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<b><h4>Why should researchers publish?</h4></b>

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<b>Tessa van Walsum, PhD Researcher, University of Roehampton</b>

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Researchers should publish simply to share whatever they have found. And it sounds like such a simple way to state it. Obviously, they should publish to share things. That's how we do things anyway. But it's important because sometimes, and actually I should say most of the times, data that is not significant is not shared, and then people don't about it. So they don't know that a specific research has already happened. And they're spending a lot of hard-earned funding to replicate it but then don't publish it, because they don't find anything significant. 

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So when you build on that, and you know that, oh, this result came out 10 times, oh, maybe we need to change the way we do this type of research, it saves people funding afterwards and also gets us a clearer picture of what is happening. So in a shortened sense, I feel like just to share the data, not necessarily publish, but share it and make it public, is definitely what researchers should aim to do. 
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<b><h4>How do you choose what to publish and where?</h4></b>

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<b>Professor Lewis Halsey, Professor of Environmental Physiology, University of Roehampton</b>

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To some degree, I'm under pressure to publish, first off, the pieces of work that look like they're going to have the most impact. So the pieces of work that might go to the fanciest journal, be read by the most people. And this also feeds into the Research Excellence Framework in the UK, which effectively returns money to universities, determined by the impact of their research. 

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But it's really important to publish all good quality science, for example, science that may not be impactful because it's not finding something really novel, but is important because it's showing that something isn't the case, or showing that actually there isn't an influence of some factor on an animal's ecology or its behaviour. That's really important to publish as well. 

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It's very important to publish set-up work, so pilot studies, that can guide other researchers in terms of how to run a methodology well. It's important to publish smaller pieces of work from students, who are building their CV. So there are lots of arguments for why lots of different pieces of work should be published. And it's important on people like me to make sure that bits of science, and individuals don't get left behind in the rush to publish the sexiest pieces of work first.

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Then in terms of where to publish, well, I'll admit that I will try and publish in those journals that are particularly august, and that have high impact factors if I can. But the main thing is to publish in peer-reviewed journals. 
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<b><h4>What was your experience with your first publication?</h4></b>

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<b>Tessa van Walsum:</b> My first publication was a tough one. It was touch and go. And it was definitely something I knew I wanted to get out there, and I thought was important to share. But, some of the journals didn't necessarily agree, or have the same point of view, which always makes it tricky. 

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You get good feedback, from the reviewers, which is something you can build upon. And I do appreciate that, when they give you this type of feedback, that you can make your work better, and you can make it more understandable. But, I think I got rejected about three times. And then finally, it landed in a journal, and it got published. 