“How’s my paper doing?” It’s such a simple question, and in today’s hyperconnected world it’s relatively easy to work out who’s reading and talking about your scientific publications. But are there conversations you might be overlooking?
Tag Archives: altmetrics
Five top tips for getting your paper noticed
Your research breakthrough doesn’t just need to be read by the experts, says Mark Lorch.
Guest contributor Mark Lorch
You’ve just made the breakthrough you’ve been dreaming of. The days-weeks-months-years in the lab or field have all paid off, and everything has dropped into place. It’s the sort of moment that we scientists live for – the buzz of discovery. So now it’s time to publish.
Tell your peers about your work and hope it leads to new and even greater things for you, your fellow scientists, and society. But is that really enough? Maybe there’s a wider audience for your science, outside of the narrow confines of your academic circle. Maybe it has applications in other fields, or perhaps the public would like to (or even should) know about it. Plus of course if you get your paper noticed it’s much more likely to have the citations and impact that you, your department and all the metric measurers have been hoping for.
In the open access era there’s nothing stopping anyone from downloading your paper. But there are still hurdles to overcome before getting the wide readership your paper deserves. Based on my experience, here’s five tips for helping your paper reach the widest possible audience. Continue reading
Metrics with meaning: Shaping your scholarly identity
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Tracking scientific output can be beneficial to a researcher’s career, says Catherine Chimes.
Contributor Catherine Chimes
{credit}Image credit: Getty Images/Thinkstock/Catherine Yeulet{/credit}
Establishing yourself in your field is a challenge faced by many early-career researchers and academics. Accruing status as indicated by traditional methods (such as journal citation counts, public speaking opportunities and, at the pinnacle for some, being awarded tenure) can be fraught with difficulty in more ways than one.
As more and more scholarly work is reviewed, published and made publicly available each year in an increasing variety of formats, one question stands out: what other indicators are there that scholars can utilize to evidence the impact of their work?
Achieving recognition and credit for the work accomplished is crucial to advancing any scientific career. Recent articles have discussed the danger in publishing for publishing’s sake – instead, experts enthuse, the emphasis should be on publicly available, reproducible, robust data and outputs that extend far beyond the journal article. Continue reading