The Psychology of ‘Publish or Perish’: Why Your Journal Strategy Is Hurting Your Mental Health
Let’s talk about “Maria.”
Maria is a fourth-year clinical psychology PhD candidate, staring at her laptop screen at 11 PM. She just received her third rejection email for a manuscript she spent six months on. The feedback from Reviewer #2 is… unhelpful, to put it mildly.
She feels a familiar, sinking cocktail of emotions: exhaustion, frustration, and a sharp spike of imposter syndrome. The pressure to “publish or perish” feels less like a professional mantra and more like a personal threat.
As a psychologist and academic mentor, I’ve seen this scenario play out countless times. We pour our intellectual and emotional energy into our research, only to be met by a system that feels arbitrary and opaque. But what if I told you that a significant portion of this academic anxiety isn’t just from the system—it’s from our process?
Specifically, we’re doing things backward.
We’re taught to do the research, write the paper, and then shop it around to journals. This “write first, aim later” approach is the single greatest source of wasted time, energy, and emotional distress in academic writing.
Choosing where to publish isn’t a final formality; it’s a foundational strategic decision that should happen before you even type your introduction. Let’s reframe this entire process, moving from one of reactive anxiety to one of proactive, empowered strategy.
The Core Mindset Shift: Reverse Engineering Your Success
The most common mistake I see is writing a “master” manuscript and then trying to force-fit it into different journals.
This leads to a soul-crushing cycle. You write an 8,000-word paper, submit it to your dream journal, and get a desk rejection. You then find another journal, only to realize its word limit is 5,000. So, you spend a week painfully hacking away at sections you loved, only to be rejected again for “not fitting the journal’s scope.”
Let’s call this what it is: a recipe for burnout.
The mindset shift we need is to become a “visionary writer.” This means you must reverse-engineer the process. Based on your results, your level of novelty, and the data you have, you should already have a clear idea of where your paper will land before you start writing.
This isn’t about limiting your ambition; it’s about channeling it effectively. Your goal should be to identify a list of 3-5 suitable journals first. Then, you write the paper once, specifically tailored to the structure, scope, and word count of your #1 target.
If it’s rejected, you move to #2 on your pre-vetted list (which likely has similar requirements) with minimal, targeted revisions. This strategic approach saves you from the painful, endless rewriting that chips away at your resilience and your passion for the work.
How to Find Your ‘Sweet Spot’: A 2-Step Strategy for Journal Hunting
So, how do you find these journals? It’s not about guessing. It’s about data.
Step 1: Look in the Mirror (and Your Reference List)
This is the most powerful method, and it’s right in front of you. Look at the papers you’ve been reading and citing—the ones that truly guided your own research.
- Where were they published?
- Which journals keep appearing in your “A-list” of citations from the last 3-5 years?
These journals are your strongest leads. They have already proven they value the exact conversation your research is entering. You are speaking their language.
Step 2: Use Data, Not Desperation
Once you have a list of potential journals, it’s time to vet them. Use databases like Scopus (checking CiteScore) and Web of Science (checking Impact Factor and SCImago for quartiles). These aren’t just vanity metrics; they are tools for career cartography.
Your goal is to find the “sweet spot.” Go through the past issues of each target journal and ask two critical questions:
- Is my topic “too cold?” If you find no papers remotely similar to yours, that’s a red flag. It likely means your topic is outside their scope, and you’ll be rejected quickly.
- Is my topic “too hot?” If the journal is oversaturated with papers just like yours, it’s unlikely they’ll accept another one. Your work, even if good, won’t stand out.
The sweet spot is a journal that publishes related work but isn’t flooded with your specific niche. This shows they are interested in the field, but your paper still offers something new to their readership.
The Career-Ending Traps: Protecting Your Academic Identity
When you’re early in your career and desperate to see your name in print, it’s easy to make mistakes that can haunt your professional life. Your academic profile is a permanent record. Protecting it is a form of professional self-care.
The Specter of Predatory Journals
In a moment of vulnerability—perhaps after a few rejections—you might receive a very flattering email from a journal you’ve never heard of, promising rapid publication.
This is a trap.
Predatory or hijacked journals exist to take your publication fees. Publishing in them is worse than not publishing atll. It’s a permanent, visible stain on your academic credibility. It can lead to accusations of misconduct, not because you were malicious, but because you didn’t do your due diligence.
Rule #1: Trust, but verify. Before you ever submit, ensure the journal is legitimately indexed in Scopus or Web of Science. If it’s not in these ecosystems, it doesn’t exist for career-building purposes.
The “Quality over Quantity” Mandate
It’s tempting to publish in a Q3 or Q4 (lower-tier) journal just to get something on your CV. I strongly advise against this.
Sometimes, a Q4 paper on your profile is worse than no paper at all. Why? Because your CV tells a story. A string of publications in low-impact journals can unconsciously signal to grant committees and hiring panels that you aim for “easy” targets.
Your profile should reflect quality. It’s far better to have one or two impactful Q1 or Q2 (top-tier) papers that you are proud of than ten papers in journals you can’t defend. This is about building a sustainable, credible career, not just a long list.
The Hidden Risk: The Declining Journal
Here’s a final, crucial step most researchers ignore. It’s not enough to know a journal’s current rank; you must check its performance trend.
Is this journal growing in its metrics, or is it declining?
Imagine you need a Q1 or Q2 paper to graduate or for a promotion. You publish in a journal that is currently Q2. But you never checked its trajectory. Six months later, its metrics drop, and it’s re-classified as Q3. Just like that, your hard work no-longer meets the requirement.
This happens more often than you’d think. Publishing is an investment of your intellectual capital. You must invest in assets that are stable or growing, not ones on the verge of slipping.
From Anxious Researcher to Strategic Scholar
This process—publishing—is the currency of academia, but it doesn’t have to be a source of chronic anxiety. By shifting your mindset, you can reclaim control.
To recap, your strategy should be:
- Choose your journal list before you write.
- Aim for Q1 and Q2 journals. Quality builds a career; quantity just fills a CV.
- Verify indexing. Stick to Scopus and Web of Science.
- Check the trend. Ensure the journal is stable or improving.
By following these steps, you’re not just publishing a paper; you’re building a clean, strong, and credible scientific profile. You are respecting your own time, your intellectual energy, and your future. You are moving from an anxious researcher, hoping for luck, to a strategic scholar, making your own.
Reflection Question for Readers
Have you ever felt trapped in the “rewrite and resubmit” cycle? What is one change you can make to your process this week to feel more strategic?
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