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

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<b>Dr Pete Etchells, Reader in Psychology and Science Communication, Bath Spa University</b>

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Science isn't done for yourself. The whole reason to do science is to find out something interesting about the world around us, and then tell people about it, and let other people know. So in this particular case, other researchers can do something with that and build on those findings. So I think it's important to publish for those sorts of reasons, we need a clear and rigorous and methodical system of getting data and results out there, so that people can see what you've done, how you've done it, what you've found, and so they can build on that in the future.

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<b>Dr Marie Thomas, Reader in Psychology, Bath Spa University</b>

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I think there are three key reasons why researchers should publish. The first thing is we have a moral duty and an ethical duty to publish our research findings. Also, it's really important to add to the scientific knowledge. And thirdly, it is important to researchers' development. 
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<b><h4>How do you choose what to publish and where?</h4></b>

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<b>Dr Pete Etchells:</b> I'm a big fan of slow science, so in terms of choosing what to publish, ideally, I'd like to publish everything that I collect, regardless of whether it's a null finding or a positive finding. I think if I've done it properly, and it's methodologically robust, I think it should be out there in the published literature. 

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So, I'd much rather do fewer studies, and have them all published, than just churn out lots and lots of different studies, but only, say, half of the data or a quarter of the data ever actually get out there into the real world. In terms of where I choose to publish, that's largely out of my hands really. It can be a bit of a lottery sometimes. It depends on the nature of the data. I'll always try and target appropriate journals for that particular specialist interest area, but really, that's a question and a decision for the peer reviewers and the journal editors at those particular publication outlets. 

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<b>Dr Marie Thomas:</b> I publish all of the research studies that I've conducted, because I feel I have a moral and ethical duty to do so. I look at the journals that mostly fit to the topic that I'm talking about, and this might not necessarily be the high citation rate journals. It might be that you want to get your research into an arena where it goes to occupational, or to educational professionals, so you're not necessarily looking at speaking to other academics. 
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<b><h4>What was your experience with your first publication?</h4></b>

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<b>Dr Pete Etchells:</b> So my first publication, it was actually a bit of a nightmare. It was during my PhD. It was my first round of experiments, and I was very excited obviously about getting my first publication out there, but it ended up going through months and months of review. I think it went through about eight rounds of review, and it just turned into this big monolithic beast of a paper. 

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I actually think it was a very positive process to go through in the end, and I learned a lot about how peer review works, and I think the paper itself, at the end of it, became much more robust, much more correct, thankfully, even if it was a little bit more of a dull read. But yeah, as much of a long and difficult process it was, overall, I think it was quite positive. 