Most still implicitly trust what the modern media is spreading. This belief has a downside - it seems to many that it is very difficult to publish your article in the media. It is possible that if you immediately aim at Kommersant or Vedomosti, then nothing will work the first time, but if you start with thematic publications, then there is nothing difficult in publishing your article.

Over the past year, all incoming questions on the topic of publishing articles can be divided into two groups. The first includes specialists and experts who want to strengthen their reputation through publications. The second group includes novice journalists who want to find a part-time job or a permanent job. Despite the large difference in the composition of the groups, the recommendations for them will be almost identical.

The main thing is to choose a goal. Better a few

First of all, you need to select the publications in which you want to publish your article. If the publication is published in printed form, then you need to buy it within a week and read it from cover to cover, paying attention to the headings, the style of presentation of the material, and the presence of expert comments. Study whether the topic you want to write an article on is covered by journalists or not. If there are articles, then read it as carefully as possible and literally sort it into facts. If the article contains expert opinions, rate their statements. If you yourself are an expert in this field, then consider if you can give a better comment? If you are looking for a job in this publication, consider if you could get a commentary from an expert at a higher level?

If you are interested in a weekly or monthly magazine, then read at least two issues - it can be difficult to understand the trends and style of information from one issue. As a result of studying the selected media, you should form an understanding of what the publications write about and how they present information.

The main thing you need to know in person

The next step is to get as much information about the editorial as possible. If there are several editions, then you need to collect information about each edition separately. This will take some time and will pay off handsomely. You need to understand who the editor-in-chief is, where he came from, where he worked before (this may be necessary when writing a cover letter), and also collect information on department editors. If the publication is not large, then, as a rule, the editor-in-chief, deputy editor-in-chief, production editor and several special correspondents or columnists work on the staff. Then analyze what articles are written by staff members. The point is that you will need to write an article on a topic that does not have a permanent author. Journalists and editors often throw such topics to each other and will be very happy if there is someone from the outside who will write on it regularly. The chances that you will write a good (from the point of view of the editors) article on a topic followed by, say, a staff columnist are practically zero.

Write fast

Only now you can start writing the article. You can build on the news, you can write review material on the market. If news is chosen as a starting point, then there is not much time to write an article - the news becomes outdated every second after it is published by news agencies and the editors can entrust the writing of the article to their full-time or freelance authors so as not to be inferior to competitors. You can take a little more time for a review article, but here again you need to understand that a similar article can be prepared in the publication.

After writing the material, send it to the editor-in-chief, attaching a cover letter. In your letter, be sure to address the editor by name (or first name and patronymic), express your appreciation for the fact that the editor took the time to read your letter, and in one paragraph explain why you want to publish this article in his publication. Remember that the editor evaluates your writing skills and your style in the process of reading your cover letter. If it is written too confusingly and complicated, then he may delete your article without reading it.

Don't wait for the first article to be published. As a rule, this does not happen (in some cases, they can make news out of an article - and that will be great). But if you wrote a really good article, found interesting facts, interviewed market experts, or showed readers a familiar situation from a new angle, then the editor-in-chief or his deputy will contact you to discuss further cooperation.

Do not submit the same article to several publications without being rejected by the previous one. An unpleasant situation can arise when two publications publish the same article. Such a situation almost always spoils relations and, what is most offensive, immediately with both publications.

If there is no answer for a long time, get it by any legal means. The editor receives hundreds of letters a day, and if in the morning he remembers your article, then in the afternoon he may forget. Imagine that the editor-in-chief is the most important newsmaker and you need to interview him at all costs. Remember that authors are selected not only for their talent, but also for their level of impudence.

