ASCE has journals that feature both technical and practical sides of the geotechnical industry. You might have better luck there.

Just a thought! Good luck!

 

[BigH]

MRM - first - kudos for trying to get published. At your age, it is a great way to get going. But, in my view, without a credible co-author (no matter how good the paper) for the first papers to get the foot in the door, I would think that you are banging up against a brick wall with journals like the ASTM Geo and even ASCE's journals - why, read them. How many papers (percentage-wise) are written by practicing engineers and how many by professors or senior grad students with professor co-author? Less than 50% I would bet. If you work for Golders or other very well known geo-firms, it might bring better luck.
I would suggest a few things - first, why not try to get it in Ground Engineering. While not the magazine that it once was as far as practical papers go, if the paper can fit in 3 or 4 pages, it might have a chance. You can also try to get papers into magazines such as Roads and Bridges or even ASCE's Civil Engineering. Then, and perhaps I can help on this one, you can try to get published in geotechnical journals of other countries. India has a long history of their Geotechnical Journal and they might be receptive to an expatriate paper.
Also, you might try EGJ site for on-line publishing.
Depending on topic, DFI might be an outlet or their yearly conference proceedings.
I've had several papers published during my stay here in India at IIT conferences (India's MIT equivalent) and NIT conferences. Not the great exposure that the one you've tried but a start.
Best to you - keep up the chin.

 

[MRM]

Thank you all very much for your time and your comments. In times like this, I'm reminded how valuable a resource Eng Tips really is.

I have some things to think about in terms of what direction I should go. Just a little more background; I originally started a larger project (which is still going). I found that for one particular aspect of my work, I thought I needed to prove that a certain technique would yield results comparable to some of the available conventional methods. Hence this particular paper was born. That is also the reason I submitted it as a "technical note" only (since then, I've learned that ASTM geotechnical journal does not really distinguish a "paper" from a "technical note" as ASCE does. Maybe that's one reason for the rejection too). I should clarify for everyone that I'm locally very well known as being someone who they can talk to about soils issues. Statewide, nationally, and internationally, it's a different situation though. Everyone probably inferred that though!

SlideRuleEra-I appreciate the offer and maybe I'll take you up on it for this particular aspect of my work. That’s great idea!

Even though I may not get this phase of my work published in an internationally recognized journal, peer review is still very important to me. In fact, if anyone would be interested in reviewing my note, I'd appreciate that very much! I've got it in a pdf format so it would be easy to send. I suppose I'd owe you a couple of beverages of your choice too, if and when my "Eng Tips cruise" idea ever comes to fruition...

VAD, jheidt2543, and BigH; I like your idea of alternate journals for publication. I think that I'll pursue that with my "larger project" that I’ve been planning and working on. I think that this fall, it may be ready to submit. I'll have to talk to you more about that as the time draws nearer. Jeidt2543, I think that presenting it at a conference would be very enjoyable. I've actually, presented some foundation-related material a few times to local building inspectors on one occasion and to local architects on another. I think I'm one of the few grad students who didn't dread their defense. That was enjoyable too.

BigH, I have a feeling that you're probably right on. It doesn't hurt my feelings though-I would expect it and it’s good to hear too I guess. When you think about it, if any unknown person with no prior publishing experience is able to get material published in a major journal, that journal could probably lose credibility. This is especially so with hardworking professors who have "paid the dues." I’d still like to have the comments though because last time, they were very helpful.

A PhD may still be in my future so perhaps there'll be plenty of time for publishing material. I'd really like to get a head start though if I can!

 

[Mccoy]

MRM,
all of the above suggestion given by colleagues are good.
I'd like to add a coupla considerations, here.
First and foremost: if the journal claims to be a serious one, you have the right to know precisely why you have been rejected and why they previously told you you weren't. Call the chief editor, not the secretary. Explain him what happened, and hint to him that their behaviuor means unfairness and translates in loss of credibility . You may also add you may write letters of complaint to associations, organizations, and so on. Once you have submitted a paper, THE serious journal will start their serious procedure and let you know the motivations of rejections or of acceptance, and once suggestions of improvements have been given AND followed, they just can't back off. I suggest not to let it off so easily. You worked hard at your paper, and you have a right to claim fair treatment.
Whereas notorousness is a very good business card to having a paper published, being an unknown author should never be a bias to the serous journal. Try to insist and, if not succsessfull, mark the journal as not seriuos, write it to us and everywhere else, and submit the article to other papers, as per suggestions of colleagues. Spoken presentations at conferences can be very rewarding, and usually such papers are accepted pretty easily in comparison to journals.
The above considerations spring forth partly from experience. I've published many papers in industrial hygiene; once submitted a pretty complicated paper to Water Resources Research, the main magazine in the field of hydrology, and I was a perfect unknown there. The chief editor accepted the draft, sent it to three referees, forwarded to me the referees' reports, one favourable, one partially unfavourable, the third totally unfavourable, and explained to me why the paper couldn't be published. I can tell you my work was reviewed by some well known authors and, while dismayed at first, I had to confess that the whole chain of peer-reviewing had been above any criticism. that's an example of seriousness. Many more stories can be recounted, such as the dangers of entering someone else's turf and being twarted on purpose because of that, unfortunately this is part of the game, and the chief editor should always be a warrant of scientific democracy. Let's remember that the trophies of achademics are publications, and they are judged by that and they are hired by that. That's very serious business for them, much less so for us, but this does not justify unfairness.
Last but not least, this thread brings up a topic which could have an interesting development: something like an electronic technical journal. If well done (and, I can add, if free) it may acquire good popularity in the web and in the professional world. BigH, Slideruleera, why not to think about it? I wouldn't mind writing something in geotech, I've never done it but it's in plan (alas, time is always the critical factor).
Sorry for the post's lenght, guys, it kind of flowed out of me!

