Should I Write Multiple-Part Papers?
As editor and reviewer, I am often confronted by authors writing multiple-part manuscripts—linked manuscripts that have the titles something like this:
- “The Springfield Blizzard on 12 November 1978. Part 1: Observations”
- “The Springfield Blizzard on 12 November 1978. Part 2: Modeling.”
These types of manuscripts rarely review well. Reviewers typically offer suggestions on where bloated text needs to be cut so that both manuscripts can be condensed into one. Sometimes, one of the two manuscripts is just recommended to be eliminated, being too weak compared to its companion manuscript.
I would highly recommend never writing multipart manuscripts. You will save yourself (and the reviewers and the editor) a lot of headaches.
If you absolutely feel that you have too much good material that two manuscripts are essential, write each manuscript to be independent of the other. I mean truly independent. Part 1 (e.g., observations) makes little or no reference to a forthcoming part 2 (e.g., modeling). The modeling part can refer back to the observational part liberally, though.
What I would do is submit the observational part, then submit the modeling part separately. In the cover letter and in the manuscript for the modeling part, say that this manuscript refers to an observational manuscript in review, and make that manuscript available to the editor and reviewer (either on your Web page or by sending it to them at the same time as the cover letter).
Finally, do not call them Part 1 and Part 2. Reviewers run away from two-part manuscripts so it is harder to get good reviewers to read them, and they take longer to review (usually the reviewers want 8 weeks rather than 4 weeks to get the job done). Also, your potential audience may not want to invest the time to read the papers because they think that both papers are tied together so intimately that they must commit the time to read both.
[Update 26 August 2011: Another post on multiple-part manuscripts here.]
As one who has published multipart papers myself, I think this is pretty good advice. It’s awkward when you set out to publish a three-part connected series and you make explicit reference to “Part III” but only get around to submitting Parts I and II before moving on to something else. Beginner’s mistake.
That said, I think it is possible, and sometimes even desirable, to publish truly independent papers that are nevertheless bound together by a common major title drawing attention to their unifying them. Where would we be without Peter Hobbs’ 16-part series in JAS on “The Mesoscale and Microscale Structure and Organization of Clouds and Precipitation in Midlatitude Cyclones.”?
Thanks for your excellent comment about the difficulties of writing a multipart papers, Grant.
Where would we be? The same place we are now…an series of 16 fine scientific articles that have shorter titles without “Part N in the titles and that truly stand alone. 😉