‘But how many papers <i>should</i> I write…?’: making good choices about quality, quantity and visibility of academic publications

Our lives are replete with choices between quality and quantity. Is it better to have a bigger home or one in a better location? A fantastic pair of expensive shoes or five more modest pairs? While such decisions all require consideration, the correct answers, unsurprisingly, depend on circumstances, values and preferences: what is most important to you, why and when. And thus, we go about our daily decisions fairly readily considering, reconciling and making decisions about quality versus quantity. Similar issues between quantity and quality arise in many other fields. In their daily work, academics must grapple with the relationship in their research work between volume, influence on practice and policy, and quality of scholarship. Indeed, one of the most frequent questions raised by new researchers to us is ‘How many papers should I write each year?’ It is a simple question but one that often causes consternation, merits consideration, and involves complex factors. Quantity, quality and visibility are important, interrelated, but also hold different concerns for academic career progression. As a sheer number of papers, quantity is clearly vital. Quality and visibility are dependent on quantity because without any papers, quality and visibility of scholarly outputs do not even become considerations. However, quality is as fundamental in different ways. Scholarship in science and the arts clearly places merit not only on ‘something’ being produced, but on the contribution which a particular scholarly output makes to humanity – an issue dependent less on its mere existence and more on its nature and substantive contribution. As scholarly outputs, publications must inherently be considered in terms of their quality around such factors. Visibility of publications is increasingly important and justifies consideration alongside quality and quantity in publishing decisions in this new publishing era of open access and social media (Clark & Thompson 2013). Visibility of academic outputs is complex and closely approximates but is not synonymous with article impact. It is important to recognize that traditional manuscript publications are only one means of ensuring a publication's visibility – effective use of mass media (internet newsfeeds, newspapers, TV, radio) and social media (such as Twitter or YouTube) (Archibald & Clark 2013) are other ways in which researchers promote their work. However, journal publications rightly remain the main currency of academics from which these other types of knowledge dissemination strategies should flow. Every week new predatory health journals are created – journals publishing papers for monetary gain for corporate publishers. This provides authors with a relatively easy means to prioritize the quantity of their publication at grave expense to perceived quality: predatory journals do not provide the same level and quality of reassurances around quality that journals with established and effective peer-review processes provide. Moreover, nor do these predatory journals – even when they claim to be ‘open access’ – provide high visibility because the journals are seldom indexed in the main bibliometric databases. Against this changing context, what factors should guide how quantity, quality, and visibility of scholarship are navigated in modern academia? The choices academics make around their work (including, but not only in relation to quality and quantity) are not mere tasks to be performed, but also express, sustain and reinforce personal ideals, as expressed in actions and values (Kamler & Thomson 2014). Thus, different scholars will mindfully approach and express particular ideals that prioritize a particular ‘kind’ of scholarly output. Thus, publications function as an important ‘competence’ indicator in discourses and documents (as represented in the content of the individuals’ resume) that can be judged by the self, peer and potential employers and as an expression of scholarly values. These scholarly values can take many diverse forms. While some scholars are likely to express values in their publication outputs focused around ideological stances – for example, related to public service, responsiveness to human need or particular methods – others may overtly claim their work is guided by prioritizing quality-focused scholarship (so-called ‘slow-science’) (Clark & Thompson 2014) or values that are ‘merely’ pragmatic, neutral and functional – stances which themselves all nevertheless imply and reflect values. It is important to recognize that an individual's ideals can and should inform their approach to reconciling quantity, quality and visibility of publications. As with many approaches to values and ideals, it is important to respect diversity and avoid assuming that different scholars do or must hold the same ideals. Research careers after doctoral qualification in nursing increasingly last more than twenty years. For long term work satisfaction it is important to feel investment in and ownership of one's scholarship (Institute of Labour & Social Research 2010). As such, it is important to see scholarship and its output as a means of expressing ideals and values. It is problematic, however, solely to privilege personal values and ideals to the neglect of other people and the contexts in which academics are held accountable to society for their scholarship. These forms of accountability are most obviously expressed in local norms, expectations and performance standards around scholarly activity and outputs. While few would argue that academics are not obliged, by vent of this role, to publish, the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable performance can be remarkably blurred and varied. Large variations exist in expectations around publication outputs across countries, disciplines, universities and even departments. It is important that scholars be aware of these variations and choose how to respond to the prevailing norms in their locality. These variations are a product of many cultural, disciplinary and local factors. At the most macro level, government policy influences these norms. For example – for nearly two decades, a department's productivity in the UK has been based on the influence and impact of a relatively small number of research-active academics and articles (around four articles every 6 years). Whether a scholar produces five, ten or 50 papers during this period is irrelevant to the assessment. Conversely, in North America (where no such national assessments exists), it is far more common for scholars’ annual reports, biographies and webpages to be peppered with references to sheer numbers of papers irrespective of the contributions to these papers, the calibre of journals in which these were published, or their contributions to knowledge. Quantity appears to trump everything. Awareness of what kind of output is considered by peers and employers as being ‘competitive’ for employment and career progression is not contrary to forming a body of credible scholarship. At the individual level, more understanding of what is required in terms of the balance of quantity, quality and visibility is likely to be supported via mentorship from senior colleagues. For departments, open and transparent discussions, clear expectations ideally with criteria-based standards for performance can better ensure that expectations are widely stated and agreed upon. It is important to ‘tune in’ to these expectations, both as they are voiced overtly and also how they are implied and assumed more subtly. Getting involved in the committees that make these decisions is key to attaining the best insights; but listening, asking questions of colleagues and observing the progression of others are all also helpful. It is not uncommon for concerns to be expressed about the heavy emphasis placed by universities and their administrators on quantity and visibility of research – to the neglect of quality. These concerns question whether this emphasis makes for scholarship of enduring use and leads to universities and their (increasing) administrations spending excessive and growing efforts on measuring activity that harm quality of scholarship (Anonymous 2014). This bureaucratic response to increased accountability to government for contributions to scholarship, students and society is understandable but threatening – ‘an imposition of bureaucratic control’ – as labelled by one author (Head 2011). These are important concerns and pose basic considerations about how universities can and should actually support quality research and fairly reward scholars who might publish 24 articles vs. four articles vs. a definitive book (Allen 2010). A healthy skepticism about the sweep of the accountability culture in academe is certainly required; however, this should be accompanied by a recognition that this culture and its attendant requirements cannot be wished-away but have to be worked through and within (Rolfe 2013). Yet, in our experience, concerns voiced by academics that universities focus too much on quantity over quality can be used to mask underlying weaknesses in both the quality and quantity of a scholar's work. Quality and quantity often can and indeed should co-exist, particularly in scholars with heavier research responsibilities. Similarly, ‘slow scholarship’ is no guarantee of quality scholarship and should not be used to justify ‘little’ scholarship. That said, a dogmatic focus on ‘more scholarship’ from universities simply does not guarantee that this will happen. Seldom does instilling more pressure and paperwork to increase outputs promote morale, creativity and quantity. Those keen to increase both quantity and quality can learn from Sony who introduced a program to encourage its workers to focus on doing less and being mindful of their health, emotional well-being, mental clarity and higher purpose. This led to 85% of staff reporting being more focused, productive, engaged and effective in their roles (Schwatz 2010). This productivity-paradox does suggest that prioritizing and focusing on doing less work can not only produce better work but also lead to more satisfied colleagues. Likewise, workplace effectiveness approaches teach that it is counter-productive to both quality and quantity to focus on too many priorities or tasks at any one time (Drucker 1967). These deplete energy, creativity and focus thereby compromising and individuals’ ability to be effective.

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