 

[MRM]

Mccoy, thanks for your reply and you're absolutely right. I do deserve to have those comments that were supposed to be attached, or otherwise told why the paper won't be a good fit for that publication. I think I will take your advice and give the editor a call and see. Perhaps they will be more helpful. I spent a lot of time jumping through the ASTM hoops in putting the paper into their format, filling out paperwork, and signing things.

You know, the main idea of this small phase of my work was to simply show that I can perform a test I developed to get limit densities for fine to medium sands (no substantial silt, coarse sand, or gravel content) that gives results comparable to those of the conventional Proctor or vibratory table methods. You may ask; come on Mark, how can a test be useful if you've restricted the gradation that much?? Where does that material exist? Well, first of all for my "larger scale" project, I'm using artificially graded sand because for part of it I'm tring to test very uniform sands to help remove the coeff. of uniformity variable. Second, 80% of the natural sands in my area are very clean fine to medium sands. No coarse sand, or gravel. I'm anticipating this larger project will give me (and hopefully others) some better ammo for estimating settlements on these types of loose uniform sands. I'm excited to share these results with everyone when they're ready.

Maybe I should have just continued on my overall project, and in the section that I mention min/max unit weights, I simply say, "limit densities were obtained using densification in a mold of known volume for max, and loose placement in the mold for min." Probably no one would have given it a second thought! Instead, I stretched it out to a full study to help explain why I believe the technique gives sufficiently accurate results... It's not like I didn't enjoy doing it so I guess I'm not really out anything.

Actually, for the sands for this paper, my simplified/alternate test method appeared to be "better suited" to observe accurate limit densities than the conventional methods based on the results. Please understand-I'm not starting a campaign here to do away with the tried and trued methods in place! Ha Ha!

Ok, I got just a little off the track there! Sorry about that.

Thanks again everyone, I will contact the editor to see if I can get any other explanation. If it's still a no go, hopefully I'll have some comments and then I can begin thinking about where to publish it next. I'll let you know how it goes...

 

[BigH]

MRM - you can send the paper to me; I would be pleased to review it and, should you wish, I can have Dr. N. Som (Ph.D Imperial College) who is one of the eminent Indian Geotechnical Engineers review it as well. I also have contacts at IIT-Kharagpur, India's MIT. If you wish, I could see them too. You do sound excited and more power to you - keep plugging. Mccoy is right that a serious publication shouldn't blow you off if you are unknown, but, in reality, they have only so much space per month and when the Kulwahy's and Mayne's (sorry Paul) of this world wish to put in their articles, there is little doubt that they would get a leg up.

If SlideRuleEra would wish, I'd be happy to explore setting up a site where we can publish. I think that we have some pretty damn good Geotechs in this forum and we can review or get someone in our own network to look at things.

Secondly and this is one of the reasons that I wished to start this group - I think that all of us would be in a position to collarborate on articles together - perhaps MRM with Mccoy (and his interest in statistical analysis), Focht3 (where have you been???) and VAD on expansive clays (Texas and Indian black cotton). Too, there might be room, as we get to know each other to do a group collaboration on a book (dare I say it) that leans to practical and leans to things that just aren't in other books. If one wanted to study the formulation of bearing capacity computations - go to Das or Bowles or many many others. But, a book that might point out pit-falls of plate load tests, the nitty gritty of subgrade reaction, proper description of peats or layerings in soils (e.g., partings, laminae, etc), of our own experiences in real problems with real engineering (read that limited) budgets, etc. (See Malcolm Bolton's book - the first 30 pages or so). This might be a niche that we, as practicing (or practising???), might be able to make a useful tool for others. Most of our colleagues in this forum (and others, too), appear to have a real "zeal" to help out others, to discuss opening and frankly. So, can we give this some thought too.

