Graduate students often wish to have their research issued in a form that reaches a larger audience than does the typical thesis or dissertation. The purpose of this chapter is to identify eight potential publishing outlets for fulfilling that wish.

A VARIETY OF PUBLISHING OPPORTUNITIES

The types of outlets reviewed in the following pages include conference presentations, academic journals, popular periodicals, books, chapters in books, taped and broadcast presentations, Internet publishing, and researcher-created print publications. The types are described in relation to nine variables--the length of the research report, the intended audience, the likely breadth of dissemination, the probability that the report will be accepted for publication, the time lapse before publication, the author's contribution, the publisher's contribution, the extent of author control over the publication's final form, and the extent of control wielded by the publisher.

Conference Presentations

In many institutions graduate students have opportunities to describe their research in seminars or colloquia attended by their peers and faculty members. However, they can reach a far larger audience when they present their findings at conferences of such academic and professional organizations as the American Educational Research Association, the Comparative and International Education Society, the American Psychological Association, and the like.

The presentation format at such events can be of various kinds--lectures, panels organized around themes, debates, question-answer sessions, poster displays, and open discussions. The poster presentation is a relatively recent innovation that consists of researchers being assigned positions in a room or hallway where each one displays key elements of her or his work and discusses the work with whatever interested individuals choose to stop by. The size of the audience reached by a presentation depends on several factors--the number of people attending the conference, the reputation of the presenter, the popularity of the topic being discussed, the time of day, and the number of parallel sessions going on at the same time so that the total audience is divided among multiple sessions. Because of such conditions, the number of people reached by a presentation can vary from more than a thousand to only two or three.The length of time allotted to a speaker at a conference can vary from five minutes to an hour or so, depending on the eminence of the position the researcher enjoys in the field of interest and on the number of presentations the conference organizers have chosen to include. A speaker with a distinguished reputation or a breakthrough discovery will be assigned more time than will a graduate student or assistant professor who is reporting on a sound but hardly startling research effort. Fifteen minutes is a rather typical length of time allowed each presenter, thereby providing the opportunity to describe no more than the highlights of the research method and results.The chance of having a research paper accepted for delivery at a conference is usually far greater than having it accepted for publication in a journal or as a chapter in a book. Conference planning committees, compared to journal and book editors, are typically more lenient in the standards they apply in judging submissions, and competition for having a paper accepted for a conference is usually less than for a journal. Frequently the opportunity to present a paper is limited to members of the organization that sponsors the conference.There is usually little or no time lag between a researcher completing a research report and presenting it at a conference.

Academic Journals

Authors of theses and dissertations frequently prepare a short version of their research report for submission to an academic journal. The world's academic journals number in the thousands. They can be issued monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, semiannually, or annually. The most common publication schedule is perhaps quarterly. Each journal accepts articles in a defined realm of interest that may be quite narrow. The journal's subject-matter focus can be

The size and kind of a journal's reading audience are influenced by several factors--the publication's subject-matter focus, its reputation, its cost, how widely it's advertised, and whether it's issued by a professional society or association. Whenever a journal is a key publication of a professional group or scholarly society, everyone belonging to the society usually receives the journal as a right of membership. Thus, the larger the membership in the society, the larger the guaranteed reading audience. However, many other journals--not published by a society or not automatically distributed to a society's members--must depend solely on paid subscriptions for their distribution. Because subscription prices are frequently high, individuals often avoid buying the journals and depend, instead, on using copies in a college or university library. However, in recent years, as library funds have diminished, many libraries have eliminated subscriptions to journals that are seldom read or are especially expensive, so the reading audience for such publications has dwindled.

Journals can differ dramatically in the proportion of submitted articles they ultimately publish. The most prestigious and popular journals may accept as few as 15% or 20% of the papers they receive. In contrast, journals of substantially lower status or with a small potential audience may publish 80% or more of the submitted items. Journal editors usually maintain strong control over the form, topics, and scholarly quality of the articles they accept so that authors are obliged to abide strictly by journal editors' standards and preferences. Consequently, authors enjoy far less freedom and control over articles in journals than they do over conference presentations, researcher-produced publications, microfiche content, and--in many cases--book manuscripts.

