Publishing in peer-reviewed journals is recognised as crucial for academic careers and the development of scholarly identity (Hirst et al., 2019, pp. 9–16). Octavian Andronic (2020), in Why Should Students Publish?, explains that publishing can open new and unexpected paths, increasing the likelihood of securing grants or academic positions. It is also a form of validation: within the academic hierarchy, publication counts confer power, scholarly authority, and access to broader social resources such as networks, reputational recognition, institutional affiliations, and titles (Bourdieu, 1996).
Beyond personal career reasons, publishing serves a wider purpose: it produces and disseminates knowledge. This highlights the importance of including a diverse range of voices and perspectives, ensuring that academic knowledge includes multiple experiences.
Barriers
Academic publishing is not a neutral process. Who gets published is often shaped by institutional privilege and familiarity with unwritten rules, academic writing skills, mentoring, and informal networks. Students without access to these resources or connections with other researchers are at a disadvantage. This dimension is central to my research: providing support and building networks so all students, regardless of background, have the opportunity to publish if they wish.
Students face practical barriers: many are new authors with little prior publication experience and struggle to identify publishable gaps, transform dissertations into journal articles, or navigate publishing expectations (Shamsi and Osam, 2022). The peer review process can be slow and opaque, and financial or resource limitations further complicate these difficulties. Early career researchers, including PhD students, are particularly disadvantaged within a “publish or perish” culture (Ross, Jenkins & Colthup, 2024, pp. 2–3). For non-native English speakers, challenges include academic register, genre conventions, and confidence (Shamsi and Osam, 2022), which is especially relevant at UAL given its high proportion of international postgraduate students.
Publishing is also an emotional process. Fear, self-doubt, and anxiety are common, yet these aspects are not always addressed by academic support teams. Recognising and responding to these emotional barriers is therefore essential for effective support.
How to support students
Students – particularly postgraduate and early-career researchers – often feel underprepared and anxious about the process. This lack of preparedness is partly structural: formal teaching on writing for publication is minimal, and institutions often only rely on informal mentoring (Farrell & Girgensohn).
At UAL, writing for publication is not usually a mandatory requirement, especially compared with more research-intensive institutions. As an Academic Support colleague suggests, this can mean that both students and tutors may not fully recognise publication as a realistic or valuable pathway, particularly in arts-based contexts (Academic Support colleague, interview, 4 December 2025).1 This raises questions about how expectations around publication are shaped within UAL, and whether students are encouraged to see themselves as potential contributors to academic, non-academic, and practice-based debates.
In terms of successful support for students, the literature points to the value of community-based approaches: Writing groups, retreats, peer feedback, mentoring, and collaborative writing (O’Farrell, 2013). O’Farrell also highlights three key dimensions: prioritising writing as a regular practice, becoming part of a writing community to reduce isolation, and explicitly addressing emotional aspects of writing. And for non-native speakers, Shamsi and Osam (2022) highlight the importance of the role of supervisors, course tutors, and institutions in offering discipline-specific and personalised support.
Overall, the literature suggests that effective support for writing for publication needs to combine practical guidance, social learning, and emotional reassurance.
It is important to note that the literature reviewed primarily addresses the social sciences and humanities, and only a small number of studies focus specifically on the arts. This is relevant because in arts-based contexts, the idea of ‘making public’ can take on different meanings. Within heavily practice-based and practice-led disciplines, research outputs are not limited to written texts, and writing itself does not always follow conventional humanities or social sciences structures. Instead, written outputs in the arts are often more hybrid and complex, drawing on methodologies that are specific to artistic forms of research.
With this project, I hope to begin addressing this gap by understanding what kinds of support UAL students might need when engaging with writing for publication within an arts-focused context.
1 see interviews
2 see my blog from the previous unit on supporting non-native English speakers with writing for publication.
References:
Andronic, O. (2020) Why should Student Publish? Journal of Surgical Sciences. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344174821_WHY_SHOULD_STUDENTS_PUBLISH
Bourdieu, P. and Collier, P. (1996) Homo academicus. Reprinted. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Du Plooy, B. et al. (2025) ‘Academic writing for publication: The experience and facilitation of liminality for developing higher levels of scholarliness’, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 62(3), pp. 1060–1072. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2024.2363899.
Duff, Diane. (2001). Writing for publication. Axone (Dartmouth, N.S.). 22. 36-9.
Farrell, A. & Girgensohn, K., 2021. Supporting and encouraging writing: An interview with Dr Alison Farrell (Maynooth University) and Dr Katrin Girgensohn (European University Viadrina). Educare, 2021(1), pp. 57–68. https://doi.org/10.24834/educare.2021.1.5
Hirst, S., Jeffs, C., Paris, B.M., Arcellana-Panlilio, M., Charles, A., Hill, L. and Hilman, B. (2019) ‘Something to say: Writing for publication’, Papers on Postsecondary Learning and Teaching: Proceedings of the University of Calgary Conference on Learning and Teaching, 3, pp. 9–16.
Lillis, T.M. and Curry, M.J. (2010) Academic Writing in a Global Context: the politics and practices of publishing in English. London: Routledge, pp. 186-188.
O’Farrell, C., 2013. Supporting academics to write for publication: A holistic approach. AISHE-J: The All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 5(1), pp.1031–1057.
Ross, A., Colthup, R. and Jenkins, R. (2024) Publish or Perish: Barriers faced by Early Career Academics trying to find an outlet for their voice. Innovative Practice in Higher Education, 6(1).
Shamsi, A. F., & Osam, U. V. (2022). Challenges and Support in Article Publication: Perspectives of Non-Native English Speaking Doctoral Students in a “Publish or No Degree” Context. Sage Open, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440221095021 (Original work published 2022).
Silva, J. A. T. (2021) ‘Challenges that early career researchers face in academic research and publishing: pre-and post-COVID-19 perspectives’. Exchanges: the interdisciplinary research journal, 9(1), pp. 77-106.