We spend a lot of our time focused on publishing papers, but most of us spend very little time promoting the papers once they are published. Below are a few ideas about how to promote your research. Please send us your ideas for this page too!
AGU Toolkit for promoting your research that is worth looking at: https://publications.agu.org/files/2017/04/Toolkit-for-authors.pdf
Personal or Institutional website – This is where people will end up if they are looking specifically for you. An outdated website, e.g. one that lacks updated pubs, gives a bad first impression. You can generally post the link to the pdf if you have paid for open access (see next).
Open Access gives variable freedom to post your pdf on your own web page or commercial site, e.g. ResearchGate. Elsevier recommends that with open access you should still use the link to ScienceDirect so that they can keep track of citations or views. See Elsevier for a lot of detail on this.
Academic social networks and search engines – also see article comparing different academic profile services
- Google Scholar – search engine to find and cite published papers; although people can find your publications there without having an account/profile, setting up a profile gives you access to citation statistics and other benefits. You can also link your profile to your work webpage.
- ORCID – “supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized”. Export BibTex-formatted references from Google Scholar to include references in ORCID. It doesn’t seem to find them by itself, in this case. You can also link NSF grants to ORCID.
- Mendeley
- ResearcherID
- ResearchGate – This keeps track of your publications and can be helpful for connecting related research publications; also allows posting of preprints
- LOOP – run by Frontier Journals, “is the first research network available for integration into all journals and academic websites”. Imports from ORCID.
- Academia – The platform can be used to share papers, monitor their impact, and follow the research in a particular field.” There is some good discussion at this blog site.
List-servs – There are a multitude of topically focused list-servs out there who will often email your manuscript pdfs to their group, e.g. C-CAN Listserv (Ocean Acidification network), Arctic Ocean (arcticinfo@arcus.org), time-series network email list (ts_network@whoi.edu), etc.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (e.g., Nature (2018) YouTube your science) etc. if you use them as a professional (rather than personal) network; also see Getting Started guide on social media for science (fisheries focus but helpful for all disciplines)
Grey literature – submitting brief write-ups on your latest research in grey literature outlets like AGU Eos, the ASLO newsletter, OCB and partner program eNewsletters, which reach thousands of people!
Communication to media – Share with your university media/communication contacts (see this 8/18 piece in Nature with tips on working with your university’s press office to publicize your work), write editorials in local newspaper, radio interviews, etc. (many journalists are active on Twitter)
Share with your agency supporters – Share pdfs of newly published papers with your program managers and agency communication outlets
AGU Sharing Science Resources
Webinars for Scientists, Community Managers, and Beyond!
- Social Media
- Creating videos
- Science podcasting 101
- Crafting your science message for journalists
- Amplify your science by crafting a plain-language abstract
- And many more listed here
Other resources: