How to get published as a PhD student — and how to get your work cited?
On 1 June 2026, I gave a seminar for PhD students on field experiments in the labour market as part of the UGent@Work doctoral course ‘Multidisciplinary research tools to study work and the labour market’. To round things off, I shared with them my own personal top 10 tips for producing high-impact publications.
As the participants from a range of disciplines seemed to really enjoy these, I am sharing them here as well.
- Only pursue research that you personally find valuable and cool.
- If you can't describe the article’s contribution in 3 sentences, there is a huge problem.
- A cool title is always a plus.
- Your introduction is the most important part of your article.
- Style and substance reinforce each other.
- Prepare a submission tree so that you don't have to reconsider your target journal after a rejection.
- Don't revise heavily after a (first) rejection with referee reports.
- With a few extra hours of time in academic valorisation, you can make the months of time spent on the research work itself yield much more.
- Societal valorisation pushes academic impact.
- Be visible as a researcher.
All my arguments, examples and tools can be found in this presentation.
