Publishing Your Psychology Research

A guide to writing for journals in psychology and related fields

Dennis M McInerney

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000257380
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Education General
• Index: Psychology

Dennis McInerney's Publishing Your Psychology Research has bridged a much needed gap in the research process literature, providing a well-oiled treaty from both insider and outsider perspectives as to what it takes to become a credible and published author.
Dr. Shawn Van Etten
Director of Institutional Research
Herkimer County Community College
State University of New York

Do you want to publish your psychology research in the 'best' journals? Whether you are new to the game or a seasoned researcher, Dennis McInerney shows you how to maximise your chances of publication from the very beginning of your research project.

Richly illustrated with tips and examples, Publishing Your Psychology Research demystifies the publication process. It explains how to design your research to ensure it has potential for publication, and how to write up your results into an effective article. It outlines what journal editors are looking for, how to select the appropriate journals to approach, and how to react to reviewers' feedback.

Publishing Your Psychology Research is an essential handbook for anyone interested in building a reputation as a researcher in their chosen field of psychology.

1
QUALITY IN PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH: WHAT JOURNAL EDITORS ARE LOOKING FOR

• The heuristic value of research
• Being knowledgeable about research
• The stages of the research process
• Contributing to research—student, novice and experienced researchers
• Ethical standards of research

THE HEURISTIC VALUE OF RESEARCH

If you are reading this book you are probably a budding researcher or a mentor of budding researchers. You might also be a proficient researcher, just curious about the nature and purpose of this book. In any event, it is important for all researchers to examine the purpose and importance of research in their areas and their particular role in it. Research is usually associated with acquiring new knowledge through empirical means. It is also associated with change, development, and more often than not, progress in a particular area. In most areas of human endeavour there is formal and informal research dedicated to issues of interest, significance and importance. Let’s look at a few examples. There is extensive and continuing research in an incredibly wide range of medical areas. Some of these are very high profile areas, such as AIDS and cancer research, while many others are less high profile, but nevertheless of great significance such as research on palliative care. There is also extensive and continuing research in the sciences, for example the research effort of groups such as CSIRO and NASA, and many other scientific organisations. Again, much of this research is very high profile, such as that on genetically modified food and cloning. There is extensive research in areas dealing with social and personal areas such as family life, health, education and religion. And finally, there is research in business, economics, religion, politics, sports and defence. In other words, research occurs in most, if not all, areas of human activity.

We need to ask the question therefore, why do humans conduct research? Of course, one impelling reason that research is conducted is human curiosity: human beings are intensely curious. Even our forebears with sloping foreheads were researchers when they put their fingers into fire to explore the quality of flames, and discovered (when their yelping had subsided) various uses for heat that have become refined over the millennia. Humans also found that the study of the world around them allowed them increasing control of the natural elements. This control led to benefits including improved standards of living and increased longevity. In other words, there is a strong link between research and human progress.

This increase in knowledge generated through investigation and discovery led directly to the establishment of universities and schools to conserve, pass on, and further develop human knowledge, much of it acquired through research. And this is probably where you are sitting now—in a university, pondering the value of research and your role in it.

BEING KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT RESEARCH

In order to be an effective researcher one has to be knowledgeable about research. Indeed, being knowledgeable about research is a value in itself, whether or not one is an active researcher. We are all consumers of research information and it is a good idea to know how to distinguish good research from indifferent research and poor research. Among the basic issues we need to attend to when reading research are the quality and value of the issues being investigated, the quality and appropriateness of the methodologies chosen for the investigation, and the quality of the analyses and the reporting of the results of the investigation. As you will see later, these are also key elements in the writing of research. Let’s look briefly at each of these elements.

Quality of the issues being investigated

There is an element of subjectivity in making an evaluation of the quality and value of particular research. I have attended many university research committee meetings, vetting research funding applications, where very heated arguments have ensued on whether a particular project is sufficiently worthwhile to spend hard money on. Some of the ‘muddying’ features in these arguments relate to whether the research has the potential to make a contribution to knowledge; whether there is any applied value in the research; whether the research has already been done; whether the researcher demonstrates competence and a background in the research area; and whether the research has a place in the grander scheme of things (whatever this might mean). It is not only at these funding meetings that such evaluations occur. Whenever a research author submits reports for presentation or publication in refereed fora, reviewers are usually asked to comment on the quality and value of the research. I have just completed a series of reviews on proposals for an international refereed research conference that included the following checklist:

Importance of problem/question	insignificant	1	2	3	4	5	significant
Theoretical framework	none	1	2	3	4	5	well-grounded
Contribution to field	minor	1	2	3	4	5	major

When you are reading research you will be making judgements about each of these issues as well (or at least you should be), and I will be giving guidance throughout the book on how you might make informed judgements. Certainly, when you are preparing your own research projects, and finally writing the results for publication, you would want to be assessed as straight fives. Again, I hope to provide you with insights that will enable you to adapt your writing skills in ways likely to enhance the probability of publication.

The quality and appropriateness of the methodologies chosen for the investigation

It is axiomatic that good research should be founded on appropriate methodologies. A good research question will go nowhere without this foundation. In considering whether a methodology is appropriate (there might be several appropriate alternatives) you must consider the nature of the research questions asked. The research strategies used by the researcher must be clearly linked to these specific research questions and issues. Research questions and issues dictate the nature of the data to be acquired. The nature of the data to be acquired influences the method chosen to gain these data, and the type of analyses to be conducted. Central, therefore, to the research design is the research issue.

There are a number of methodologies for conducting research. Among these are experimental designs which attempt to truly control the experimental variables and seek for causal relationships; quasi-experimental designs which do not have the same level of control but also seek to examine cause and effect; and correlational designs which are concerned with prediction and the association between variables. There is also a wide range of qualitative designs such as case studies, observational studies and ethnographies that are becoming increasingly popular in psychological research. Each of these approaches has its strengths and weaknesses. The task of the researcher is to maximise the strength of an approach while minimising (or controlling for) any weaknesses that might be present. Most importantly, the researcher must match the research design to the research question and the type of data available. Your task as a reader of research will be to assess how well this has been done in a particular study. If it is not done well, then the research will be compromised.

Data are, of course, the raw material of the research. The researcher must decide what types of data are most relevant to answer their research question. Data may be scores...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Quality in psychological research: What journal editors are looking for
• 2 Quality problems and issues in major types of research
• 3 Selecting a journal outlet and submitting your article
• 4 Writing your literature review for an effective article
• 5 Writing your method for an effective article
• 6 Writing results and discussions for an effective article
• 7 The review process 1
• 8 The review process 2—responding to reviewers' comments
• 9 From thesis to journal article
• Appendix Code of ethics
• Index