You keep working on a paper continuously and endlessly. You may be happy and contented with the research you have done and the kind of effort that you have put in but you may still with perplexed with the question that “ whether your article is ready for submission or no?”
You have to consider various aspects to ensure that your paper is ready for submission. An incomplete argument that you submit way to early before completion may indicate ambiguity and confusion leading to rejection from the end of the editor. And at the same time, if you keep delaying submission because of personal dissatisfaction, you may never be able to submit because there always is room for exposure and improvement. You got to know the point where you have to stop by and just submit else it remains with you for all times to come. Whether it gets rejected, accepted or improvements are suggested, is something that needs to be seen with time, but your surity and confidence before submission depends on few factors.
Here, we have a small checklist that you must go through before you actually decide whether it is ready to be fowarded or no.
Take feedback from a third person:
Assessing your own work without getting biased about it is nearly an impossible task. You may not be able to look at it with a sense of objectivity. Remember that you have the scope to improve your work significantly with another intelligent feedback from a person who looks at it from a fresher perspective. Make sure the person you choose has the experience of publication himself has the eye to look at the work critically as well as independently. If you are not careful about choosing the person, the entire exercise may become a pointless one.
If it is difficult for you to find a person of calibre and interest in your field, to give feedback, you may alternatively choose to present your paper in a conference or seminar. The feedback that you get there,from the audience may help to add a lot of worth to your document.
Keep off work for a while: it may be a good idea to put the paper off your sight for a few days. You have been thinking about it all day and night for the past few weeks. If you continue to do that wich can sometimes block your critical perspective. Keeping it away from your sight and mind for a few days is a great idea so that you can come back to it and then decide whether it needs improvement or if it is good enough to submit like the way it is.
