Types of Articles You can Propose and Publish

Literature review

Also known as a ‘survey of the literature,’ a lit review provides a historical overview of the published work in a field. Often a lit review reframes the history of scholarly dialogue to present a new direction or hypothesis for next steps.

• Particularly useful at the start of your career. Publishing a lit review is an efficient way of entering the scholarly publishing field while accomplishing needed research.
• A publishable lit review will do more than recap the past; it will provide an interesting thesis or perspective on the development of the field.

Empirical study

The term ‘empirical study’ is most often used in the social sciences (e.g. psychology), and refers to a paper describing the results of an experiment or controlled study. A strong empirical study paper includes a review of literature, methodology, statistical analysis, findings and discussion.

• Detailed studies require a significant investment of time.
• Do a lit review first, to ensure your study is not duplicative.
• Early in your career, collaborate with senior researchers and scholars  to get experience while amassing a few publications.

Case analysis

Case analyses appear in different fields – medical/clinical practice, business, and law. A case analysis presents the salient details of a practical situation and discusses its challenges, outcomes and implications.

• Clinical practice case analyses require field experience and may not be applicable early in your career.
• Case analyses in the legal field, are a regular component of graduate- work and field experience.

Theoretical analysis

A theoretical analysis provides a framework for thinking about ideas or issues in a field of study. These articles are common in the humanities and also in fields like business management, communications, and the social sciences.

• Theoretical analyses can be difficult to summarize in a query letter, because the paper’s impact depends on the power of the argument; you may need to write a substantial portion of the paper before you explore a journal’s interest in it.
• These kinds of papers often deal with ‘big picture’ thinking and may take a long time to develop.

Clinical trial

Like empirical studies, clinical trials describe the methodology, implementation, and results of controlled studies.

• Also requires field work experience, conforming to high standards of ethics and reliability.

Book review

Book reviews appear regularly in scholarly journals, providing insight and opinion on recently published scholarly books.

• The least time-consuming to propose, but the least prestigious for tenure and promotion (though still valuable).
• The efficiency factor is again at play: by reviewing books, a scholar has the opportunity to stay abreast of publications and new thinking while building a publication list.