Academic publishing is a dynamic field with high quality standards. The adage “Publish or Perish” stands true for most researchers in academia. The painful reality of academic publishing is the fact that perishing is more probable than publishing, given the extremely high and rigid standards of top journals in academic publishing.
Let us consider a case study of American Psychological Association (APA). In 2013, the peer reviewed journals of APA received 12,000 manuscripts as submissions. Out of these 12,000 manuscripts, more than 76% manuscripts were rejected by journal editors. In fact, the rejection rate was more than 90% in top peer reviewed journals. Given the high rejection rates of manuscripts, researchers are always stressed out despite toiling for years on research studies and grants. Recently, a survey was conducted at the University of California to understand how researchers cope with the stress of academic publishing.
In this survey, we send academic inquiry by email to numerous researchers. Only 130 researchers responded to our academic review requests. In the survey, we asked researchers about their academic position, personality traits, the manuscripts they were reviewing presently (the journals to which they had submitted the manuscript for review), how they were coping with academic stress of publishing in peer reviewed journals.
Depending on the nature of the individual and the field of study, researchers had different coping mechanisms. It is important to note that most people had stressful periods of uncertainty. For example, the outcome of job interview and selection, the diagnostic tests, results of competitive examinations, and decisions of college admissions.
The objective of this survey was to understand whether researchers were coping with the stress of academic publishing productively or not. Most researchers were coping with anxiety-related stress disorders due to the uncertainty of manuscript publication in peer reviewed journals.
The long waiting periods for manuscript publication was causing lot of stress. Many researchers suffered from anxiety, neuroticism and developed a pessimistic attitude. The academic history of researchers played a pivotal role in shaping their attitude. The amount of anxiety and uncertainty were less among researchers who had successfully published their manuscript at least once in a peer reviewed journal.
Academics who had submitted a manuscript for the first time to a peer reviewed journal had maximum stress and anxiety during the waiting period. The situation was similar to those of recent graduates who anxiously wait for the outcome of interviews at various job fairs. However, there were some new scholars who were very excited after submitting their manuscript to a peer reviewed journal for the first time.
There were young scholars who thought that their manuscript would be accepted by noted peer reviewed journals as their experimental study design presented path-breaking effects. These young scholars had spent years completing their research work. However, their excitement was short-lived when their manuscript was rejected by peer reviewed journal editors.
The results of this survey are as follows: negative feelings of neuroticism, anxiety, and stress were higher among academics who had published few papers. Similar feelings were observed among academics who had few submissions currently. These academics had higher waiting periods and they were highly anxious about whether their manuscript would be accepted by journals. The level of uncertainty and anxiety was certainly much higher among these academics. They had conditioned their brains to accept the worst case of rejection.
Researchers who had been working in academia for a long time were more adept at coping with uncertainty as they had been battling the cycle of rejection, re-submission, and eventual publication. Academics who had successfully published many papers were not really worried about rejection of their manuscript by journal editors.
Graduate students had the highest level of uncertainty as they had submitted their manuscript to peer reviewed journals for the first time. Compared to post-doc and adhoc faculty members, graduate students had high levels of stress and anxiety. The coping skills were the poorest among graduate students as they braced for the worst.
When is the waiting period hardest for academics?
Waiting period is highly stressful and uncertain for graduate students as they have spent years working on their experimental study design while pursuing their doctorate degree. Following the successful publication of their manuscript, they gain greater confidence in their line of work. Young academics are always encouraged by the adage: If you want something done right, do it yourself. Nevertheless, waiting period is most stressful and uncertain among graduate students as they have invested years of hard-work pursuing their research study.
More anxiety and stress were reported by academics with the following traits:
- Numerous positions of authorship
- Higher investment into research study
- Fewer authors on a research study
These academics checked the websites of journal publishers quite often after submitting their manuscript. While recording the experiences of academics during the waiting period, we found that stakes were highly screwed given the poor rate of acceptance by top journals and publishers. Although researchers need to have many publications for a thriving career in academia, all published papers are never treated as equal. Only manuscripts published in top peer reviewed journals of Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and Nature can be considered prestigious and relevant for career advancement in academia.