Those who at least once submitted an article for consideration to a foreign journal could see a requirement to send a cover letter to the editorial office. Many scientists ignore this point, but in vain, because it can significantly help in the publication of your article!
This letter, first of all, is necessary in order to attract the attention of the editor-in-chief, who decides whether to give the manuscript to reviewers or not. For this, in the accompanying The letter must include the following information:
1) The title of your article and the name of the journal where you submit it;
2) The reason (s) why you consider your research to be significant for world science, and how it may be interesting for potential readers of the journal;
3) The main results and conclusions that you come to in your work;
4) Confirmation that your article has not been submitted in parallel to other journals for peer review and has not been previously published in other journals;
5) Confirmation that the authors of the work have no conflict of interest.
Structurally, the letter should look like this:
date of
The address
Contacting an Editor (For example, Dear Dr. Brown or Dear Editor)
Main text
Conclusion (For example, Kind regards or Thank you)
Signature (name, scientific degree, university, e-mail, website)
The volume of the cover letter should not exceed 1 A4 page. This letter should not contain requests, complaints and, even more so, insults. State the information as briefly as possible, you do not need to describe your biography and labor exploits here either. The principle “brevity is the sister of talent” is more than appropriate here.

Today, scientific work is not only laboratory experiments and fundamental research. It is important that other scientists, science enthusiasts, government representatives - in a word, the public, learn about the discoveries. To “promote” their work, scientists write articles in scientific journals, which also serve as a measure of the relevance of the study: scientific articles of different quality and topic end up in different journals. However, writing scientific articles is not a flight of creativity, but a structured process that has its own rules. If you do not follow them, then the material will turn out to be incomplete and uninteresting, which means thatit will not be referred to by other researchers. And this, in turn, missed opportunities for promising collaborations with other scientists, speeches at conferences. In other words, scientists today must also be good communicators, that is, correctly convey their ideas to the public. Jeffrey Robens, development manager at Springer Nature publishing house, told about how to write articles so that they are accepted by major scientific journals at an open seminar at ITMO University, organized by the university's Center for Science Communication.

Four questions to be answered in the article

These are the questions readers want to know the answers to. In accordance with them, you need to structure articles.

1. Why is research important? You answer this question in the introduction.
2. What was done during the study? The answer to the question is a description of the research methodology.
3. What did you find out? In this part, you share the results of your work.
4. How will the study affect the development of the scientific field in which it was conducted. Here you describe how your results can contribute to the further development of research in the field, what applied value they can have, what additional research can cause, what questions are raised to other scientists or the public.

How to Communicate Clearly the Reasons for Research

You should also be clear about your motivation. The three most common reasons scientists conduct research are:

1. identification of something unknown;
2. overcoming any existing limitations in physical, chemical, any other systems;
3. discussion (adding knowledge) on a topic.

In addition, you must identify the objectives of the study: what problems do you want to solve. Also write conclusions. Many people think that the conclusion is just a summary of everything that has already been written. But it's not. The conclusion is the answer to the question or problem you posed at the beginning of the article. If you didn't write this answer, then it's like you left the reader of an action novel with an open ending. The people who read your articles want to know the solution you came up with.

Why you need to consider which journal to submit an article to

Be sure to think in advance which magazine you want to submit an article to, and not give it to the first one that comes across or to the largest one just because it is famous. Why? Because publishers will not accept articles that will not be interesting to their target audience. It is important for journal publishers that articles in journals be downloaded, discussed, and cited, otherwise the journal will not receive income. That's why:

1. If you are submitting an article to a major journal read by scientists around the world, you must show how relevant the problem you are solving is to the global community of scientists. Because if you are solving a problem that is specific to your region, then it is better to publish an article in a regional journal.
2. It is also important to consider how specific topics the magazine covers. Because there are magazines, for example, that specialize in many topics, and it is not necessary to send highly specialized articles there. It is better to send them to those publishers that specialize in your subject.

By choosing the right journal, you save time not only for yourself, but also for editors. After all, they will send your article to the trash as soon as they realize that it does not suit the target audience, no matter how revolutionary ideas it presents.

How to write an introduction

The most important thing is to answer the question why this study had to be done. Be sure to describe some background on the problem you are solving, because not all readers may be familiar with the specifics of the issue under study. Also, a description of what has already been done in your field will show that you have some expertise on the subject and understand how relevant your research is. You must link to articles for each claim you attribute to other scientists. Describing what is happening on your topic in the scientific community, you immediately point out what other problems exist, and you show the solution to these problems in your article. This is the reason for your research - to solve some existing problem in your field.

How to describe the methodology

Authors often say that describing research methodology is the easiest part of an article to write. After all, you just need to tell what they did. But this is not enough. You must not only describe your actions, but show that you have expertise in this area. How to do it?

