How to Reverse-Engineer a Journal Article

Presentation Overview

One of the most useful tips I was ever given as a PhD student by my supervisors was that I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel when it came to writing journal articles.  In the years since then, I have developed a process for reverse-engineering an article.  Reverse-engineering is process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object, or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation.  When applied to journal articles or a thesis this refers to the process of identifying the style and form of the manuscript in such a way that the article style and form can be used to inform the design of your own article. 

Why undertake reverse-engineering?  Well consider acceptance rates for journals.  If you are targeting a top ranked journal like Journal of Consumer Research you can expect to be rejected on almost every occasion you submit.  This journal rejects 90% of submissions, likewise for other high ranked journals; Journal of Marketing 90%, Journal of Service Research 90% and Journal of Retailing 88%.  Even our moderately ranked journals such as Journal of Consumer Marketing and Australasian Journal of Marketing have high rejection rates; 70% and 75% respectively. So a good motivator for overcoming rejection is to find out what the successful authors do and then learn from them (stand on the shoulders of giants).   Now interestingly many editors have outlined the criteria for success and often use other people’s articles as exemplars, however while this is useful, to date there is no cohesive process that draws on this advice to offer a step-by-step way forward.  I am proposing that a reverse-engineering process will do this.

At the workshop, participants will be working on their own draft journal articles.  To gain the most from this workshop, participants need to have a research paper that is ready to write, this might be empirical (data analysis complete) or conceptual.

Preparation required by all participants:

–        Identify your target journal. Obtain the notes for authors and one or two articles (exemplars) from that journal that uses the same method that you have (if you have done ANOVA then find an article that uses this, if you have done focus groups then find an article that uses this).

–     Participants should bring along:

• A laptop/notebook
• Highlighter pens
• A printed copy of the exemplar articles
• Notes for authors (from the Journal’s website/guidelines)
• Any analysis you have done
• Any drafts to date (this could be a thesis or conference paper) 
• Notepaper

About Professor Rebekah Russell-Bennett

Professor Rebekah Russell-Bennett is from the school of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. She researches in the field of services marketing and social marketing and has obtained in excess of $6.5m in external grant funding. Rebekah is the Associate Editor of Journal of Marketing Management and is on the editorial boards of Journal of Services Marketing and Journal of Social Marketing.  She has published more than 40 journal articles in peer-reviewed journals including European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Services Marketing, and Journal of Brand Management. She has also successfully supervised 21 research students to completion and has an international reputation for excellence in supervision.  Rebekah is the national president of the Australian Association of Social Marketing and has extensive industry collaborations with organisations such as Queensland Department of Health, Australian Breastfeeding Association, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, Queensland Catholic Education Commission and Queensland Department of Transport.