Introduction to publishing

Planning

Planning is an important step in the publishing journey. Where your research is published can affect who reads your work, the impact it has, and its effect on your progess as a researcher.

Goals and priorities

Ask yourself:

• What are my short- and long-term career goals?
• Am I aiming to build an academic track record?
• Will my research have an impact on particular sectors, industries or the general public?
• What are the publishing conventions in my discipline?
• Are there limitations on how I can publish my research?  (many grants now include a requirement that all associated publications be immediately open access).

Audience

Identifying current or potential audiences will help you come up with a plan for engaging them.

Potential audiences include:

• researchers (specialist or generalist)
• practitioners
• educators
• community groups
• companies
• the general public.

Which audiences you prioritise will depend on your career stage and goals. Ask yourself whether you are aiming for:

• recognition by your peers
• future collaboration opportunities
• commercialisation
• influencing practitioners’ behaviour.

It is common to have more than one potential audience for your work. You may prioritise an audience of fellow researchers with your choice of publication channel (eg. Scholarly journals), then focus on communicating with practitioners through outreach activities (meeting with special interest groups or attending conferences).

Suitable channels

Select an appropriate publisher using the guides below:

• journal publisher
• book publisher
• NTROs and Conference Papers

Want to make your research data quickly available? Understand how to get a DOI with our Publish Research Data page.

Publishers may contact you at different stages of your research. It is important to be aware of and learn how to avoid predatory publishers.

Publishing

Know your rights and responsibilities

Do your homework before you sign a publishing agreement.

Learn about rights and responsibilities when publishing your research.

Repositories and Open Access

Visit our Open Access page to learn about distributing your research for free online.

See how the Sydney eScholarship Repository can support you on this journey.

Promoting

Make your work findable

• Visit the Make Your Research Findable page, which provides information on using researcher profiles, DOIs and sharing your work.
• Connect with the right groups. Find out how to reach your audience.