1. Write about what you expected from conducting certain experiments, calculations, what hypotheses you built.
2. Describe the difficulties you encountered during the research and how you solved them. It will also help other scientists not make the same mistakes as you. By sharing this information with colleagues, you will gain their respect.
3. Tell where readers can access the different databases you used, any other information they need.

How to describe results

Do not assume that any patterns or trends that follow from the results of your work and which are obvious to you are also obvious to your readers. Readers are busy people, they may be reading your article in the midst of many distractions, so you must interpret the results clearly. Describe what these or other discoveries, calculations that you have made mean. What further applications might they have? Perhaps the results you obtained help to solve an urgent applied problem?

At the same time, you should not be afraid to describe negative results, for example, when any of your hypotheses were not confirmed. You just need to show your expertise here and describe how these negative results can be used. For example, they can pose new questions to scientists, encourage them to explore related topics that can provide the desired answers. In addition, by describing your negative experience, you will save colleagues from repeating your mistakes, which will increase the level of trust in you as a scientist. After all, the time of a scientist is expensive - let him solve new problems better, and not repeat the mistakes of others. It will also increase your credibility as an author of scientific articles. After all, editors are also experts in your field, and they may wonder why you didn’t do this or that experiment, because it seems so obvious? But if you show that you also thought that this experiment would give positive results, carried out it, but did not get the expected effect, this will significantly elevate you in the eyes of the editor.

How to write a conclusion

The most important thing is to once again emphasize the importance of your research in the context of global scientific work on the same topic. You should also describe the key discoveries and results that you came to, but indicate no more than two main aspects. They won't remember anymore. Describe how they can be used by other scientists in their research. In conclusion, no general conclusions can be drawn. You must be specific. No need to write phrases like "this will improve our understanding of the field" or "this opens up new challenges for us." What are the tasks? How will your research deepen knowledge on the topic?

How to write a title

The title and summary of the article (abstract) are very important, because this is exactly what they pay attention to in the first place. Authors often say that writing a title is the hardest part. You should be able to describe your research in one sentence, and it's very easy to do if you include three things:

1. some conditions that affect the subject of research;
2. what changes were studied, what effects;
3. object of study.

For example, take the sentence "The effects of humidity on surface roughness of silicon dioxide". Here we see the conditions - this is "humidity", we see what characteristics, changes were studied - this is "surface roughness", and also the object of study is "silicon dioxide". The topic of the research becomes clear and understandable, it immediately contains keywords by which each reader can quickly understand what the article will be about, what its authors have done. In addition, the presence of keywords in the title will help you quickly find articles in different search aggregators.

A couple of tips. Don't make the title longer than 20 words. Don't put questions in the headlines - your readers already have all the questions in their heads, they want to read the answers. Avoid using abbreviations in titles. Do not use the word "new", because it is clear that in the article you are describing any new results. Do not write abstruse titles - make them as simple, specific and understandable as possible.

How to write an abstract of an article (abstract)

The abstract is what your colleagues will read first. And this is your only chance to get them to read the entire article. Therefore, it is important to show in the summary that the text of the article deserves the scientist's precious time. And sometimes scientists do not read anything more than an abstract, but even on the basis of this information, they may want to collaborate with the author. The summary should again be precise and concise and follow the same formula as when writing the main text of the article, but fit all the most important into four sentences.

How to write a cover letter to a magazine editor

Editors of scientific journals are very busy people. Most of them combine this activity with their main work as a professor at a university or a researcher at a research center. According to statistics, they spend up to five hours a week on editorial work. Therefore, you must make every effort to stand out from all the other scientists who submit articles for publication. A cover letter to the text of your article can help with this. In it you:

1. write a full appeal to the editor, taking into account his titles, positions. By doing this, you show that you spent time figuring out who will read your article.
2. Then you indicate the article with which title you propose for publication.
3. Specify what type of publication the article belongs to. It can be "article" or "letter". The first format implies a deeper and larger-scale study, while the second is used to describe scientific papers on less complex issues.
4. Briefly describe the same thing as in your article, just do it in three or four sentences. And here it is better to generalize, to describe more general conclusions, because the editors already have your article in which they can see the specifics.
5. It is important to emphasize that this article has not been published anywhere before, that all its authors agreed to be published in this journal. This is how you show that you adhere to scientific ethics.
6. Put an extended signature with all your affiliations.
7. The letter should not exceed one sheet of A4, written in a normal font size of 10-12 points. Convert the letter to PDF and title something like this: "Your last name_cover letter".

