It is a good idea to prepare a press release when you have had a paper published. Many journals ask for notes from their authors in order to help with composing an introductory editorial column. Both of these practices are intended to make papers accessible to a wider audience, and to suggest the practical or academic relevance of the work. It is a good idea to prepare a brief description (100-200 words) of your views on what your paper is about and how the findings may be used. These descriptions can then be used for either of the purposes mentioned above and as a response to enquiries from those who may be interested in finding out more about your work. Responding positively and helpfully to such requests can bring research and practice closer and make papers more accessible to a wider range of readers. If you would like to try preparing a description of your paper for the layperson , you may find it useful to follow these guidelines in preparing a paragraph of descriptive text:
- Somewhere in the text of the editorial note, usually the opening phrase, please use the authors’ names, in the correct sequence, by surname only, but not their titles, job positions or affiliations.
- In your description, don’t refer to “the paper”, refer to the authors, first by name, subsequently as “the authors”.
- The best place to start is with a brief statement of the kind of problem that your paper seeks to resolve. What is the paper about? Why is this work important? Why did you do it?
- A couple of sentences about the context should place the work in terms of geographical location, types of method used, and in which specific part of the construction sector is this work grounded in.
- Explain your research strategy, for example, how did you collect data? How did you analyse it?
- What did you discover? What were the outputs? For example, did you develop a model? Can you advise practitioners or policy makers? Have you developed a new theoretical position or perspective?
- Can you provide (or exemplify) one or two key ideas that you would wish your reader to take away after reading your research paper? It is not necessary for every paper to appeal to all audiences. Be selective about this.
Management and Economics in Construction 