The Publishing Process: (Only) One Author’s

Perspective

American Accounting Association

2004 Auditing Doctoral ConsortiumMark W. Nelson

Johnson Graduate School of ManagementCornell University

Where to focus your effort?

What interests me?

What is interests the field?

What am I trained to do?

Be careful before committing to a project.

Bad papers take longer than good ones More problems to fix More submissions prior to publication

Don’t fall prey to “conjunction fallacy” Perhaps “if W and X and Y and Z happen, this

will be a publishable paper!”, but what if W or X or Y or Z don’t happen?

Useful if the paper is interesting in many configurations of results.

Rough out the paper (Libby boxes, Kinney 3 paragraphs) before committing to the project.

Work VERY hard on your writing.

Your reader is a harried, well-meaning person who is just trying to understand the key points of what you did, what you found, and why it is important.

Every word and every element of complexity has a significant (mental) cost to your reader.

Be a boring, clear writer. Refer to the same thing with the same word. (note:

“AudExpL” is not a word.) Use parallel construction, boiler-plate organization,

simple expressions, short sentences, etc. With a dissertation paper, consider:

Starting from scratch, if a “single essay” dissertation. Hiring a professional editor.

Be your own worst critic. Be tough on your results.

Wear the reviewer’s hat. What is the incremental contribution of this paper? How

significant is it? What would worry you about this paper? How would you attack this paper?

Be forthcoming about the bad parts. Does the story make sense?

Submit no paper before it is time. Pretend it is an experimental airplane. “Season” a paper with comments from colleagues and

workshops. Respond to comments, and in the paper.

Even if a comment is stupid (unlikely), how can you prevent people from thinking that stupid thing?

Ask senior colleagues where to submit.

View reviews as information. When get back reviews

Stay calm. Try not to take it personally. Slow down.

Ask senior colleagues to help interpret reviews. My experience on both sides of the review

process is: No means “No.”

Unless key criticism is objectively wrong, move on. Appeals are unlikely to be successful. Move on (to another journal, and another project).

Maybe means “Maybe.” Best chance of success:

Magee: “Delight the reviewers” by addressing underlying problems.

Schipper: “I review papers, not memos.” Don’t forget, it is your paper.

One paper is not a career. For tenure, think of what a letter-writer

would say. You have written a series of papers that make

rigorous and significant incremental contributions with respect to at least one important topic.

It is clear that you are an important contributor to the work.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint -- no one paper will make or break you.

You want to be proud of your work. Do it as well as you can, and have fun!