The acceptable length of articles can vary considerably from one journal to another. Some publications limit entries to ten printed pages or less. Others accept reports as long as 40 or 50 pages. Occasionally a lengthy work will be considered of such import that the editors will dedicate an entire issue of the journal to the report. Frequently the periodical's policy regarding length is described on the journal's inside cover (front or rear) in a notice to potential contributors. For example, a notice in Child Development (the key publication of the Society for the Study of Child Development) informs readers that Most single experiment studies can be presented in less than 15 double-spaced [typewritten] pages, including tables and references. It is recognized that more space may be necessary in papers involving complex methodology, multiple studies, and reviews. If a paper of over 25 pages is submitted, a cover letter justifying its length should be included. A paper of over 60 [typewritten] pages is unlikely to be accepted but it may be referred to the [Society's] Monographs. (Notice to Contributors, 1994)

The time lag between an author's submitting a paper to a journal and the paper's actually appearing in print can differ significantly from one journal to another. The time lapse can be affected by several conditions--the number of steps in the publishing process, the efficiency of the journal's personnel, the number of submissions the journal receives, the backlog of accepted papers, the frequency with which the journal is issued, and the number of pages in each issue of the journal.

The publishing process for some journals is quite simple. A single editor takes responsibility for deciding which papers to publish, the editor makes few if any changes in the accepted manuscripts, the author submits a revised copy (if changes have been required), the author's typescript is photocopied instead of being newly set in type, the editor places the current issue's articles in a desired sequence, and that issue is printed.

However, for many journals, the publishing process is far more complex. If many articles are submitted during the same period of time, they may rest idly on some busy editor's desk until he or she gets to them. This is likely to occur when editors bear their editorial duties as a sideline, with their principal occupation being that of a college professor, therapist, business executive, government employee, or the like. After one or more editors in the journal's office briefly review a submitted paper, it's mailed to three or four evaluators--known as referees, reviewers, or readers--who are considered to be experts in the paper's subject matter. The referees are asked to evaluate the paper for the significance of its contribution to knowledge, the quality of its research, and its form of presentation. This procedure may take from one month to four or five months or more, depending on the efficiency and diligence of the referees. When the reviewers' judgments have all been received in the editorial office, the editors may find that the referees have disagreed about the quality of the paper. In this event, the paper may be sent to further reviewers for their opinions. Finally, when all reviews have been received, an editor--or group of editors--may decide to reject the submission, so they inform the author that the item has been judged unsuitable for the journal, and they may include the reviewers' comments about the piece (with the reviewers' names omitted from the page of comments). Frequently a paper will be accepted on the condition that specified improvements be made in its content or style. The author is informed of what needs to be done, so there is an additional time lapse while the author makes the changes and submits the revised document, which is once again inspected by one or more editors.

If they decide the piece is now satisfactory, they schedule it for publication. But if further changes are required, the paper is returned to the author for additional work. After being deemed acceptable, the article is placed in line for publication. For a journal that is published quarterly, that publication date could be as early as six months from the time the final version has been approved or as late as three years after the final approval. Some journals inform potential contributors of the time lag to be expected. For example, an announcement appearing in each issue of Child Development states that the initial review process seldom requires more than 3 months. . . . The time between initial submission and appearance in print of accepted manuscripts seldom exceeds 1 year. (Notice to Contributors, 1994)

Some journals don't accept unsolicited manuscripts but use only material from authors who have been invited to prepare articles on special themes.

Journals are not all alike in their policies regarding the costs that authors are expected to bear and the payments authors may receive. Most journals neither charge authors anything for publishing their articles nor do they pay authors for their work. However, some require that authors contribute to the expense of publication (usually a given amount per printed page), whereas others pay writers a nominal sum for articles. Authors usually receive two or three free copies of the issue of the journal in which their paper appears, and they may also be sent 25 or more offprints of their article.

Popular Periodicals

The term popular periodicals in the present context refers to magazines, newspapers, and newsletters read by the general public. Contributions to periodicals may be submitted on an author's own initiative, at the suggestion of an author's literary agent, or at the invitation of the periodical's editors.

Compared with journal articles, versions of research studies published in the public press are usually briefer, contain few if any technical terms, limit statistics to percentages and averages, include illustrative examples familiar to a lay audience, and may suggest applications of the research results to everyday life. Authors of such works are often paid for their contributions, except in the case of letters to the editor of a magazine or newspaper.

