Research paper and publication support in Chennai

Anna University: what makes a paper count for the synopsis

Clause 16.2 of the R2025 regulations is quite long, and the university will drop your paper when any one line of it is not met. We have put it as points so you can check your paper one by one.

• It has to be a full-length research article. It should come in a regular issue of a journal listed on the CFR website, and it must be published after you joined the PhD.
• Your name should be first in the author list. Second position is accepted only when your supervisor is the first author.
• The corresponding author has to be you, your guide or the joint supervisor. When a PG student was corresponding author, that paper is set aside.
• At least one of your paper should have four authors or fewer in total.
• Letters, short notes and short communications are not accepted, and articles in a collection also not.
• You can’t publish the same content in more than one journal, fully or even partly.

Two more clauses stay with you till the end. Under clause 16.3 the journal website should show your paper along with the DOI or issue details, and it has to remain there, in the same regular issue, right up to the award. As per clause 17.2, a paper that gets retracted while your thesis is under submission and scrutiny is not considered. So a journal that later withdraws papers in bulk is a risk for you even after acceptance.

A granted utility patent is allowed instead of the paper. As per clause 16.4, the patentee should be you, your supervisor or your institution, and at least one granted patent must have four inventors or fewer.

Over 11,000 journals on the CFR list, and fake copies of them

On 21 October 2022 the Centre for Research issued a circular on fake journals that copy well-known ones. In that circular the Centre says it can’t establish the authenticity of over 11,000 journals on its own list. Scholars are asked to double-check each journal’s website. The circular also warns that if you claim a paper from a counterfeit copy for your synopsis or thesis, the Centre will reject it summarily.

Only matching the journal name will not help you here. Start with the CFR journal list. From there go to the publisher’s site and find the real home page of the journal. Compare the ISSN, the editorial board and the submission system on both pages. Some mails come promising publication in two weeks. For those, see whether the sender’s domain is same as the publisher’s domain. The list keeps changing, so open it once more just before the synopsis meeting.

University of Madras: one paper, one presentation, one affiliation

The Madras regulations (12.2) ask for one research paper before the synopsis. The journal should be in UGC CARE list or indexed in Scopus, WoS, PubMed or SCI. After that, and before the thesis, you need a conference or seminar presentation too. A paper presentation or a poster, both are accepted. The meeting can be regional, national or international.

One confusion is there. For Humanities, Social Science and Science, the sub-clause names peer-reviewed or refereed journals “such as” Scopus, WoS, PubMed or SCI, and there is no word about CARE in that part. The CARE list is also not updated any more, so we mostly suggest an indexed journal as the safer side.

Scholars working at a recognised centre or college must show the University of Madras in the affiliation of every paper they publish. Many times this gets missed, because the college have its own name and that name goes first. Give both names, in the way your supervisor advises.

IIT Madras and the M.G.R. Medical University

At IIT Madras, the thesis guidelines say a synopsis is not taken till you have a paper in an acceptable refereed journal. Published or accepted, both are fine, and a copy goes with the synopsis.

Publishing more changes how your thesis is examined. As per the 2022 circular, a thesis with 70% or more already published or accepted in good venues can go on Track-1. On Track-1 there are two examiners instead of three.

At the M.G.R. Medical University, scholars who registered from July 2011 onwards need two papers in indexed journals before the thesis, as per the PhD regulations (33.A). Each paper has to state clearly that the work is part of a doctoral thesis at that university. Add this line in the acknowledgements before you submit, since adding it at proof stage is not always possible.

How it works from Chennai

First tell us your university, which papers you already have and when your next meeting is. For Anna University, send the author lists of your old papers also, so we check them against clause 16.2 first.

After that you get a shortlist of journals from us, with the reason for each one. Each one is checked against your university’s rule and, by ISSN, against Scopus or Web of Science. We help you convert a chapter into a paper. We edit the language with tracked changes on, so you can see each change. For formatting we follow whatever the journal’s author guidelines say. When reviewer comments come back, we go through each comment with you and draft the replies.

No one can promise acceptance, and we also don’t promise it. Journals that sell quick publication, we keep away from them. Final decision is with the journal editors only. What we can do is make your paper clean enough that they read it seriously.