Harzing.com blog 3 years old!

Celebrating my blog's third anniversary with the top-15 most read blogs

3-year anniversary

I started blogging on the 18th of March 2016. So this week I am celebrating my blog's third anniversary. The third year saw 51 postings, nearly one a week, a little less than the first year, but more than the second year. Not bad! It is unlikely that I can keep up this schedule, but I will certainly try to keep posting regularly.

Top-15 most popular blogposts

So what were the most popular posts in terms of page views? Well... on the first place with head and shoulders above the rest was a post introducing Publish or Perish version 6. If you haven't updated your PoP version 4 or 5 yet, please do so as soon as possible.

The other posts in the top-15 most popular blogposts mainly fell in four categories: Key academic worries, Academic Etiquette, Publish or Perish usage and Research Impact. Pleasingly, one of the blogposts discussing my own research also made it into the top-15.

Language barriers in multinational companies
Reviews my research on the role of language in MNCs between 2003 and 2013

What are academics worried about?

One of the most read posts in the last two years - about staying sane in academia - again made it to the top-3. Another 2016 blogpost about desk-rejects also seems to be a perennial favourite. They were joined by two recent blogposts that clearly hit a nerve. Both of these: how to keep up to date with the literature and internal vs. external promotions - were also republished on the LSE blog Impact of the Social Sciences

How to prevent burn-out? About staying sane in academia
Provides twelve suggestions on how to prevent burn-out and keep your sanity

Why does my paper get a desk-reject time and again?
About the importance of joining the journal’s “conversation”

Internal versus external promotion [1 of 4]
Part 1 of a 4-part post which explains why internal promotion in academia might be harder to achieve than external promotion and gives tips for successful applications

How to keep up-to-date with the literature, but avoid information overload?
Provides tips on how to keep up-to-date without getting lost in social media overload

Academic Etiquette

Two older blogposts that deal with ways to address academics, either as a student or as a fellow academic also maintained their popularity. However, the other Academic Etiquette posts such as Would you ask a male academic the same question?, Thank You: The most underused words in academia? and Please be polite and considerate are also worth a read.

How to address other academics by email?
Provides suggestions on the best way to address academics by email

How to address your lecturer?
Shows how countries differ in their expected way of address for teachers

Google Scholar, Web of Science and using Publish or Perish

Just like last year a blogpost about using Google Scholar as an alternative to commercial databases such as Scopus and the Web of Science was very popular. This year, it was joined by a post documenting how even commercial databases such as the Web of Science have their flaws. Please note that Publish or Perish version 6 has a wide range of new data sources, thus allowing you to triangulate citations. Two other posts that were popular this year documented two important functions of Publish or Perish: journal targeting and literature reviews.

Google Scholar is a serious alternative to Web of Science
Argues that Google Scholar needs to be treated as a serious alternative data source for citation analysis

Web of Science: How to be robbed of 10 years of citations in one week!
Shows how I was "robbed" of citations through inaccurate publication matching in the Web of Science

Where to submit your paper? Which journals publish on your topic
Shows how to use Publish or Perish to find out which journals publish on your topic

Using Publish or Perish to do a literature review
Shows you how to do a comprehensive literature review with Publish or Perish

How to ensure your research achieves the impact it deserves

The final three popular posts are all new blogposts dealing in one way or another with how to diffuse your research. If you are interested in knowing more about this, my recently recorded presentation on this topic at Middlesex University, where I have worked for a happy 4.5 years now, might be useful.

How to ensure your paper achieves the impact it deserves?
Discusses the workflow I use to communicate a new paper

How to promote your research achievements without being obnoxious?
Provides some quick and easy to implement tips on how to promote your academic work

Google Scholar Citation Profiles: the good, the bad, and the better
Provides a detailed discussion of how to use Google Scholar Profiles most effectively