Magazine editors usually maintain greater control over the focus and style of articles than do newspaper editors. The editing of material for a newspaper may be limited to simplifying complex sentences and shortening the piece to fit the available space.

A significant advantage of popular periodicals over the typical journal is that they reach far more readers. Whereas a journal may have only 1,000 or 1,500 subscribers, the Sunday edition of a major newspaper ends up in hundreds of thousands of homes.

Books

For the purpose of the following discussion, books can be divided into two types--trade and academic. Trade books are intended for the general reading public and are available in regular bookstores and public libraries. Academic books are intended for such specialized audiences as students and faculty members in colleges and universities, teachers and administrators in elementary and secondary schools, physicians, social workers, therapists, engineers, industrialists, architects, lawyers, and the like. Academic books are found in the libraries of highereducation institutions, in college and university bookstores, and in academic publishers' catalogues.

Although most educational research is best suited for publication in academic books, a small proportion may appeal to the general public and thus qualify for the trade market. Some books can be successfully distributed through both general and specialized channels.

The procedure for offering manuscripts to publishers can be different for trade than for academic books. Particularly in the case of popular trade fiction, such as detective stories and romantic novels, publishers are not likely to accept submissions directly from authors. It thus becomes necessary for an author to hire a literary agent to provide the initial screening of a manuscript. The agent first reviews the author's manuscript, estimates its potential, and advises the author about changes needed. Only then will the agent seek out a publisher who is willing to consider the manuscript. But in the case of academic publishing, an agent is unnecessary. Publishers of scholarly works are usually willing to receive submissions directly from authors. However, an author's manuscript may receive more serious and prompt attention if someone of respected stature in academia recommends the work to the editors.

Publishers can differ markedly in the amount of control they seek to wield over the content, structure, and format of the books they issue. For example, at the least-control end of the responsibility scale are publishers who conduct what are essentially printing and distribution services. In other words, they leave decisions about the subject-matter content, structure, and writing style entirely in the hands of authors. The responsibility of such publishing houses is thus limited to ensuring that the final printed book is free from typographical errors, bound attractively, and advertised to potential readers. In contrast, publishers at the most-control end of the scale conceive their responsibility to include verifying and--if judged necessary--changing the technical content of the work, revising the structure (altering the sequence of chapters, moving paragraphs, eliminating portions), altering the writing style (changing phrasing and vocabulary), determining the book's type font and format, binding the work, and marketing the finished product. Some publishers adjust their degree of control to the characteristics of the author and the submitted manuscript. The work of a prestigious, highly influential researcher is less likely to be altered than is that of an unknown neophyte, such as a recent M.A. or PhD. graduate. A brilliantly crafted manuscript can pass through the editorial process unscathed, whereas a carelessly written document can be subjected to major editorial changes.The monetary agreement between publisher and author can differ from one publishing house to another. The most common arrangement is for the publisher to pay nearly all production costs (except preparing illustrations) and to pay the author a royalty on each copy of the book that is sold. The amount of the royalty can be influenced by the size of the book's probable market, the reputation of the author, and the bargaining skill of the author or the author's agent. Here are examples of typical clauses regarding royalties as they appeared in the contracts offered to an author by two publishers of academic books.

If a work appears to have the potential for greater sales, the publisher's royalty offer may be 12% on the first 1,000 or 1,500 copies sold and 15% on sales beyond that figure. But royalties higher than 15% are extremely rare for academic publications these days (though more common in the distant past), unless the author or agent can argue an unusually strong case.

For authors, publishing academic research is seldom a reasonable moneymaking venture. Only when a work is adopted widely as a textbook will it sell in the thousands. Rarely would a thesis or dissertation qualify as a text, so that a book based on a graduate student's research would be purchased chiefly by university libraries rather than by individual readers, making sales total no more than a few hundred copies over the life of the work. Hence, the most rational motives authors have for publishing research projects in book form are to gain prestige, to enjoy a sense of accomplishment, and to make a contribution to knowledge--but not to become rich.

The time lag between the initial submission of the manuscript and the eventual publication of the book can vary between eight or ten months and three or four years, with the average perhaps about 12 to 16 months. Among the conditions that affect this length of time are the number of manuscripts being reviewed by the publisher, the efficiency of editorial personnel at the publishing house, the quantity of revisions the author is required to make, how soon the author submits the revisions, delays in receiving permission to quote copyrighted passages from other books, and the backlog of edited manuscripts waiting to be printed.

