A Guide for Research Paper Publication in Journal

In this article, we cover how to carryout project/research, prepare a paper for publication, steps for research paper publication.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Research Paper Publication

Let’s first understand the basic terminologies.

  • Manuscript: The article written with research content in it. The most used terminology is PAPER.
  • Journal: A journal is intended to publish articles written by academicians/students/researchers or technical experts from industry.
  • Publisher: A publisher is an organization, which may have one or many journals. Meaning that a single publisher may hold multiple journals. The publisher is responsible to make the work available to the public.
  • Author: A person or researcher who is the part of the research or any sort of contribution. Such contributors names are included in the manuscript, while submitting the paper to a journal. In publication industry, these contributors are known as AUTHOR.

2. Steps to carry out research/project work

The first step is to prepare a manuscript to publish a paper in a journal. But to prepare a manuscript, one should have research results/project results. The analysis done on those results is required.

So, lets have a look at, some basic steps to carry out research/project work.

2.1 Select the “Area of Research”

  • Select the “area of research.” To select the area of research, one should carry out a literature survey. (Depending upon the level of your academics, selecting the area of study may be different). As an undergraduate, to carry out the project, you may choose the topic directly by you or by the advice of your supervisor/guide. But still, a literature survey is crucial and required at all levels.
  • Before starting literature survey, one should choose the domain of their study. For example, in engineering, we have many specializations, like Computer science, Mechanical, Civil, Electrical etc.
  • Lets suppose, in electrical engineering, you may have many domains like power systems, control systems, power electronics etc. With in this domain you should carry out literature survey.

2.2 Literature Survey

  • Literature survey is the study of published articles in journals. (However, any other sources can be a part of it. Like text books, internet resources etc.).
  • While carrying out the literature survey, you may end up with many topics with in the domain. One should narrow down to one specific topic. 
  • Now, one should carry out literature survey, on the selected topic. Note down the studies carried out over the past 10 years. Then identify the research gap. Meaning, a research problem which has not addressed by any researchers earlier. This becomes your objective of the work.

2.3 Objectives & Methodology

  • Once the objectives are defined, find the tools/resources to solve the objectives. For example, theoretical analysis, simulation, experimental, or a study etc. 
  • Write down the methodology implemented to arrive at a solution to the problem defined earlier.

2.4 Results & Analysis

  • Note down the results obtained.
  • Write down the analysis and discussion of the results.


Now, you have required material at hand, to prepare a manuscript.

3. How to Prepare a Manuscript for Publication?

A manuscript may contain the below sections. (But can be varied).

  1. Title
  2. Abstract
  3. Keywords
  4. Introduction
  5. Literature Survey
  6. Methodology
  7. Results & Discussion
  8. Conclusion
  9. References


The details of these sections can be read here.


Now, the manuscript is ready to submit to a journal. You can find our list of journals here.

4. How to Submit Paper to a Journal?

  • The submission process may vary from journal to journal. Many journals will ask you to submit online using their manuscript submission portal. Some journals may ask you to send through email also.
  • Note that every journal has a scope of publication. Meaning that they accept submissions only in the areas mentioned. For example, a journal titled Journal of Power Systems may accept submissions for the topic under Power Systems only. Multidisciplinary journals may accept submissions from all academic disciplines. Ask the journal whether your paper falls under the scope of the journal.
  • But before submitting a paper to a journal. Check for the following.
    1. A journal must have a valid ISSN number.
    2. Whether the journal has an editorial board or not. Editorial board is responsible for handling the peer review process.
    3. Check the indexing of the journal.
      • Indexing: There are so many databases to index articles. These databases make your work distributed across the globe. This is done through indexing. If the journal publishes your paper, these databases read the published page of the journal and index the article in their database. Some indexing databases are GOOGLE SCHOLAR, BASE, WorldCat, SCOPUS, SCI, SCIE, etc.
  • Read the author guidelines of the journal. Which may include the manuscript preparation guidelines, submission guidelines.
  • If the journal is suitable, you should register or submit the paper online.
  • Once submitted, the manuscript is given a manuscript id, and the details will be sent by email.

5. After Submission of the Manuscript

  • The editorial office, carry out preliminary check of the article. Like, plagiarism, formatting etc.
  • Then the editor will check the paper. Here two cases are possible.
    • Editorial rejection: After the editor checks the paper, if he feels that the quality of the manuscript is poor, the paper may be rejected here itself.
    • Editor sent the paper to review: Here the editor will send your paper to 1 or more reviewers to review your paper.
  • The editor will receive the reviewer comments, and make a decision on your manuscript. The decision can be Accept, Reject, Major revision, Minor revision. If asked for revisions, the author has to address the reviewer comments, and resubmit the revised manuscript.
  • Again the editor may send the corrected manuscript for review. At this stage, if the comments are not properly addressed, they your manuscript may be rejected. Note that the revisions can be more than once, if required by the reviewers.

6. After the Acceptance of the Paper

  • Once the manuscript is accepted for publication, the author should complete, post acceptance steps like submitting copyright form etc. 
  • Once the article is ready for publication, the author will receive the copy of the article for proof reading.
  • After proof reading, the article will be published.

Related Articles

Scroll to Top