Remember that a good article that appears in the right journal will not only provide you with citations, but will also allow you to get new collaborations with other scientists, increase your authority and recognition.

And we are ready to send a letter to the editor of your favorite media. Use these tips to increase your chances of a response.

In short, try to make the editor's job easier, not harder. The editor receives dozens of letters a day - an ongoing stream, each letter and article must be carefully studied and a decision made on publication. At the same time, all articles require improvements, and as many articles as possible should be published. In this mode, the editor will give preference to the letter that will require the least time and energy to respond. If there are questions or unclear points in the letter, the editor will postpone it for later. And it is unlikely that he will return.

Therefore, I advise:
- write short and to the point
- be as straightforward as possible: without manipulation, hints and all that.

Now in more detail.

Clear subject line

From a good subject line, it is immediately clear what it is about. The attention of the editor is attracted by clear letters without flirting and bright signs.

Not
Marketers are not asleep :-D
Slippers, money, two cats ;-) BlowEgency surprises!
Attention! Your readers have never seen such a case!
Svetlana Gridina, expert in machine learning

Yes
Article "8 Habits of an Effective Marketer"
Article Ideas from BlowAgency
I propose an article for publication
Article ideas from an expert in machine learning

Today, a letter was sent to the editors of Cossa with the subject “Shut up there!”, I'm not kidding. The editor will look at such a letter last: shouting, stupidity and rudeness do not help. From such a headline, the essence of the letter is not understood.

Against the background of such letters, understandable topics in a calm tone stand out. There will be more chances with the subject “Offering an interview about something».

Clear message content

The more questions and clarifications the letter requires, the less chance of an answer. The media editor has an endless stream of letters, so the clearer and concise the letter, the better.

This letter raises more questions than it answers.

Quick access to an attached article

If you have already written an article, attach immediately to the first letter. There is no need to ask in the letter “Wrote an article, can we send it to you?”.

If you send the text by Google Doc, open access for editing. And double-check before sending the letter.

Don't send text to pdf and other formats that complicate the editing of the material.

Do not send files as rar archive and in other ways that force the editor to download files and look for programs to unpack archives. The text should be accessible in one or two clicks from any device.

Don't use link shorteners like bit.ly. At one glance at the link, it should be clear where this link leads. A shortened link can hide a virus, archive, whatever. A shortened link from an unknown sender is a mystery and a risk for the editor.

Can you guess where the link https://bit.ly/2Rov1xw leads? And this https://bit.ly/2wxuwHQ ?

One article - one correspondence

If you want to show multiple articles to the editor, send each article as a separate email.

One article - one correspondence.
Two articles - two correspondence.
Three articles - three correspondence.

Correspondence of 41 letters discussing several topics, the author continues to send new articles to the same correspondence. Don't do it

Don't overstep the bounds of the editor

Not
“Telegram channel collections are very popular right now, so the publication will gain a lot of views and your publication will receive traffic. I'm waiting for an answer by tomorrow."

“I looked at the popular content on your site, my article will attract a lot of attention. Will it be published today or tomorrow?

“The article may be weak, but why don’t you publish it? Previously, you had an article “Secrets of SMM of Transcommerzbank”, if you relink, this will help the search engine optimization of your publication.”

Normal writing provides answers, not raises questions

To consider the submitted material, the editor needs to get answers to only two questions.

Example of a clear letter

Hello. I'm a marketer at BlueAgency, we promote youth brands on TikTok.

Wrote an article for Cossa about how you earned 100,500 ₽ on TikTok in two days with the help of influencers. The article will be useful for marketers and entrepreneurs who are promoting their TikTok profile or are looking for new channels for promotion.

See if it's suitable for publication. Ready to make changes if needed.

There is no ideal letter template and never will be. Write the way you like. But in order for your letters to be answered, I advise you to follow these tips. So you are more likely to get a publication in your favorite media.