Chapters in Books

Short versions of theses or dissertations may be published in an edited book, with each summarized thesis or dissertation forming a separate chapter. The contributors to such collections receive the opportunity to have their chapter included in the collection by one of three means.

First, a person who is editing a volume on a particular topic selects the authors who will be asked to submit chapters for the volume. Such was the case with Cultural Literacy and the Idea of General Education--13 chapters ( Westbury & Purves, 1988), Curriculum Development in East Asia--12 chapters ( Marsh & Morris, 1991), and Quality in Education--38 chapters ( Watson, Modgil, & Modgil, 1997).

Second, an editor selects a variety of already-published journal articles or excerpts from books to be reissued as chapters of a book. The result can be such volumes as The Human Encounter: Readings in Education ( Stoff & Schwartzberg , 1969) and Improving Instruction with Microcomputers ( Tashner, 1984).

Third, papers presented at a conference comprise a book's contents. Examples of volumes published from selected papers at three conferences of the Comparative and International Education Society's western region are Human Rights and Education--13 chapters ( Tarrow, 1987), Education's Role in National Development Plans--12 chapters ( Thomas, 1992), and Education in the Urban Context--12 chapters ( Stromquist, 1994).

Editors of collections can vary considerably in the amount of control they seek to exert over the content and quality of contributors' chapters. Some editors publish the offerings without change, except for correcting spelling and grammar errors. Other editors return offerings to the authors with directions for substantial changes, or else an editor may choose to thoroughly rewrite submissions. Because the quality of chapters submitted for an edited volume frequently varies markedly from one author to another, an editor may accept certain manuscripts in their initial form while revising others in minor or major ways.

Authors usually receive a free copy of the volume in which their chapter appears but they are seldom paid for their work.

Taped and Broadcast Presentations

At an increasing pace, reports of research projects recorded on audiotapes and videotapes are being broadcast over radio and television or presented directly to such on-site audiences as students in classrooms and participants attending professional conferences. In addition, the computer Internet and World Wide Web are being adopted as media for disseminating research results.

Taped presentations can be produced by researchers themselves or by others, such as radio or television news reporters, talk show personnel, and the like.

Researchers maintain the greatest control over the content and quality of taperecorded reports when they create tapes themselves. Audiotapes are the simpler kind to produce, since they require a minimum of equipment, and program participants' comments can be recorded in nearly any quiet location. In contrast, videotapes require more elaborate equipment and proper visual settings in which to record program content. However, the extra bother that videotapes entail is compensated for by their ability to visually portray the episodes and people who are the objects of the research. Videotapes also permit the inclusion of information in cartoon, graph, map, or tabular form. Researcher-created tapes are more often used for classroom instruction and for conference presentations than for radio and television broadcasts, thereby enabling their creators to maintain greater control over the timing of their presentation. Unless the production of such tapes is financed by a research grant or an institution, the cost of the work must be borne by the investigators themselves.

Taped and live radio and television broadcasts produced by people other than researchers themselves are in the form of news spots, talk show appearances, and special programs. A news spot is a brief segment within a half-hour or one-hour general program of current events, with the segment featuring a report of the principal conclusions of a project bearing on a topic of interest to the general public. A talk show appearance consists of the researcher being interviewed during a half-hour program by the show's host. The program may include questions and comments by members of a studio audience or by listeners who phone in their opinions. Special programs are usually taped productions treating a research topic of public interest, with the program dedicated either to the work of a single scholar or to the findings of a variety of investigators who have studied that topic.

Internet Publishing

Recent years have witnessed the creation of the worldwide computer network consisting of millions of hosts (information servers that connect to the network) and over 25 million users (consumers who attach their computers to the network) at more than 500,000 sites--with more hosts and users added each year. By the late 1990s there were sites in over 140 nations from which Internet users could obtain information, simply by accessing the sources via a personal computer at home or in the office.

The rapid growth of the Internet and the subsequent World Wide Web has provided a new outlet for research reports, an outlet bound to expand at a fast pace in the near future as the amount of research continues to accelerate at the same time that traditional outlets (journals, printed books) have become so expensive to maintain that scholars face diminishing opportunities for getting their work into print and widely disseminated. At present there are two principal ways that researchers can distribute their reports via the Internet and World Wide Web.

