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The art of publishing a paper

4 February 2026 Tags: peer review scientific publishing undergraduate research experience manuscript review manuscript revisions rebuttal letters science communication professional development feedback

I am fortunate to work with exceptional undergraduate volunteers in the lab. While they invest their time without pay, they gain experiences rarely available at their career stage. If they are particularly dedicated and slightly lucky, this includes direct involvement in the publication process. This exposure is often eye-opening in ways they do not anticipate.

The peer review process operates fundamentally differently from university coursework. In coursework, students largely ignore assessment criteria, produce work in whatever format required, and submit. Those of us taking teaching seriously provide detailed feedback meant to drive improvement in subsequent tasks. Yet surveys show most students never read this feedback. They want grades. That is where their interest ends. Only better students actually look at comments. Only the very best use feedback systematically to understand what genuine improvement requires.

In manuscript preparation, by contrast, peer review has, at least in my experience, always resulted in improved final papers, even when addressing certain comments initially seemed tedious or unnecessary. Anonymous reviewers often invest extraordinary effort providing constructive feedback. We have had occasions where reviewer suggestions for key experiments improved manuscripts by at least an order of magnitude. It is painstaking work on both sides. Reviews must be addressed to the last detail: every point dealt with experimentally, by adapting logic or by rebutting potentially flawed reviewer arguments. If students invested even half this effort in coursework preparation and feedback-driven improvement, they would all do splendidly.

But how could students know? They need to experience it firsthand. This is where involving them becomes genuinely satisfying – watching realization dawn about the work involved. When it hits, it hits hard.

The moment of truth

We submitted a paper relatively recently and received rejection along with two reviewers' reports. I forwarded the editorial decision and comments, noting we could use this valuable feedback to improve the manuscript for submission elsewhere, and asked all authors to review the comments and share their thoughts on how to proceed.

A few days later, one of our talented undergraduate students knocked at my door. She had been not only gifted but dedicated and persistent, investing enormous effort into the experimental work for this manuscript. Upon entering, she told me she had read the reviewers' comments. The reviewers had demolished it.

I remember my first encounter with comments like that. The disbelief that your work has not been taken seriously. Comments that seem arrogant (sometimes they are; often they are actually not). The hurt pride of having hard work criticized this way. The realization of additional work now looming. It requires some resilience, but mostly experience, to cope.

The expression on her face was priceless. A mixture of disbelief, anger and exasperation as she uttered: "I have looked at the reviewers' comments! There are pages ... and pages ... and pages!"

Yes! Exactly! This is what you face in the real world. Difficult, often harsh criticism that must be addressed methodically and completely, without dismissal. Not the university approach with paying students, where academics are encouraged to achieve "proper" grade distributions and discouraged from failing students to keep attrition rates low. Students are in no way prepared for transition into harsh professional realities without Exceptional Circumstances, Coursework Extensions and often benevolent academics.

One of our first second-year courseworks is a 2000-word literature review with several weeks' preparation time. A few years ago, one of my tutees told me that this was the hardest piece of work he had ever done.

I symphathise with the student. At the stage in the course it is hard work for them. But let's put this into a different perspective.

The numbers behind a real paper

Our recently published paper offers useful comparison to contextualize what publication actually involves. Some observations underlying this work were made over 10 years ago – we simply could not fully contextualize them until now. Primarily, though, three years of experimental work by Daniel formed the paper's foundation.

Consistent writing on this manuscript began in September 2024, running intermittently until November when my heavy teaching load begins. Work resumed in January 2025, continuing relatively consistently until the first submission in April 2025.

First submission (V1):

We received reports from two reviewers. Honestly: hard, but very fair and, notably, constructive. Their combined reports contained close to 2000 words – the entire volume of that second-year literature review students find so challenging.

We spent the entire summer on additional experiments and manuscript revisions. By a hair's breadth, we resubmitted R1 (first revision) just before the new academic year began.

First revision (R1):

Response arrived early November: better. Much better. But not good enough! We received another six months to address additional reviewer comments. This round: "only" just over 1000 words of comments.

More experimental work. More analyses. All under pressure of heavy teaching loads in November and December. We submitted R2 by a hair's breadth before the Christmas break.

Second revision (R2):

This version was accepted as a slightly early Christmas present and fully published in early January 2026.

The reality of academic research

This is somewhat unusual. This manuscript merged what initially developed as two separate stories. It's one of the larger pieces my lab has produced. Was it "the hardest thing we've ever done"? Certainly not. This is routine. You generate data. You get excited. You build a story. You write it up. You submit. It gets rejected. You spend about a day in a red haze of rage. You calm down. You read comments again the next day and find that, with consideration, they're not as bad as initially thought. You work through them methodically. You improve the manuscript. The entire process starts again.

It does get easier with experience.

Such daily work of academic researchers perhaps isn't fully representative of corporate environments, but professional attitude is the same. There is always criticism, sometimes overly harsh. Just watch an episode of the Dragon' Den and you know what I am talking about. Points need addressing. Work must be reworked or new aspects added. Sometimes critique needs rebutting head-on when inappropriate. The lessons learned change students' attitudes in profoundly important ways.

What students gain

When undergraduates engage seriously with this process, they experience something transformative. They encounter:

These are not just academic skills. They are professional competencies applicable across careers. Learning to separate ego from work product. Understanding that criticism of your output is not personal attack. Recognizing that revision does not mean failure. It means you are doing science.

Students completing this journey see coursework differently afterward. That 2000-word literature review? Still challenging, but now contextualized against responding to 1000+ words of technical criticism while revising 13,000 words of scientific argument. That piece of feedback they had have ignored? Now they understand its value, because they have experienced what systematic, thorough revision actually produces.

The broader perspective

University education increasingly shields students from failure and harsh feedback in ways that do not serve them. We worry about attrition rates, student satisfaction scores and grade distributions. We provide extensions, accommodations and gentle criticism. These certainly are not wrong – compassion matters! – but they do not prepare students for professional realities where work is judged on merit, deadlines are inflexible, and criticism can be brutal. Miss the subminssion deadline for a research grant? You can have the best Exceptional Circumstances in the whole wide world - nobody cares! The deadline has passed. There is no way your application will somehow get an extended deadline. You have to try at the next round.

Involving undergraduates in real research, including the full publication cycle, provides something coursework cannot: authentic experience of professional standards. Not simulated. Not pedagogically softened. Real.

When that student stood in my doorway, dismayed by pages of reviewer comments, she was learning something more valuable than any lecture could teach. She was learning what it actually means to produce work that meets professional standards. She was learning resilience. She was learning that excellent work emerges from rigorous, sometimes painful revision.

She was learning what publishing a paper actually means.

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