
Ask HN: Getting published in an academic journal without holding or seeking a PhD? - noblethrasher
I am wondering how many people here have published articles in peer-reviewed, professional or academic journals without either holding or seeking a PhD. Also, how did you go about getting published? I am interested in general advice from PhDs as well.
======
cperciva
I had two papers published in Math.Comp. before getting my doctorate. (They
were accepted before I even started my doctorate, but weren't published until
my 1st or 2nd year at Oxford, due to the journal having a rather crazy
backlog.)

If you can write well (i.e., understandably and in a style consistent with the
journal) it's not a problem at all. Just write your paper and submit it.

Based on my experience reviewing papers (many of which are from non-PhDs) I'd
say that the most frequent problem I see is papers which were obviously
written without having any thought given to the journal to which it would be
submitted. Go read a few dozen papers from the journal to which you're
submitting, and get a sense of what topics are covered in the journal (this
doesn't necessarily match the list of fields mentioned on the journal's
website), how much knowledge is assumed of the readers, and how
formal/informal the writing style is; then write accordingly. Bonus points for
downloading the LaTeX style sheet and formatting your paper properly -- we can
talk about how style _shouldn't_ affect things all day long, but the simple
fact is that having your paper look "different" will distract reviewers from
what you're saying.

------
ajdecon
Possible but difficult: good work will speak for itself, but there are a lot
of network effects which make it easier to publish from within academia. A
trivial example might be that it's much easier and cheaper to find and read
existing publications while at a university, and being familiar with the
literature is extremely important to producing publishable work. Publishing
within academia will also make it much easier to find collaborators (extremely
important in some fields), find mentors, and learn about the general "style"
of the field. Doing without this support structure would make it extremely
difficult to publish even if all journals were double blind... which they are
not.

You'll occasionally hear a PhD program being compared to an apprenticeship,
and there's a lot of truth to that. Completing a PhD seems to be as much about
learning how to orient yourself within scientific culture as it is about
research or scholarship.

~~~
HSO
Perhaps one should add that the "apprenticeship" model would represent the
ideal. If all goes well, it should then bloom into full research partnership
towards the end and after. But again, that's the ideal.

As others have said already, your field matters a lot. If you try to publish
in a "softer" field, say history or economics, politics and outer markers
count for a lot. If you are in mathematics, there should be zero problem if
you are good. Alternatively, if you are in a field where success can be
measured concretely, say in engineering, you should also have less
difficulties. Good luck, whether you go for PhD or not!

------
fadmmatt
I've now served on peer-review committees for selective venues in my field, so
I can say that the authors' background and training are not considered when
making the decision to accept or reject. (Double blind venues won't even know
who you are.)

That said, good papers do share a common structure. Part of what you learn
when you get a Ph.D. is what that structure is. My recommendation is to read
through the previously accepted papers for the venue to which you're
submitting. Note the level of exposition, formality, rigor, style of empirical
evaluation, etc. When you submit, try to match that.

Non-academics fail most frequently on related work. Spend time researching
related work and comparing it to your own before you submit! I've seen great
papers dismissed out of hand, simply because the coverage of related work was
deemed inadequate.

In computer science, many papers fail because they don't explain their core
idea quickly or clearly. Failing to snag the reviewer's interest early on will
lead to a grumpier reviewer, one more likely to magnify forgivable errors into
unforgivable ones.

Lastly, if you get reject, take the feedback to heart, and keep trying.
Academics have papers rejected all the time, and we learn early on to brush it
off, take our criticism constructively and move on. Don't get discouraged!

------
jballanc
What field?

That can be a very important consideration for a few reasons. First, if you're
interested in publishing in the math field, forget peer reviewed journals
entirely. From what I've heard, the arXiv (<http://arxiv.org/>) has
essentially replaced most math journals. Similarly, while peer reviewed
journals are still very important for physics, many papers will appear on the
arXiv first (and in journals like Phys. Rev. Lett. later).

In theory, anyone can publish to the arXiv. In practice, they have a referral
system designed to keep the crackpots out (with varying degrees of success).
My recommendation would be to find someone who publishes there and is
interested in the same topics as you, then contact them directly. No matter
which route you pick, don't underestimate the value of personal contacts. As
an alternative to the arXiv, Nature has a relatively new preprint server set
up as well (<http://precedings.nature.com/>) though its popularity pales in
comparison to the arXiv.

If math or physics is not your game (or even if it is), then I'd recommend
PLoS One (<http://www.plosone.org/>). They have a policy of publishing any
work with scientific merit. However, since they work on an Open Access model,
they will charge you in order to review and publish your work. That said, if
you can convince them that you don't have the means to pay their charge, they
will sometimes wave the fee.

Finally, it never hurts to send off your manuscript to Science, Nature, or any
one of the second or third tier journals. True, many of them won't give you
even a cursory glance without degree and affiliation, but there's always a
chance!

------
einarvollset
You don't need a PhD (or in fact any degree or affiliation). This is
particularly true for conferences and journals that are "double blind" e.g.
reviewers don't know the affiliations or names of the writers.

Submission is trivial: most have a webpage (with a deadline and submission
requirements - e.g. double spaced, single column, no more than 12 pages), that
you just put your document and details into.

That being said, most research areas are such that it's really quite difficult
to position your work in such a way that it will get accepted: you need to
know prior art well enough (and show this), but you also need to know who's
work is actually any good (not easy) and who on the PC you need to reference,
etc.

------
frossie
As many have said, you don't need a PhD to publish - it is quite routine for
people to publish papers while they are working towards their PhD. In some
countries your thesis actually consists of submitting these papers that you
have published to a research committee in order to _get_ a PhD.

If you believe you can make a genuine contribution to a field, you need to
pick a candidate publication, read it to understand its style convention,
follow the "Instructions to Authors" religiously and pay the page charges
(where appropriate). In your paper you need to link what you present to
research that has been published before - think of science as case law - it
builds up iteratively. By basing your work on previously peer-reviewed
publications you are helping your reviewers see that you are working on solid
ground.

Most editors will screen arrant nonsense ("I can prove Einstein was wrong"),
but are likely to pass reasonable material to a review panel irrespective of
any qualifications of the authors.

The real question is why you would want to. Generally being published in a
peer-reviewed journal is only of real value to academics, because they are
rated depending on their publication and citation rates. Otherwise, if you can
anything interesting to say you can just publish it on a paper server (eg.
arXiv as mentioned in another comment).

------
kmavm
I have published in ASPLOS and HotOS with a bachelor's in computer science,
though some of my co-authors either had or were pursuing PhDs. Publishing and
PhDs are correlated, but not necessarily causally related. I.e., the same
impulse that causes people to publish causes them to pursue research careers.

There's no shaggy-dog story of how we broke into the big leagues. We submitted
the way everybody else does, and the anonymous peer review process never
demanded our grad school union card. We had the benefit of amazing,
experienced readers giving us unsparing feedback long before submitting, and
had the good luck of having built an interesting system with some weird
properties. Having something to say that your peers might find interesting is
the hard part, not collecting qualifications.

------
lliiffee
Not being affiliated with a PhD program isn't a problem in itself. Review is
often double blind, and frankly I don't think most people care much about your
credentials. However, it is very difficult to publish in many areas with out
"speaking the language" the way the natives do. If you are an outsider to the
area, this is a big disadvantage. (Not eliminated at all if you have a PhD in
a different area!) For better or for worse, you will be more successful if you
try to fit with the style of the journal, and cite everything in sight.

------
bdr
I published a couple papers in the free year after my undergrad. There's
really nothing magic about it: write a paper, choose a journal, and submit it.
People have already addressed writing style, so I guess I'll address choosing
a journal.

There are basically two variables you're trying to optimize for: how closely
your paper matches the journal subject, and how important your results are
relative to the journal's average. The first point is easy to gauge on your
own. The second is more difficult. You may not have an accurate judgment of
how good your results are if you aren't intimately familiar with your field.
It might be worth getting advice from someone who is. When you do know how
good your paper is and how good different journals are, you can either
overshoot (and hope for a better line on your resume) or undershoot (and
decrease the chance that you'll have to wait through a second submission
round).

[trying to shorten my post since it won't submit]