And further. There are no forbidden words and phrases that will not answer you. An adequate editor will not refuse the author of the letter because of the phrases “Good day” and typos. The main thing is that the letter is understandable.

Your letter competes with dozens of others that the editor receives on the same day. Against this background, concise and understandable letters stand out.

Today, scientific work is not only laboratory experiments and fundamental research. It is important that other scientists, science enthusiasts, government representatives - in a word, the public, learn about the discoveries. To “promote” their work, scientists write articles in scientific journals, which also serve as a measure of the relevance of the study: scientific articles of different quality and topic end up in different journals. However, writing scientific articles is not a flight of creativity, but a structured process that has its own rules. If you do not follow them, then the material will turn out to be incomplete and uninteresting, which means thatit will not be referred to by other researchers. And this, in turn, missed opportunities for promising collaborations with other scientists, speeches at conferences. In other words, scientists today must also be good communicators, that is, correctly convey their ideas to the public. Jeffrey Robens, development manager at Springer Nature publishing house, told about how to write articles so that they are accepted by major scientific journals at an open seminar at ITMO University, organized by the university's Center for Science Communication.

Four questions to be answered in the article

These are the questions readers want to know the answers to. In accordance with them, you need to structure articles.

1. Why is research important? You answer this question in the introduction.
2. What was done during the study? The answer to the question is a description of the research methodology.
3. What did you find out? In this part, you share the results of your work.
4. How will the study affect the development of the scientific field in which it was conducted. Here you describe how your results can contribute to the further development of research in the field, what applied value they can have, what additional research can cause, what questions are raised to other scientists or the public.

How to Communicate Clearly the Reasons for Research

You should also be clear about your motivation. The three most common reasons scientists conduct research are:

1. identification of something unknown;
2. overcoming any existing limitations in physical, chemical, any other systems;
3. discussion (adding knowledge) on a topic.

In addition, you must identify the objectives of the study: what problems do you want to solve. Also write conclusions. Many people think that the conclusion is just a summary of everything that has already been written. But it's not. The conclusion is the answer to the question or problem you posed at the beginning of the article. If you didn't write this answer, then it's like you left the reader of an action novel with an open ending. The people who read your articles want to know the solution you came up with.

Why you need to consider which journal to submit an article to

Be sure to think in advance which magazine you want to submit an article to, and not give it to the first one that comes across or to the largest one just because it is famous. Why? Because publishers will not accept articles that will not be interesting to their target audience. It is important for journal publishers that articles in journals be downloaded, discussed, and cited, otherwise the journal will not receive income. That's why:

1. If you are submitting an article to a major journal read by scientists around the world, you must show how relevant the problem you are solving is to the global community of scientists. Because if you are solving a problem that is specific to your region, then it is better to publish an article in a regional journal.
2. It is also important to consider how specific topics the magazine covers. Because there are magazines, for example, that specialize in many topics, and it is not necessary to send highly specialized articles there. It is better to send them to those publishers that specialize in your subject.

By choosing the right journal, you save time not only for yourself, but also for editors. After all, they will send your article to the trash as soon as they realize that it does not suit the target audience, no matter how revolutionary ideas it presents.

How to write an introduction

The most important thing is to answer the question why this study had to be done. Be sure to describe some background on the problem you are solving, because not all readers may be familiar with the specifics of the issue under study. Also, a description of what has already been done in your field will show that you have some expertise on the subject and understand how relevant your research is. You must link to articles for each claim you attribute to other scientists. Describing what is happening on your topic in the scientific community, you immediately point out what other problems exist, and you show the solution to these problems in your article. This is the reason for your research - to solve some existing problem in your field.

How to describe the methodology

Authors often say that describing research methodology is the easiest part of an article to write. After all, you just need to tell what they did. But this is not enough. You must not only describe your actions, but show that you have expertise in this area. How to do it?

1. Write about what you expected from conducting certain experiments, calculations, what hypotheses you built.
2. Describe the difficulties you encountered during the research and how you solved them. It will also help other scientists not make the same mistakes as you. By sharing this information with colleagues, you will gain their respect.
3. Tell where readers can access the different databases you used, any other information they need.