The simplest way is by e-mail (electronic mail), which operates in much the same fashion as postal mail, except that messages are delivered over the computer network rather than by a mail carrier. An author, seated at a computer, transmits the research report either (a) to particular readers at their network addresses (with the names and e-mail addresses of people interested in the researcher's topic obtained from mailing lists available on the Internet) or (b) to one or more of the thousands of special interest groups found on the Internet, with appropriate interest groups identified and reached by means of the USENET (short for users' network) service that the Internet furnishes ( Pike & Pike, 1994). Information intended for a particular type of audience is assigned by the author to an electronic "bulletin board."

A single message posted on a popular bulletin board or sent to a mailing list might reach and engage millions of people. . . . Each bulletin board or newsgroup has a name, and anyone interested can "hang out" there. . . . Almost any topic you can name has a group communicating about it on the network. ( Gates, 1995, pp. 123-125)

A second publishing option is to transmit the manuscript via the Internet to the editor of a journal or magazine that issues its products solely on the Internet, such as Online Journal of Knowledge Synthesis for Nursing and Sociological Research Online. With the costs of print publishing rising and the number of subscribers to many scholarly journals declining, traditional journals increasingly experience financial difficulties. Thus, a growing number are turning to electronic publishing as a solution to their money problems. University libraries are usually equipped to furnish an author the names of electronic periodicals suitable for publishing the particular thesis or dissertation--or a condensed version of it--that the author wants to distribute.

Electronic publishing via e-mail has a number of advantages over print media. First, e-mail delivers the finished product to readers far more quickly than does print publishing. With books and journals, a year or two can elapse between the time a completed manuscript is submitted to editors and the time the work is finally in print. With electronic publishing, there is little or no wait between when the author puts the report on the network and it becomes available to readers. Furthermore, electronic publishing eliminates problems of distance. The World Wide Web now reaches virtually all parts of the world in which computers are available, so readers anywhere can receive the researcher's report as soon as it appears. Whereas traditional journals and books cannot be conveniently altered once they are in print, materials on the web can be revised at any time-corrected, lengthened, updated. Publishing over the network also enables an author to receive rapid feedback from readers who send their comments to the author by e-mail. Documents placed on the Internet (with the World Wide Web as the server or intermediary) can include full color illustrations to accompany the text, a feature that is expensive in print media but is included at little cost on the Internet. Finally, in e-mail publishing, the author maintains complete control over the form of the report, since no editors are involved, except in the case of formal Internet journals and books that must pass through the editorial process before being issued on the Internet. However, a disadvantage of shortcutting the editorial process is that the author then lacks the professional aid with the writing style and the elimination of errors that editors usually provide.

Researcher-Created Print Publications

The advent of the personal computer in the 1980s equipped researchers--at home or in the office--to produce high-quality printed reports of their studies. This movement is popularly referred to as desktop publishing. With no more than an up-to-date word processing program, an author can create book or journal pages that appear to be professionally typeset. This means that the author, rather than the editors in a publishing house, maintains complete control over the format and quality of the final product. Furthermore, if a photocopy machine is available, the researcher can print quantities of the report.

However, there are several important disadvantages to self-published books and articles. A professional publishing facility provides copy editors and proofreaders who assume responsibility for ensuring that a manuscript's structure, grammar, syntax, and spelling are accurate. But in the case of researcher-produced publications, authors themselves must perform the laborious editing tasks and accept the blame for errors in the final product. And although authors can easily do the typesetting, few have the equipment and skill needed to bind a book or periodical proficiently. Thus, the task of binding must be contracted out to professionals, with the author paying the cost that would be borne by the publisher if the book or article were issued by a publishing house.

Then there is the problem of how to disseminate the finished work to a suitable audience. This is one of the most important functions of publishing firms. They typically operate a sophisticated marketing system, complete with specialists in writing advertising copy, providing lists of libraries and members of professional societies who are potential buyers, shipping books to book-sellers, displaying books in booths at conferences, and delivering books and journals to customers. In the case of self-produced reports, authors are obliged either to market the reports themselves or else contract out the distribution tasks to an organization that provides such service.