Transcript here - The Statistical Society of Australia

Getting Published in the Australian
and New Zealand Journal of
Statistics: An Editor’s Perspective
Michael Martin
Theory and Methods Editor, ANZJS
About the journal
• Started as the Australian Journal of Statistics
in 1959
• Became the Australian and New Zealand
Journal of Statistics in 1998, as a joint
publication of the Statistical Society of
Australia and the New Zealand Statistical
Association
• Published by Wiley-Blackwell
Four issues per year
2012 Impact Factor = 0.529
Five-year Impact Factor = 0.807
ISI JCR Ranking: 91 / 117
(Statistics and Probability)
Impact Factor
Editor-in-Chief: Professor Alan Welsh (ANU)
Applications Editor: Professor James Curran (Auckland)
Theory and Methods Editors: Professor Martin Hazelton (Massey)
and Professor Michael Martin (ANU)
Book Reviews Editor: Dr Petra Graham (Macquarie)
Technical Editors: Dr Neville Bartlett, Dr Rolf Turner
What we do
•
The Australian & New Zealand Journal of Statistics publishes original articles in the
following categories:
•
Applications: Papers demonstrate the application of statistical methods to
problems faced by users of statistics. A particular focus is the application of newly
developed statistical methodology to real data and the demonstration of better
use of established statistical methodology in an area of application.
•
Theory & Methods: Papers make a substantive and original contribution to the
theory and methodology of statistics, econometrics or probability. A special focus
is given to papers motivated by, and illustrated with, real data.
•
Reviews: Papers give an overview of a current area of statistical research which
consolidate and reconcile existing knowledge and make judgements about the
most promising directions for future work.
•
Historical and General Interest: Papers discuss the history of statistics in Australia
and New Zealand, the role of statistical organisations in private and government
institutions and the analysis of datasets of general interest.
Submission
So, what are the odds?*
• About 150-200 submissions per year
• About two-thirds Theory & Methods and onethird Applications
• Acceptance Rate about 10% to 15%
• Up to half of papers are rejected without
review – either because of standard or fit
• Another ~25% of papers are rejected after
review, and ~10% after revision
* Not a random process…
But all hope is not lost…
• Einstein once famously chided the Editor of
Physical Reviews for rejecting his paper with
Rosen because he had sent the work for
publication not for review (the work was later
published elsewhere – but serious errors pointed
out by the original reviewer had been corrected!)
• The moral of the story: referees can help you
improve your paper
MUST DO’S
• Ask yourself “Why am I choosing ANZJS?”
– Do they publish the sort of thing you are working on?
– Applications paper or Theory & Methods paper?
– Do you use real data?
• Read
and follow the Instructions for authors
– Basic formatting (font size, margins, spacing)
– Structure (introduction, sections, formatting of equations, etc.)
– Other matters (references, appendices, supplementary material)
Why papers get rejected - I
Topic is not interesting or important
✘ Onus on author to convince it is!
Topic in not appropriate for journal
✘ If your paper is about rocket science, send it to a rocket
science journal
Work is not original
✘ Too close to something previous or too derivative
Work is wrong, or has serious errors
Why papers get rejected - II
Work is badly organised and hard to follow
Work is badly written or the English is poor
✘ Get help from colleagues with good English
✘ Use English editing service (but $$$)
Work suffers from errors and typos
✘ Read, re-read, repeat
Work is not motivated
✘ Sure, you are interested in your work*, but why should
readers be?
*not necessarily
Why papers get rejected - III
Unclear or muddled arguments
✘ Present your work as a seminar, ask colleagues to read and critique (tell them
to be brutal)
Bad Statistics
✘ It’s a statistics journal – you cannot afford to have poor design, ignored biases,
no standard errors, no controls, poor graphical displays, other crimes against
statistics
✘ Have colleagues read and critique your work
Conclusions are weak, misleading, unjustified
✘ Don’t over-reach, inform optimism with realism
References to other work are old, too self-focused, or important
references are missing
✘ Know the literature, keep current
✘ remember you are probably not the only one to think about this (and if you are,
that may be a BAD thing)
Start… at the beginning
Title and Abstract
These are the most important parts of the paper to
get right!!
☞ May be the only thing that gets read
☞ Choose words carefully to optimise Google searches
☞ Cute and clever sounds fun – but what if nobody can
work out what your paper is about?
☞ Abstract has to tell the story briefly but with enough
detail
☞ Makes good first impression on Editors, Associate
Editors and Referees
Making Introductions
• Motivate, motivate, motivate! Tell me why I
should care
• Brief but informative
• Where does your work sit within the
literature? Hint: it does not stand alone…
• Acknowledge and cite the work of others
• What is your unique contribution? Say why it
is novel, useful, important
• Summarise main question
The Main Course
• Ensure all notation is stated and clear
• Tell the story – be brief but clear
• Make clear what is new
Clarity is critical
• Give enough detail that the work can be
reproduced, but not too much!
• Very technical details should be moved
to an Appendix or left as Supplementary
material to be downloaded
Illustrate
• Whenever appropriate*, illustrate with real
data
• Use Figures and Tables judiciously
– Don’t go overboard – readers get lost in forests of tables
and figures – make them count!
– Figures should be able to stand alone and make sense
– A picture‡ paints a thousand words†…
• In Tables, don’t forget standard errors (if
appropriate) – remember, we’re statisticians!
*usually
‡ graphic
† numbers
Discuss & Conclude
• BRIEFLY re-state main results (BRIEFLY!!)
– Focus on what is new and interesting
• Provide any useful interpretations or remarks
– Practical or theoretical
• Include caveats or limitations – don’t
overstate
• What are the implications of the work?
– Where to from here?
Before you hit SUBMITT…
• Don’t submit the paper the moment you’ve
finished the work – FIRST:
– Get colleagues/mentors to read and advise
– Workshop the paper in presentations
– LISTEN to criticism – make changes!
– Read, re-read, re-write, re-read!!
• BRACE yourself
(Brief, Relevant, Accurate, Clear, Evocative)
English Matters
•
•
•
•
Sentence structure (e.g. include a verb…)
Brevity with Clarity
Punctuate properly!
Poor English makes your paper hard to read,
hard to understand, hard to review, hard to
like – but easy to reject…
Expect it – it happens to EVERYONE some time
Editors do not enjoy rejecting papers
Use critical comments to improve
Don’t just ignore sensible comments and submit
elsewhere – take on board
Revisions
• Be patient – if you are waiting a
while, your paper is being reviewed!
• If you enquire, be polite!
• Respond thoroughly and quickly
• You don’t have to make ALL
suggested changes – but you do
have to explain why not
• Include a letter detailing and
explaining ALL the changes you
made
• Trivial, Minor, Major
• DO, DO, THINK
• It’s not quite over – Technical Editing
– Cooperate, be prompt, listen, do
• Submit all forms promptly
– Copyright transfer, declarations
• Copyright, Open Access, DOI
• Celebrate!!
Be a Referee