Publishing your Research Paper

with Cambridge University Press

The University of Macau

1 March 2023

Joe Ng 伍志宏
Acquisitions Editor (Social Sciences)
CUP Singapore
Outline of Topics

• Introducing Cambridge University Press

• Journal selection & manuscript writing/preparation
• Peer review
• Open Access
• Publishing with Cambridge under
the Transformative Agreement
Q&A (15 min)
Introducing Cambridge
University Press
Cambridge University Press

• We are a department of the University of Cambridge

• The oldest academic publisher, founded in 1534
• Since August 2021, became part of the Cambridge University
Press & Assessment (including English Learning/Teaching,
UK/International Schools, Education Reform, Exams/Qualifications)

• Now making major investments in digital publishing, open

research and higher education
• As a global publisher – we want to publish the best
scholarship wherever it comes from
What does the Press publish?

Academic research
• Peer-reviewed journals for STM/HSS (> 350 titles)
• Research monographs (Social Sciences & Humanities)
• Cambridge Histories / Cambridge Handbooks / major reference works
• Preprints – Cambridge OpenEngage
• Cambridge Elements (short books)
Academic learning (HE & Professional)
• Textbooks / Cambridge Companions
• Cambridge courseware
• Cambridge Advance Online Courses
• Professional Guidebooks
Retail
• Bibles / Cambridge University Press Bookshop
Academic Publishing Landscape

• Over 25,000 journals actively publishing

• More than 2 million articles published each year
• More than 200,000 academic books published each year
• Market value (est. in 2020):
• Science & Technology: US$13.8 billion
• Medical Sciences: US$12.8 billion
• Social Sciences & Humanities: US$4.5 billion
• Many publishers (small, mid-sized and large)
• University presses/not-for-profits
• Global commercial publishers
• Regional / national / boutique publisher
Academic Publishing Landscape

Evolutions/Disruptions…
• Technology. new journals shifting to also incorporate early
research, born-digital and OA-only; artificial intelligence /
machine learning starting to be used by publishers
(example)
• Open access movement (UK REF, Plan S, resulting in
Transformative Agreements and journals flipping to fully
Gold OA)
• Preprints (sharing of early research on preprint servers)
Academic Publishing Landscape

Evolutions/Disruptions…
• Impact and other metrics (WoS IF, Scopus, Google h-index,
altmetrics, San Francisco DORA)
• Lots of “free” content (e.g, Sci-Hub - both legal and not so
legal!)
• Pandemic (digitization of scholarship; speed of publication)
Your Challenge!

How to make your research stand out?

Journal selection &
manuscript
writing / preparation
Selecting the right journal
The ABCs of writing
Preparing your manuscript
Selecting a Journal

What is the editorial board likely to be looking for?

• Read the Aims & Scope and manuscript submission guidelines
• Is your paper within the scope of the journal?
• Review recent publications in each journal
• Find out the key topics covered, and the style of coverage
• Is your paper on a par with and related to others in the journal?
• Consider the general hierarchy of the journals in your field
• How significant are your findings to the understanding of your
discipline?
Selecting a Journal

What are you looking for?

• What is the journal’s policy on peer review and Open Access?
• Avoid submitting to predatory OA journals
• Does the journal allow me to comply with my institution /
funder’s policies?
• Does your funder require publication in OA journal?
• What are the fees that are charged?
• Submission fees/colour figure charges
• OA article processing charge (APC)
• Check if your university is part of a publisher’s transformative
agreement (discounted or waived APC)
Writing your manuscript

“ABC” of effective writing

Accuracy Brevity Clarity

Writing your manuscript

• Submit the article only when fully complete

Accuracy • Obey the rules in the submission guidelines
• Check your references; check your data is
correct
• Focus on correct use of grammar and spelling
• For non-native English speaker, consider a
language editing service
Writing your manuscript

• Be concise and get to the point!

• A longer manuscript is not necessarily a better
Brevity one
• Typical paragraph structure: First sentence
states the main point, other sentences in
paragraph support this.
• Simple writing – easier to communicate to
readers
• Keep within the word limit
Writing your manuscript

Clarity
• Well organised with clear message
Clarity
• state your contribution at the start and not in the
conclusion
• Structure the manuscript correctly
• as per journal style guide
• Suggested structure for scientific papers
• see submission guidelines and previously published
articles
Journal masthead

Article Title

Authors and affiliations

Abstract

Key Words
Introduction
Figure with caption

Methodology

Numbered equation
Results
Conclusions
Funding statement
Conflict of interest statement
Author ORCIDs
Appendix
References
Preparing your manuscript

Your paper should include

A meaningful and helpful title
• Short and descriptive title (articles with shorter titles are viewed
and cited more frequently)
• Maximum length ≤ 16 words
• Not too short that it doesn’t give clear context.
• Do not include abbreviations unless commonly known in the field

