Minimum Publishable Units

Part I: What To Publish and Where To Publish It – Chapter 1

1.4 Minimum Publishable Units

There is incredible pressure on modern academics and scientists to publish frequently in order to receive promotions, grants and salary increases, so there is also an enormous temptation to cut projects, studies and articles up into smaller units in order to squeeze more publications out of the same amount of work. There are certain types of paper which might, in comparison with a full research article, be considered partial studies: a study protocol in which a project is simply described, for instance, and a literature review which aims to outline what has been published on a topic to date. For most academic and scientific papers, however, and certainly for the kind of original research paper that tends to establish a scholar as an authority, providing a minimum publishable unit is required.

By a minimum publishable unit I mean a complete study – one that contains and explains the three elements (original research, significant results and a meaningful argument) discussed in this Chapter. A short paper can represent a minimum publishable unit for a brief study if all of these elements are present, but a complete study divided into shorter sections to achieve more publications does not necessarily result in a number of publishable research papers, and repeating material in different studies to shore up their deficiencies is not the answer either. These approaches tend to produce papers that stand a better chance of being rejected than accepted by reputable journals, and even if they are accepted, they will almost certainly be accepted in journals that are less than top tier. So while it is tempting to stretch your research out over as many articles as possible, your time will be much better spent (and your professional reputation much better served) by preparing a complete and accomplished piece of academic or scientific writing that will be appropriate for publication as original research in a highly respected journal that suits your work perfectly (on which, see Chapter 2 below).

PRS Tip: Although this Guide focuses on the preparation of academic and scientific articles for journal publication, the PRS team is happy to proofread a wide variety of documents in English. We specialise in all kinds of scholarly texts, including conference papers, books, dissertations and theses as well as articles, but we’re also delighted to proofread letters, grant proposals and teaching materials. Whatever sort of academic or scientific text you’re busy composing, if you’d appreciate a second set of careful, professional eyes to help perfect your writing, do send your document our way.