Journal Articles and Types of Research Topics

1. Journal Articles and Types of Research Topics

2. Focus on research for journal articles • Why journal articles? • Way to share work and communicate findings • measure contributions to economic knowledge • Liebowitz and Palmer, JEL, 1982), ranked journals to “measure contributions within economics profession” and “journal’s impact on highly influential journals is of greater value than its impact on less influential journals.: • My favorite ranking http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/contributions/vol5/iss1/art24/ looks at impact on all social sciences • THE significant output to measure an individual’s and departmental contributions • (http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/ec/cer/resources_journals.htm) • http://www.le.ac.uk/economics/research/rankings/econ-rankings.html

3. Do journal articles are as valuable as the profession places on them? • Value measured by citations • http://www.nber.org/papers/w12526 • White’s heteroscedastic correction • Kahneman & Tversky prospect theory • Heckman 2-step is #5 • http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2009/2009-014.pdf • Distributions of citations across articles in a journal are highly skewed • Large share of articles in top journals a rarely or never cited, compared to top articles in lesser journals • http://images.isiknowledge.com/WOK45/help/WOK/h_database.html • Only about 200 economics journals

4. The process • Write an article • Circulate it, or present it at conferences and seminars • Submit it to a journal • 85% or more of articles are considered unacceptable for top journals • If lucky, get some useful comments • Revise paper and submit again (to same journal if given a revise and resubmit, another journal if rejected from earlier journal) • Continue until published

5. Types of research (i.e. types of articles) from Vendermeulen • Theoretical diamonds – restrictive assumptions, polished to a single clear conclusion • Harvests of years of work – usually empirical, produced by groups • Creative insights – insightful or inventive approaches to explain something not amenable to traditional analysis • Reveries – new views on well-known phenomenon • Hunting trophies – applying, extending or testing seminal material • Baked Alaskas – unique and interesting takes on old or new ideas, usually done by well-established scholars.

6. Why did I put “hunting trophies” in red • Most research is this type • This is to the further “bump” of after your PhD • Point is to make the bump a little bigger

7. Grab some articles, and think about what type they are. • What are the contributions? • Are they large? • Empirical or conceptual? • What else?

8. The Process: Writing to Publication • Select a subject • Usually should be in your area of greatest expertise • With no expertise, find the mainstream of the subject • Use your comparative advantage • Data available to you • Statistical or econometric approach • Theory • Identify “cutting edge” which are “holes” in the body of knowledge • Read within your area • Read outside your area • What did Vandermeulen say? Most early scholars too narrow.

9. The Process (continued) • Practice the craft (write the article) • Style is important • Read McCloskey • Use writing lab, find copy editors • WORK at this – do multiple drafts • Good appropriate bibliography • What else did Vandermeulen warn about? • Select the journal • Make sure the topic fits • Make sure you are a good “quality” fit too. • Learn the journal rules, and follow them, for formatting, footnotes, etc. • Be patient, editors are slow for authors, push referees

10. The Process: Author’s view • Research and publication is a production function • Your own time, other inputs • Subject to a budget constraint on time and other inputs at your dispoal • Coauthorship can enhance production • Look for complementarities • Extend budget constraints, both time and resources • But share the prestige; best if extends the reputation of both authors • Multiple projects • Risk mitigation from diversifying production

11. The Process: Author’s view (continued) • Where to submit • Need to judge the quality • Again, diversity; some real long shots, some safe • Keep a pipeline • When to submit • No article is perfect • But should be technically correct, limitations noted • Should be well-vetted by you and others • Referees are not editors, and should not be used as a first path to finding weaknesses

12. Some suggestions on Selecting a Topic (what is a topic?) • What interests you? • What research have you already done? • What type of research do you like to read? • For a dissertation, what fields are you studying? • What are sort of research are you good at performing? • Do you have special knowledge or research capability (availability to data)? • What are the “hot” topics in the field right now? What are funders funding? Careful with these topics. • Keep a research journal with topic ideas. Collect research ideas and review them over time. These may come from class lectures, seminars, popular press articles, academic articles, current events.

13. You need develop a research question (more on research questions later). You may be able to carve a topic into many different questions so be sure to hold on to all of your ideas. • Narrowing your topic • Keep in mind your work will most likely be small steps in understanding not dramatic new ideas. • Skim introductions of articles for incremental ideas • Skim conclusions of articles for incremental ideas • Consider a specific example within the topic (not so specific no general conclusions could result). • If you have specialize information or data, begin to consider subtopics of interest