Scholarly Communications

Library Interns Spring 2025

About me:

• Maria Aghazarian
• she/her/hers
• Non-work fun fact: My neighbor and I accidentally started feeding our local crows and foxes when we tried to feed the neighborhood cat

About you?

• Name
• Pronouns
• Subject[s] of academic interest
• Subject[s] of non-academic interest

Important!

• If you have questions or need something clarified, please interrupt me!!
• Sometimes I forget to stop and ask for questions!!

Q: What is "scholarly
     communications"?

A: Communicating research
(and all this entails)

What I do

• Advise on journal and/or publisher selection

• Consult with faculty about copyright questions and publishing open access

• Maintain institutional repository of College-affiliated research

  • Remediating works for accessibility with my team

• Research open initiatives and present to the Libraries' Collections committee to see if we can/should support

Why I do it

• Further the missions of both the Libraries and the College

• Amplify the reach of Swarthmore-affiliated scholarship

• Elevate the Libraries' position on campus as a partner and collaborator throughout the scholarly communications lifecycle

• Promote open, sustainable, and future-oriented best practices, for both students and faculty

Swarthmore Tenure Memo

“The principal criteria in decisions about reappointment with continuous tenure are teaching and scholarship. ... Promise as a scholar is evaluated in terms of an individual’s potential contribution to the creation of new knowledge or to the reorganization in creative ways of existing information. Scholarship will be considered in the light of publications, effective research, or other activities (such as professional consulting and advising) that contribute to the advancement of knowledge.”

272+ works of scholarship

in 2024

Your Mission

Objectives

• Apply what you've learned from your homework to get your manuscript published

• Understand and experience some of the roadblocks during the [peer-reviewed journal] publishing process

You will be provided with information and resources to help you on this journey

1. Choose a journal to submit your manuscript to
2. Undergo peer review
3. Review and sign your publishing agreement
   • You may have to choose between two options
4. Submit your publishing agreement
   • Give to Maria
5. Receive your published article and review the impact you have made (so far) by publishing your research

Activity Debrief

Reactions, comments, questions?

Choosing and evaluating journals to submit to

1

When choosing a journal, we have to balance and optimize a few different factors, such as the quality and level of innovation in a paper. In Math, journals are ranked in tiers by impact, so we reference that spreadsheet. We also consider the subject and the journal audience (ex. theoretical vs. applied mathematics).

Paraphrased from a conversation with Joseph Nakao

Paraphrased from a conversation with Elise Mitchell

As a graduate student, I was focused on trying to get a job, so I wanted to publish in a well-respected journal in my field. My goal was to aim high; I could always try to publish elsewhere if I got rejected. The Editor of The William & Mary Quarterly approached at conference about submitting my article.

Peer Review

2

Higher quality journals have longer turnaround time for peer review, potentially taking 1-2 years from submission to publication. If you're in limbo with a longer review process, there's either something wrong with the paper or the reviewers, including potentially a shortage of peer reviewers. There are unethical reviewers who may be upset if you don't cite their work, or if they don't like your ideas. I haven't had negative experiences yet, but it could be because I am earlier in my career.

Paraphrased from a conversation with Joseph Nakao

I experienced peer review difficulties with one reviewer, whose ego got in the way of his feedback because his work was critiqued. I was able to brush it off, I felt more secondhand embarrassment. In this case the Editor also wrote a letter and asked the reviewer to reveal their identity. The reviewer has since apologized repeatedly when we've run into each other at conferences.

Paraphrased from a conversation with Elise Mitchell

Reviewing and signing a publishing agreement

3

Elsevier

SIAM

Global Science Press

One of the green flags I noticed while signing the copyright terms was that the journal did allow for reuse of the article as a book chapter. Some journals put embargo terms even on this reuse, but this journal didn't.

Paraphrased from a conversation with Elise Mitchell

Paying for open access (or not)

4a

OA Advantages

OA Options

"I believe education and knowledge should be free."

I like open access because I write about enslaved people, and want my work to be widely available to people of African descent as well as scholars in the Caribbean.
As a graduate student, I didn't have access to funds to publish open access, but pretty much everything since then has been OA.

Paraphrased from a conversation with Elise Mitchell

Joseph Nakao

Post-publication reception and sharing

4b

This paper was follow up to a previous paper. My hope is for 10 citations within a few years, which is considered to be a higher impact paper.

This paper is pretty widely taught, I get emails about it all the time. It has 8 citations so far, which really engaged with the text, not just cursory citations. A lot of the articles citing it focus on methodology and sensitive engagement with archives.

Paraphrased from a conversation with Elise Mitchell

Paraphrased from a conversation with Joseph Nakao

Advice for future scholars

Do your best to keep up with the literature.
Set Google Scholar alerts for specific people in the field.
Track title or abstract for relevant works.
Attend conferences to hear about what's happening in the field.

If something is too similar to your research, decide to work faster on it or pivot your research.

Aim high! Shoot for the moon, land in the treetops.
Don't take peer review personally, it's not about you.
Try to say yes to participating in peer review.
Workshop your manuscript before you submit.
Conferences that have proceedings are a great way to get published and typically have a friendlier audience and friendlier peer reviewers.

Paraphrased from a conversation with Elise Mitchell

Paraphrased from a conversation with Joseph Nakao