What to consider when writing a thesis/article?
Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences
January 1, 2022
Your publications advertise your skills, areas of interest, and expertise. Recker (2021, 164)
Good research starts with a problem and requires the following steps to address the problem:
Step 1: Motivation (relevance, scope, and research question)
Step 2: Theory (concepts and interrelations)
Step 3: Method (approach to knowledge generation)
Step 4: Analysis (evaluation of data)
Step 5: Interpretation (implications)
If the research was successful, the process ends with the dissemination of the knowledge generated—the publication.
What do you think, how important are publications to a academic career?
Publications are the most important KPIs of a researcher—they shape the career path in academia (Recker 2021).
Academics are ranked, literally, and publications are the most important factor (e.g., AIS Research Ranking)
Scientific papers are about research.
Good papers require good research, good research requires good writing (Recker 2021, 168)
Dissemination is not impact: You do not succeed as a scientist by getting papers published. You succeed by creating impact.
What is impact?
Resonance in a cumulative tradition, which indicates that a paper helps to actually solve the problem being researched.
Few publications create impact (Recker 2021):
In this chapter, we touch three important strategic considerations that will impact your writing:
How to prepare to write a successful paper?
Don’t wait until the research is fully completed.
Start with targeting a conference and then a reasonably good journal.
In scientific publications, co-authored articles are the rule, not the exception.
Look for complementarity of skills and alignment in working styles (Recker 2021, 172).
What does the process for writing a scientific paper look like?
Baird (2021, 1202) proposes following step-by-step process for writing IS papers
Read section 4 “Generalized Guidelines for Writing IS Papers” in Baird (2021) (download here).
Write down one or two lessons that you think are most relevant to the work on your master’s thesis.
It is natural to feel bad about rejections. Unfortunately, I get them all the time too. Jan Recker
Coming back to your master’s thesis (which might end in an publication)—a focused schedule looks like that:
When planning the timeline, consider holidays and so called freezes (typically from mid December to mid January), in particular, if you need interview partners–they might be not available during these periods of time.
How to find a suitable outlet for publication?
Publication outlets differ widely in quality (Recker 2021)
Open publishing process
Once you published a result, you can’t publish it again (one-stop option)
What different publication formats exist?
(Edited) books, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers, workshop papers, technical reports, and many more
What are the differences?
Scholars also write entire books or refereed book chapter in edited books.
However, some universities do not count them at all as publications as part of promotion or tenure decisions.
The purpose of conferences is often to allow scientists to present their ongoing research to the community for opinions, feedback, and new ideas.
Papers presented at conferences are usually intended as an intermediate step in the research and publication process, not as an end goal.
In most scientific fields, the highest-quality publications are those published in a (defined) number of top-tier journals.
Ranking list evaluate journals based on metrics such as impact factor, readership, editorial board composition, and other criteria, e.g.
The journal impact factor (IF) is a measure of the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular year 2.
Check which journals have published the most interesting papers you have read in the last few weeks. Check their impact factor and consider whether it reflects your perception of quality. And think about why (or why not)?
Journals are selective in what they publish—they only look for certain types of contributions (Recker 2021).
In deciding on a target outlet, consider five questions (Recker 2021, 175):
Have a look at the AIS Senior Scholars’ Basket of Journals and select the journal for which you could write a paper that reports the findings of your master thesis.
Homework: Select two papers published in the journal that serves as the inspiration for your study, identify the strengths, and add them to a list that you can use to review your own work later.
Developing a manuscript takes a good strategy and a lot time and effort.
Recker (2021) reminds us that …
Read following paper draft and reflect on the quality of the submission: Hypothetical AoM micro submission “Responses to Transformational Leadership: Are Some Followers Immune?”
Typically, only “successful research” is being published.
A = the number of times articles published in 2019 and 2020 were cited during 2021; B = the total number of ‘citable items’ published by that journal in 2019 and 2020; 2021 impact factor = A / B