Scholarly Communication Support: Planning, Conducting, Disseminating, Promoting, & Assessing Research

Research may be disseminated or shared in many ways. For example, you might present on your research findings at a conference before publishing. You might publish whole books, chapters in books, articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, articles in trade publications for practitioners, stories in blogs or popular media outlets to reach the general public, or other kinds of reports, white papers, or documents.

It can help to think about where you tend to read research in your own discipline. Do you mostly read books, journals, or blogs? But you must also think about who your audience is and where they will be most likely to encounter information. If you want PK-5 classroom teachers to read your research, publishing it in a very expensive scholarly journal may not be the right choice, If you want other researchers in theoretical physics to read your research, publishing it in a popular news magazine would probably not be the right choice. Your discipline, audience, and purpose will help you determine where and how to share your research.

You may feel pressure to submit your work to publications that are perceived as being more prestigious or more competitive, and that's fine if that's your choice -- but be sure that the scope and audience of that publication are still appropriate for your work. Choosing the publication that best fits your work is more important than choosing the publication you think will be most highly perceived.

More Resources on Publication and Dissemination