Sources: Paiva CE, Lima JP, Paiva BS., ‘Articles with short titles describing the results are cited more often.’, Clinics (Sao Paulo), 2012;67(5):509-13; Knight KL and Ingersoll CD, ‘Structure of
a Scholarly Manuscript: 66 Tips for What Goes Where ‘, Journal of Athletic Training, 1996;31(3):201-6.
Preparing your manuscript

Your paper should include:

• A clear and informative abstract
o Briefly summarise main sections of paper: Introduction;
Materials/Methods; Results; Discussion/Conclusion
Preparing your manuscript

Your paper should include:

• List of key words
• 4 to 8 key words/phrases to ensure your article is fully
discoverable for online searching
• Think about what the ideal reader for your article might be
searching – ask your peers
• Certain journals may require you choose from a list of preferred
key words
Preparing your manuscript

Figures, tables and supplementary materials

• Ensure that figure captions are provided and permissions
cleared if reproduced from other publications
• Number the tables sequentially
• Include purely technical material in the supplementary
materials to avoid disrupting the narrative flow
• Certain journals may require you choose from a list of
preferred key words
Preparing the cover letter

Structure of a cover letter:

First section
• state the name of the manuscript
• describe the type of manuscript
• describe rationale and major findings from research
Second section
• explain why manuscript is a good fit for the journal
• address specific aspects of the journal’s Aims & Scope
• links with other articles you have read in the journal
Closing paragraph
• indicate that the manuscript is original
• has not been published before
• not under consideration for publication at another journal
Peer review
Why peer review?
Peer review models
Editorial review stages
Peer review outcomes
Responding to reviewer comments
Handling rejection
Why Peer Review?

• Allows your research to be evaluated by independent

experts in your field
• Aims of peer review:
o Ensure that your article is sound and accurate
o Give constructive feedback
o Alert you to errors
o Create a discussion
o Ensure submitted articles are suitable for the journal (in
some cases)
Peer Review Models

Post-publication peer review – in some journals, particularly experimental

open access publishers, manuscripts are reviewed after they have been
published. These reviews are most often open.
Editorial Review Stages

Desk review
• Editor-in-chief (EIC) will first assess
• Is the manuscript within scope?
• Is the English language expression good and understandable?
• If yes, then proceed to peer review
• Acceptance rate at this stage varies a lot according to discipline
• Usually takes 1-7 days to receive decision from EIC

External Peer review

• EIC will invite two experts to comment on the manuscript
• Usually takes about 3-10 weeks (varies by each journal)
• EIC makes a decision based on the feedback of both referees
Editorial Review Stages

a.k.a. “desk
rejection”

Manuscript Editor-in-chief
Rejected after
submitted to screens
screening
journal manuscript

Reviewers

Rejected
Editor
Author assesses
makes reviews
revisions

Accepted
Peer Review Outcomes

Revisions are nearly always requested!

• Accept without any change – extremely rare
• Accept after minor revisions.
• Accept after major revisions.
• Revise and resubmit – common outcome – should not be
seen as rejection!
• Reject the paper
Peer Review Outcomes

Accept after minor revisions

• Language editing
• Small number of new citations/ mentioning additional topics
• Small additional experiments to complement the main body of article
• Tweaks to interpretation of results

Accept after major revisions

• Structural issues that call for a significant reorganisation of the text
• More experiments needed to support aims of article
• Argument needs to take into account a whole new topic
• Existing analysis of data/evidence is flawed and needs to be re-
worked
Responding to Referees’ Comments

• Be respectful and acknowledge the time and care referees

have taken
• Engage positively and constructively with criticisms. Do not
be defensive or aggressive
• Respond either by common themes in referee reports or
take each report in turn
• Indicate what you agree with, what you disagree with and
what changes if any you would propose to make
• Provide a detailed list of changes made. This could avoid the
need for further peer review.
Handling Rejection

Take this opportunity to improve your paper

• Carefully read the referees’ report and Editor’s letter.
• Establish why your article was rejected:
• Was it a case of journal scope?
• Was it due to flaws in your writing?
• Are there fundamental issues that need to be addressed in your
methodology or data?
Open Access
A definition of open access
Benefits of open access
Cambridge open access
A Definition of Open Access

Open Access Research are

• freely available on the public internet;
• permits any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print,
search, or link to the full texts of these articles;
• allows spiders to crawl the articles for indexing;
• pass them as data to software (machine-readable);
• use them for any other lawful purpose;
• without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those
from gaining access to the internet itself.