~~~
bdr
[cont'd]

Finally, you should know that in CS, conferences are often preferred over
journals. If there's an appropriate conference that you would be able to
attend, you may want to consider submitting it to them. Disadvantages are
paying for conference registration, advantages are a faster publication
timeline and getting to attend and present at a conference.

------
eterno
slightly offtopic, but I am fundamentally opposed to this journal-conferences
monopoly on published research and the related profiteering by the likes of
springer.

Its like the newspaper industry which has outlived its business model.

Someone please youtube the whole thing and kill them already.

~~~
cperciva
_Someone please youtube the whole thing and kill them already._

Ever heard of Google Scholar? As long as researchers put their papers up on
their personal websites -- and almost everyone does, these days -- Google will
find them. Sure, there isn't 100% coverage; but I'd say that Google Scholar
provides much better coverage for published research than youtube provides for
TV shows.

~~~
nop
As a student that uses Google scholar quite often "almost everyone" is a lot
lower than you think it is. At least in computer science and related fields, I
have to use my schools access to journals almost every time.

~~~
cperciva
That's odd. I'm a computer scientist who uses Google scholar quite often, and
I can't remember when I last needed to read a paper which Google couldn't find
for me.

Maybe the situation is different in my fields (algorithms and cryptography)
than in yours?

------
paraschopra
I published three papers in peer reviewed journals during my undergraduate
days as first author. See <http://www.paraschopra.com/publications/>

I don't think PhD is a pre-requisite or even makes much difference in peer
review process. Of course, with a PhD you would have better experience and
possibly better research. Many of the good journals remove names and adresses
before sending for a review, so it is a blind peer review where holding a PhD
degree or not does not make much difference.

------
wheels
Usually it helps to have a co-author that is established in the field. I
didn't do graduate work (and undergrad was in CS) and have one publication in
physics and another coming up in biology, but in both cases there is a
university professor on there as a co-author.

In blind peer review this isn't a strict requirement, but it will help you put
things in the right language and help you make sure that you're referencing
the right things.

------
sown
I think an interesting corollary question to this might be how to look for
open problems that might be worth while to do research or papers on. Any
hints?

~~~
bdr
Read papers that interest you. Questions about the field should arise
naturally.

------
Create
Any Marie Curie Early Stage Trainee can get published, almost by default (i.e.
without either holding or [officially] seeking a PhD).

