Increasing visibility and enhancing impact of research

"Publication is the beginning of research impact and visibility, thus dissemination of research publications have to be proactive. Researchers can promote their research work in three stages: (1) manuscript preparation and submission; (2) post-publication promoting; and (3) after receiving mentions/citations (monitoring).

Millions of research papers are published yearly by different journals and indexed in databases such as Web of Science (WoS) and SCOPUS. However, over 43% of WoS indexed documents have never received any citations. Publishing a high quality paper in scientific journals does not guarantee a high citation but just a beginning of the paper journey. Similarly, the most cited work might not necessary be the best produced by a researcher. The rest of the paper journey is still dependent on the dissemination of research findings.

Researchers who authored the research papers are undoubtedly the best person to promote their own research. With the increasing number of publications every year, it is important for researchers to know how to promote their research to maximum effect. A total of 33 strategies have been listed for increasing the citation possibilities. This article proposes three stages of the paper journey for promoting research outputs to maximize research impact and visibility (Figure 1)."