Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
In order for your work to have the most impact, you should submit your manuscript to
a peer-reviewed journal. This means that your manuscript will be read and vetted by other
experts in the subject in order to determine if it is suitable for publication. Some journals may
use a single-blind process, meaning that the author does not knowwho the reviewers are, but
the reviewers know who the author is. Others may use a double-blind process, meaning that
both the reviewers and the author are unaware of each other's identity. In both processes,
only the editor will be aware of who all the reviewers are. This peer-review aspect of publi-
cation gives legitimacy to the scientific publishing process. Readers of articles in peer-
reviewed journals can be reasonably certain that what they are reading is reputable.
4
Be
aware that some journals in the field are more prestigious than others and therefore manu-
scripts submitted to those journals will undergo a more rigorous review process (e.g., jour-
nals such as Science or Nature, which publish the most groundbreaking research from
different scientific disciplines).
The premier journal in our specific field is of course the American Journal of Physical Anthro-
pology (AJPA) (which incidentally was chosen by the Special Libraries Association Biomed-
ical and Life Sciences Division as being one of the top ten most influential journals of the
twentieth century).
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If your work focuses on paleopathology or bioarchaeology, consider
the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology or the International Journal of Paleopathology.If
your interests lie in forensics, take a look at the Journal of Forensic Sciences (JFS) or Forensic
Science International. See
Table 17.7
for a listing of relevant English-language journals
publishing work in skeletal biology.
Once you have chosen a journal for your manuscript, remember that you can only submit
your work to one journal at a time and that some journals may enjoy the first rights to publish
your work if you have presented it previously at the affiliated conference. For example, if you
present your work at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences meeting and you wish to
publish it, JFS will enjoy exclusive rights to review your manuscript within six months of
the date of the conference. After that time has expired, you are free to submit your manu-
script to whichever journal you wish. In addition, once your article is published, you relin-
quish the copyright to the journal's publisher. This means that you no longer own your
article and you cannot publish it in the same form elsewhere.
Authorship Order
You have probably noticed that most articles are authored by several individuals. This
then begs the question of how to decide who will be first author, second author, and so
on. The answer is simple: the first author is the person who has done/will do the most
work on the study and the paper. It then ranks in decreasing order from there. For the natural
science disciplines (chemistry, physics, etc.) it is customary to include the lab director's name
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Keep in mind that the peer-review process is not perfect. The scientists who review papers may miss
something. To some extent, they have to take the word of the authors of the paper as to what they did and
the results. For this reason, you shouldn't necessarily always believe everything you read. Give higher
weight to studies published in more prestigious journals and look at multiple sources to confirm the same
information, or validate the study yourself if possible.
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http://units.sla.org/division/dbio/publications/resources/topten.html
(last accessed March 2012).
