Tutorial Tuesdays: Why You Need to Choose Your Journal Before You Start Writing
Most people write up their study with a vague idea of which journal they plan to submit to. But in this episode of Tutorial Tuesdays, I explain why it's essential to choose your journal first—not last.
You're not just writing up a study, you're telling a story about your research. And more often than not, your research story can be told a few different ways.
Here's a general example: Let's say you do research on a disease, and you did a study that's trying to understand how the disease works. But to understand how the disease works, you need to understand a specific mechanism or pathway within the body.
So when you're telling your research story, different people are going to be interested in your results: the other people who study the same disease that you do, and the people who study the mechanism that's involved. You need to decide which group you want to speak to—which will dictate how you introduce the topic, how you frame the problem, and how you discuss the results.
