Several Things You Should Know about How To Publish a Publication

Genap setahun sudah,, setelah tulisan ini dibuat. The thing that I want to write down here is about my story in writing a paper. Again,,,, Yeaah.. As you might have already understood that as a student, academician, or researcher, publications are the most important thing to have. It is about to publish what we have worked or researched about to a publisher. The publication that I mean could be book, journal publication, proceedings or conference paper, standardization document, or even patent. Maybe I will discuss them one by one later. The better publisher which our publication will be published the harder and the more difficult the processes are...

This paper is so special. It was my first research topic which its story has been written here. The things that make me kinda feeling blessed are the processes till I achieve an 'Acceptance' notification from the committee? / editor? / reviewer? whatever. I think I should have understood this better for now on. Totally I spent about a year following the whole processes. Probably it is due once I submitted my revision manuscript in the first review session quite late.

Well, in general, there could be several steps or processes that we should follow till a decision either a rejection or an acceptance is given. Once we finished in drafting manuscript with fully and properly prepared, we should submit the paper to the committee. Either it is just a conference, proceedings, or even journal. And either it will be submitted completely through schematic system submission or just by sending the manuscript to the committee email. Then, we (all authors written in the manuscript usually) will get a notification that our paper has successfully submitted to the journal we intended to send. In this email notification, we will get several information, but the most important to be noted is how long our paper will be reviewed by several reviewers. For this state, the committee will send our manuscript to several experts and ask them to review our submitted paper. A far as I know, that could be what so-called 'A blind review' which means that our paper will be blindly reviewed by two or more experts that has expertise related to the topic as our manuscript. And of course, it will take several weeks or even months in reviewer hands. So, our first email notification will tell us how long it will be reviewed till we get the second notification.

Once the paper finishes reviewed by reviewers, we will get a second email notification informing that either the paper still requires more cares (needs revision in Major or in Minor revision) or it could be a decision directly: rejection or acceptance notification. In this email, we will also get some comments from reviewers, and you should be so-ready if your paper is in a Major revision needed status. Bunch of comments will be written along the email text and sometime those comments will make you sick. I mean really sick. And you should very carefully read and understand those comments. However, one thing that you should keep in mind that any comment or any decision for our paper is good for its improvement. Remember, the reviewers are usually expert.

Once the paper is decided as one that requires revision, it means that we should prepare the revised manuscript version which is prepared according to the given comments from reviewers. Don't forget to prepare a response note also in facilitating your response of all the comments. The response note will make easier reviewers to see what we have revised corresponding to the comments. So remember, prepare both the revised manuscript version and the response note in separate paper. Regarding Minor revision, usually committee will give us shorter time than the Major ones in re-preparing our manuscript revision plus our response note. The more major revision we get, the longer time the committee will give for us. Don't worry for this.

If everything has been well prepared, you need to resubmit all the required files to the committee again, and wait till another notification reaches you, and again it will be a decision or a revision needed. This notification will certainly depend on the revised manuscript and the response note you prepared. If you get a decision, either it is accepted or no, then this looping procedure ends. So that's why the procedure might take even more longer! Especially for journal or book publications. For conference or proceedings paper, you will get a very soon notification and decision.

In my case, I have to revise my paper three times. Two times for the major revisions and the last one is only the redaction matter, although it is not a big deal compared two other revisions, but it is still important. My first revision session was the hardest one. Very long comments I got from three reviewers, you know how sick I was in preparing this within one month. At first, I failed in completing all the revised manuscript, I mean I need another month for those comments, lucky me, my supervisor contacted the committee to ask more longer time. In fact that that was the first step review with long comments, so I think one month is a crazy time preparation. And so on and so on, till I got my acceptance notification.. Yeeeeaaaayyy..... I was about screaming loudly at the lab, yet I didn't. What a mess if I do so! hahaha... The whole processes are enjoyable for an experience though. You should have once! :p