Writing a journal article in 12 weeks: Weeks Eleven and Twelve

I’m using Wendy Laura Belcher’s book Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success to prepare my paper for publication. During this week I worked on two weeks: Week Eleven and Week Twelve. 

Week Eleven is about wrapping up your article. Belcher warns her readers of the perils of perfection and emphasizes the importance of finishing. She recommends to spend the first day of the week finalizing your argument, the second finalizing your lit review, the third finalizing your introduction, the fourth finalizing your evidence and structure, and the fifth finalizing your conclusion. It took me two days to finalize my article. Then, I moved to Week Twelve.

Week Twelve is devoted to sending your article to a journal. Belcher opens this chapter with a brief section on the perils of finishing, which echoes her discussion of the perils of perfection in Week Eleven. After that, she describes several last steps necessary for getting your submission ready, such as writing a cover letter to accompany the article, preparing illustrations, putting the article in the journal’s style, preparing its final electronic version, sending it to the journal, and celebrating. My article doesn’t have any illustrations, and it’s already in the journal’s format. So, on the third day of the week, I drafted a cover letter. The fourth day was devoted to preparing the final electronic version of my article and revising the cover letter. On the fifth day, I submitted my article to the journal. I was surprised to find out that I’m required to list the names of three potential reviewers along with their academic affiliations and contact information. It took me awhile to decide on that. After the article was eventually submitted, I started working on IRB documents, which I should've finished long time ago. By the end of the day, I felt rather tired and had no energy to celebrate. I gave myself a rain check, planning to have a celebration at the end of the week.  I will reflect on the past 12 weeks and evaluate my experience of revision and journal submission in my next blog post.