As adapted from the Budapest Open Access Initiative

Benefits of Open Access

Personal benefits:
• increased visibility of your publications
• more citations and downloads than subscription articles
• greater control over the integrity and re-use of your work
• faster research dissemination
• raised profile for author, funders and the University
Benefits for society and global research community:
• access for all for the common good
• minimises research duplication
• accelerate research and innovation
Source: https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/14061/open_access/8/open_access_explained
Cambridge Open Access

We’ve signed more than 100 Transformative Agreements (TAs) with 1000
institutes in 30 countries that covers nearly 50% of our journal research
authors.
Cambridge Open Access

• We publish 450 journals in the Sciences, Social Sciences and the Humanities
• 68 fully Gold OA journals
• 300+ Hybrid journals
• To date, more than 310 research books & Elements published Gold OA with
more in the pipeline.
• 48% in the Social Sciences
• 32% in the Humanities (incl. History & Area Studies)
• 20% in the Sciences and Medicine
Cambridge Open Access

New OA Journal Concepts

• We are building a program of new OA journals, such as:
• Prisms
• Flow
• Experimental Results
• Research Directions
• We aim to convert all of our journals to Open Access by
end-2025
Journals flipped to Gold OA in 2023
Resources for Open access
www.cambridge.org/core/open-research/open-access/open-access-video-resources
Publishing with Cambridge
under the Transformative
Agreement (TA)
Which journals?
Eligibility?
Transformative Agreement with the
University of Macau
The University of Macau is included in the
Transformative Agreement (“Read & Publish”) signed
with Cambridge University Press for 2023.
• Current UM faculty can publish (at no additional
cost) in our Gold and Hybrid journals
• Which journals can you publish in? See full list of
journals here (389 journals) (new OA concept journals are
excluded from TA)
• Current faculty can also enjoy access to all our
journals’ content
Transformative Agreement with the
University of Macau
Eligibility
• You are a corresponding author of the article
• Article is original research (Research articles, Rapid
communications, Review articles, Brief Reports, Case
Reports)
• Accepted for publication in a Cambridge University Press
journal covered by the agreement.
• Accepted for publication from 1 January 2023.
• Books are not covered under the TA
• Queries? Contact your librarian.
Transformative Agreement with the
University of Macau
Procedure
1. Submit your research using your institutional affiliation
(ideally using your ORCID).
2. Authors to check any funder / institutional mandates,
e.g., research-funded authors may need to choose a CC-
BY license (Creative Commons Attribution License)
3. Upon acceptance, choose the Gold Open Access option in
your author publishing agreement and select a CC licence.
Download a step-by-step guide here:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-file-
manager/file/62a341d2d8a97be747fbac28
Publication outputs of UM faculty

Math, Science, Engineering, Medicine (5 articles)

Publication outputs of UM faculty

Psychology (10 articles)

Publication outputs of UM faculty

History and Area Studies (11 articles)

Publication outputs of UM faculty

Humanities, Language, Linguistics (9 articles)

Publication outputs of UM faculty
Social Sciences (7 articles)
Our key journals in Engineering

www.cambridge.org/core/browse-subjects/engineering
Our journals in Medicine
www.cambridge.org/core/browse-subjects/medicine
Our journals in Medicine
www.cambridge.org/core/browse-subjects/medicine
Our journals in Computer Science
www.cambridge.org/core/browse-subjects/computer-science
Cambridge Author Services
In partnership with American Journal Experts (AJE)

www.cambridge.org/academic/author-services/

Language Formatting
Translation
Editing

Journal Video services Figure Preparation

Recommendation
Supporting Materials for Authors

• Cambridge OpenEngage (preprints)

• Step-by-step guide to publishing your article Open
Access
• Glossary of OA terms
• Benefits of publishing Open Access
• Cambridge Core
Cambridge OpenEngage

Why Use Preprints?

• Increasing acceptance of such use by many scholars
• multidisciplinary research centers receiving more funding
• Increase in collaboration among scholarly communities
globally
• Such collaboration valuable to other researchers but siloed
from research itself
• Help increase the quality of research, not just the speed of
research dissemination
• Feedback, advice and validation important to all
researchers
Cambridge OpenEngage

• Supports dissemination of early research and various

research outputs
• Partnered with American Political Science Association,
Mathematics in Industry and ChemRxiv now “live”
• Platform supports conferences and events
• Allows direct transfer of preprints to some of our
journals for submission
Step-by-step guide to publishing
your article Open Access
Step-by-step guide to publishing
your article Open Access
Step-by-step guide to publishing
your article Open Access
Glossary of OA Terms
Benefits of publishing Open Access

Policies and licences:

• Creative Commons licences
• Funder mandates and policies
• External organisations and
policies we support
• https://www.cambridge.org/c
ore/services/authors/journals
/corresponding-author
Cambridge Core
Cambridge Core
Cambridge Core
Cambridge Core
Cambridge Core