How to describe results

Do not assume that any patterns or trends that follow from the results of your work and which are obvious to you are also obvious to your readers. Readers are busy people, they may be reading your article in the midst of many distractions, so you must interpret the results clearly. Describe what these or other discoveries, calculations that you have made mean. What further applications might they have? Perhaps the results you obtained help to solve an urgent applied problem?

At the same time, you should not be afraid to describe negative results, for example, when any of your hypotheses were not confirmed. You just need to show your expertise here and describe how these negative results can be used. For example, they can pose new questions to scientists, encourage them to explore related topics that can provide the desired answers. In addition, by describing your negative experience, you will save colleagues from repeating your mistakes, which will increase the level of trust in you as a scientist. After all, the time of a scientist is expensive - let him solve new problems better, and not repeat the mistakes of others. It will also increase your credibility as an author of scientific articles. After all, editors are also experts in your field, and they may wonder why you didn’t do this or that experiment, because it seems so obvious? But if you show that you also thought that this experiment would give positive results, carried out it, but did not get the expected effect, this will significantly elevate you in the eyes of the editor.

How to write a conclusion

The most important thing is to once again emphasize the importance of your research in the context of global scientific work on the same topic. You should also describe the key discoveries and results that you came to, but indicate no more than two main aspects. They won't remember anymore. Describe how they can be used by other scientists in their research. In conclusion, no general conclusions can be drawn. You must be specific. No need to write phrases like "this will improve our understanding of the field" or "this opens up new challenges for us." What are the tasks? How will your research deepen knowledge on the topic?

How to write a title

The title and summary of the article (abstract) are very important, because this is exactly what they pay attention to in the first place. Authors often say that writing a title is the hardest part. You should be able to describe your research in one sentence, and it's very easy to do if you include three things:

1. some conditions that affect the subject of research;
2. what changes were studied, what effects;
3. object of study.

For example, take the sentence "The effects of humidity on surface roughness of silicon dioxide". Here we see the conditions - this is "humidity", we see what characteristics, changes were studied - this is "surface roughness", and also the object of study is "silicon dioxide". The topic of the research becomes clear and understandable, it immediately contains keywords by which each reader can quickly understand what the article will be about, what its authors have done. In addition, the presence of keywords in the title will help you quickly find articles in different search aggregators.

A couple of tips. Don't make the title longer than 20 words. Don't put questions in the headlines - your readers already have all the questions in their heads, they want to read the answers. Avoid using abbreviations in titles. Do not use the word "new", because it is clear that in the article you are describing any new results. Do not write abstruse titles - make them as simple, specific and understandable as possible.

How to write an abstract of an article (abstract)

The abstract is what your colleagues will read first. And this is your only chance to get them to read the entire article. Therefore, it is important to show in the summary that the text of the article deserves the scientist's precious time. And sometimes scientists do not read anything more than an abstract, but even on the basis of this information, they may want to collaborate with the author. The summary should again be precise and concise and follow the same formula as when writing the main text of the article, but fit all the most important into four sentences.

How to write a cover letter to a magazine editor

Editors of scientific journals are very busy people. Most of them combine this activity with their main work as a professor at a university or a researcher at a research center. According to statistics, they spend up to five hours a week on editorial work. Therefore, you must make every effort to stand out from all the other scientists who submit articles for publication. A cover letter to the text of your article can help with this. In it you:

1. write a full appeal to the editor, taking into account his titles, positions. By doing this, you show that you spent time figuring out who will read your article.
2. Then you indicate the article with which title you propose for publication.
3. Specify what type of publication the article belongs to. It can be "article" or "letter". The first format implies a deeper and larger-scale study, while the second is used to describe scientific papers on less complex issues.
4. Briefly describe the same thing as in your article, just do it in three or four sentences. And here it is better to generalize, to describe more general conclusions, because the editors already have your article in which they can see the specifics.
5. It is important to emphasize that this article has not been published anywhere before, that all its authors agreed to be published in this journal. This is how you show that you adhere to scientific ethics.
6. Put an extended signature with all your affiliations.
7. The letter should not exceed one sheet of A4, written in a normal font size of 10-12 points. Convert the letter to PDF and title something like this: "Your last name_cover letter".

Remember that a good article that appears in the right journal will not only provide you with citations, but will also allow you to get new collaborations with other scientists, increase your authority and recognition.