I apologise to MRM - if I have digressed from his great original post.


ps my email, should any not have it: bohica.fries at bigfoot period com Don't hesitate to write - just put in a clear subject!

 

[SlideRuleEra]

BigH, Mccoy, MRM - Will be absolutely delighted to be the webmaster of the "Electronic Technical Journal" (ETJ), or other name that we decide. Any web site will not be too fancy though, I'm not that good at it, yet.

MRM - If you can email me your (.pdf) paper, I can "secretly" post it on my existing site so that it cannot be seen. Only individuals with the exact file name (which I can post here) may access it. Here is a little demonstration that I rigged up a few minutes ago:
"Invisible" test document (5 KB) at this address

http://www.slideruleera.net/greetings-to-all.pdf

BigH - For a web hosting, be sure to look at

http://www.ixwebhosting.com

This is who I picked back in January as the best combination of quality service, website size, bandwidth, permitted files types, ease of use, cost, etc. Cost being very competitive at about $120 (US) for 2 years.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[SlideRuleEra]

MRM - Forgot to say where to find my email address. It is listed at the very bottom of my website's home page.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[SlideRuleEra]

Have been busy this afternoon, prepared a working mock-up of the "Electronic Technical Journal" (or whatever the name may be). Everything that you see on it is (temporarily) posted as "invisible" files at my existing website. Here is the link to get there

http://www.slideruleera.net/Draft-index-ETJ.html

Comments welcome.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[VAD]

MRM:

From the little I can glean from your work, I would like to say that numerous researches in Universities were done on so called "Ottawa sand" with specific gradations to eliminte the variables. I see nothing wrong with your concept which can be useful to those areas that sandy soils predominate and there are many areas.

You talk of prediction of settlement of sands. As you may be aware there is a geotechnical testsite in Texas that was developed for predicting settlement and bearing capacity of spread footings on sands. I participated in that prediction symposium.

I would be pleased to review your paper as well since I have done some field work on similar types of sands many moons ago that are naturally occurring and have several gradations of this material available. depending on what you are projecting, I can perhaps assist in providing some details.

One of the things that you have to be careful about when showing information that appears in conflict or to supersede existing ones is to demonstrate results using existing and your technique. I would suspect that you have looked at relative densities etc etc.

SlideRuleEra,BIG H, MCcoy etc.- The setting up of the Engineering Technical Journal is an excellent idea. I would add for Practicing Engineers to your title - ETJPE, although a bit long but has a meaning.

 

[BigH]

Good point on the title - as part of the founding group . . . we all have a say. Kudos to SlideRuleEra for pushing it. I think it would be good.

 

[SlideRuleEra]

VAD - Good suggestion on the name change, I have updated the mock-up. A potential advantage to this new name is that that the internet domain name "ETJPE" is available - "ETJ" has been taken.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[BigH]

SlideRuleEra - why don't you get the name, etc. Anyone here have problems chipping in?

 

[SlideRuleEra]

BigH - I can do that. Suggest that we get everything organized, with a paper or two, resumes, contact information, etc. ready for release. Actually getting the web hosting will only take a day or so - no need to pay and not have any content to upload.

For now we can all review exactly what ETJPE will look like as "invisible" files on my existing web site, for free.

Also I will not be able to work on the webmaster part for much of August.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[SlideRuleEra]

Forgot to add that we can go with free web hosting if desired, to see if the concept of ETJPE works. The only downside is that there will be some advertising banners (like on Yahoo) and that the web addresss will be a little "strange". Not a bad way to start, however.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[Mccoy]

When you talk of fast moving....

As to the site fanciness, with a slow connection at home, I often give it up when download takes too long. Simple is an advantage to this regard, expecially if you don't have to sell cars or real estate.

I hit the link with no probs, the example page looks good to me.

As to the proposed journal name ETJPE, to me it sounds pretty good. I concur that achademical authors too often forget about practical applications and financial implications. The e-magazine may become popular if publicized in eng-tips forum, other professional fora and above all if avalaible in the google searchpages.

If this Idea takes off, next we'll have to discuss when to release the first issue, some will have to submit contributes (from 2 to 4 in the first issue?), decide a standard format and prepare a guideline for authors. Peer-reviewing would be higly reccomended (2-3 reviewers per paper). Referees and editor-in-chief would be needed (he would decide first if submitted papers are OK, then forward them to referees, collect referees' opinions and finally accept/reject/suggest to modify the paper). This may seem excessive at the beginning, within us, but the interest may expand and the number of papers submitted may grow large. Also such a setup means credibility and credibility attracts good authors and good papers. Probably, best not to set too a rigid scheme for frequency of publication and number of papers. The advantage of being a free journal. A definite asset would be the number of potential readers: huge, as sliderule era suggests.