Briefing presentation provided at Nanjing Agricultural University on what to think about when considering publishing in science communication-related journals listed in the Social Science citation Index.

1. About me …
• Ph.D. in Communication, Cornell University (2006)
• On editorial advisory boards for:
• Public Understanding of Science
(5/year impact factor 2.3, 11/76, Communication)
• Science Communication
(5/year impact factor 2.8, 16/76, Communication)
• Risk Analysis
(5/year impact factor 2.5, 9/99, Math, Interdisciplinary Applications)
• Journal of Risk Research
(5/year impact factor 1.4, 31/95, Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary)
• Review 25+ papers for journals per year, as well as conference submissions
• Have published 60+ articles and chapters, most articles in SSCI journals
• Most articles I write get published … eventually

2. Where it starts …
• Read journal articles with a focus on style and technique …
• How do they set up arguments?
• What kind of methods do they use?
• How do they report their results?
• (You can’t plagiarize content, but you mimic copy style)
If possible …
• Attend conferences to get to learn
editors’ and other scholars’ thinking
• Sign up to serve as a reviewer
(conferences, journals, grants, etc.)

3. Questions the editors ask …
• Does it fit the journal?
• Is the style/formatting appropriate?
• Topic? Theory? Methods?
• Will anyone care?
• (Heuristic cue: Do they cite the journal?)
• Is it readable?
• Does it appear to have academic merit?
• Methods?
• Theory driven research question?
What makes a good research question:
• Most social science research is narrow
• Seeks to test or explore a specific
applied or theoretical question
• Theory/past research used to
determine hypotheses/research
questions (literature review)
A topic is not a question …

4. Student: I want to do a study of social media and science communication
Me: What do you want to know about social media and science communication
Student: I want to know what scientists are doing on social media
Me: What do you mean by ‘doing’? What scientists?
Student: I guess all scientists and, like, how often the use social media…
Me: What do you mean by ‘use’ social media?
Student: Like how often do they tweet or use Facebook?
Me: To communicate about what?
Student: Their research, I guess …
Me: Do you only care about how much they use social media?
Student: No, I want to do what they say and how they say it …
Me: What do you think they’re doing? …Why is that important? … What research is
there? … What do we know about what other people similar to scientists are doing?
What theories did those studies use, etc.? How does this fit with your research goals?
Note: This is an applied case …

5. Questions the reviewer asks
• Is it novel and interesting?
• Do the authors seem to know what they’re doing?
• Design …
• Can the reviewer understand the argument?
• Enough detail to replicate …
• Completeness of evidence …
• Writing …