A Comprehensive Insight into Effective and Informed Archival Journal Publication Process

Reza Zoughi

Schlumberger Distinguished Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering Department

Applied Microwave Nondestructive Testing Laboratory (amntl), Missouri University of Science & Technology (S&T)

Reza Zoughi

Biography

R. Zoughi received his B.S.E.E, M.S.E.E, and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering (radar remote sensing, radar systems, and microwaves) from the University of Kansas where from 1981 until 1987 he was at the Radar Systems and Remote Sensing Laboratory (RSL). Currently he is the Schlumberger Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). Prior to joining Missouri S&T in January 2001 and since 1987 he was with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Colorado State University (CSU), where he was a professor and established the Applied Microwave Nondestructive Testing Laboratory (amntl) (http://amntl.mst.edu/). Dr. Zoughi held the position of Business Challenge Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1995 to 1997 while at CSU.

While at CSU he received nine teaching awards, including the State Board of Agriculture, Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award and the Abell Faculty Teaching Award. Since at Missouri S&T he has received seventeen Outstanding Teaching Awards & Commendations. He is the recipient of the 2007 IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society Distinguished Service Award, the 2009 American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) Research Award for Sustained Excellence and the 2011 IEEE Joseph F. Keithley Award in Instrumentation and Measurement. In 2013 he and his co-authors received the H. A. Wheeler Applications Prize Paper Award from the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (APS).

He is the author of a textbook entitled “Microwave Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation Principles” KLUWER Academic Publishers, 2000, and the co-author of a chapter on Microwave Techniques in the book entitled “Nondestructive Evaluation: Theory, Techniques, and Applications” Marcel and Dekker, Inc., 2002. He is the co-author of over 620 journal papers, conference proceedings and presentations and technical reports.

He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement (2007-2011), two terms as an at-large AdCom member of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement (I&M) Society, I&M Society President (2014-2015) and serves as an I&M Society Distinguished Lecturer. He served as the General Co-Chair of the 2013 IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I²MTC), and currently serves as the Chair of the I²MTC Board of Directors.

He has served on the IEEE Technical Activities Board (TAB) Publications Services & Products Board (PSPB) (2015, 2017-2019), was elected as an at-large IEEE PSPB member for two terms (2016-2018 & 2019-2021) and is a member of the IEEE Xplore Platform Guidance Group.

He has eighteen issued US patents to his credit (with several issued abroad, and several pending) in the field of microwave nondestructive testing and evaluation. He has delivered numerous Invited and Keynote presentations on the subject of microwave and millimeter wave nondestructive testing and imaging. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT).

Affiliation(s)

Schlumberger Distinguished Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering Department

Applied Microwave Nondestructive Testing Laboratory (amntl), Missouri University of Science & Technology (S&T)

The impact that high-quality journal publication has on advancing science, technology and authors’ careers is well documented. Journal publishing has evolved significantly in the past two decades, as various benchmarks have been designed to designate “quality” or degree of “impact” to a given journal. Other metrics have been developed to better indicate the impact of an author’s publications. All of these have resulted in an amazing increase in the number of submitted papers and the sprouting of many journals in many fields. Many articles have been written on these issues and more will be surely written as a result of other requirements such as open-access (OA), which is currently a significant talking-point in the archival journal publications realm. Successful publication of a journal paper, in particular in a “reputable” and “high-quality” journal, starts from before an author decides to compile thoughts, ideas and results into the form of a paper.

This involves deciding on the proper, most effective and relevant publications venue; having the knowledge of (and experience) how to compile the content that goes into the paper; having a clear knowledge of the publications guidelines and rules for the chosen venue; etc.Writing a journal paper requires much more than a step-by-step write-up of what was done technically. First, the choice of the journal in which to publish is critically important since the technical focus of the paper must be within the technical focus of the journal. In addition, effective journal paper writing requires many implicit and explicit issues to consider. Established publications rules related to highlighting the novelty of the work, proper citation of already-published works related to the subject matter and published in journals in the same field, properly giving credit to previously-published materials, and many more such rules must be meticulously and methodically followed. In some cases, such as preparing a technically-extended journal paper, based on a conference proceedings paper (for example the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement Special Issue of the I2MTC 2019), unique and specific rules must be adhered to as well.

This tutorial aims to discuss and highlight all of these issues and provide a road-map for those who may be relatively new to the journal publication realm, or could use this information in future journal paper preparation. In addition, and if time allows, there will also be discussions regarding how to become an effective reviewer.