Mark Reed Profile picture
Sep 22, 2020 9 tweets 4 min read Read on X
When (and how) to write a highly cited versus a highly targeted paper.

Yesterday I recommended a colleague for promotion who had <30 citations across her 21 papers. She was researching a local but important issue and her targeted research and outreach had massive local impact...
Today my citations passed 20K but I still write locally targeted papers - my two most recent publications are targeted clearly to a UK (REF) and English (policy) readership, but their non-academic impact will (I believe) be substantial...
The key is to develop an impact plan for your paper rather than leaving it to chance fasttrackimpact.com/post/2019/03/1…. This is the impact vehicle for my REF paper led by @BellaReichard fasttrackimpact.com/im-writing-a-c…, and this is how I'm getting impact for the policy piece slideshare.net/MarkReed11/inf…
Having said that, writing the odd highly cited paper doesn't do your career any harm and you can learn how to target a paper to an international audience for academic impact the same way you target any audience. You just need to know what they value most...
To write a highly cited paper you need to create an evidence-based argument that demonstrates rigour, originality and academic significance in the context of your field or discipline
It might look a bit like this
And a good title helps...
See my full presentation here slideshare.net/MarkReed11/how… and here's my Google Scholar profile scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user…. But just because an uncited paper is under-rated by academics doesn't mean it can't be your most impactful work.
I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for this thread so I'm going to duck out of Twitter while the storm breaks! But hopefully some people will find some of this useful...

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More from @profmarkreed

Nov 11, 2023
10 principles of high quality engagement from @NCCPE

1. Understand your purpose and your contextpublicengagement.ac.uk/quality-practi…
2. Consider carefully the people you hope to involve in your engagement work, and the role of equality, diversity and inclusion in your approach
3. Design your approach with your purpose and people in mind, and where possible involve others in the design phase
Read 10 tweets
Jun 15, 2023
My take on what the initial decisions on REF mean for impact. Summary: these are mainly tweaks that address issues for which most institutions already found work-arounds. You can read the full announcement here repository.jisc.ac.uk/9148/1/researc…
There are 4 main proposed changes to impact: a reduction in the minimum number of case studies needed for a submission, the reintroduction of an impact narrative at the unit level, removal of the 2* threshold for underpinning research and new criteria around rigour and engagement
1. The reduction in the number of case studies needed to make a submission may encourage new groups to submit to REF, but in my experience this wasn’t a major barrier to entry as long as people didn’t mind that at least one of their cases might get a low or unclassifiable score
Read 18 tweets
Sep 19, 2022
We need to re-think research impact if we are to truly benefit those most in need. My new paper with @hannahrudman (4 years in the making) identifies three crucial points we need to consider when designing research for impact link.springer.com/article/10.100…
It isn't possible to define impact without asking "for whom" - what will benefit one group or species in one context may compromise the interests of another group, or the same group in a different context (based on this subjective definition of impact sciencedirect.com/science/articl…)
Without a robust theory of impact, we will continue to narrow/instrumentalise our ideas of "what counts" and fail to anticipate negative unintended consequences. Our paper is a first step towards such a theory, outlining 3 key factors determining beneficial outcomes from research
Read 19 tweets
Sep 7, 2022
Really enjoying @wadekelly's new volume, The Impactful Academic. Struck by how far ahead Canada is when it comes to drawing on diverse forms of knowledge and paying attention to context, thanks to @LaurenAlbrecht3 and Catherine Scott's chapter
Decisions are rarely made on the basis of research evidence alone. They draw on many forms of knowledge, including experience and moral judgement. Our task is get the most relevant knowledge to decision-makers, not just our research.
The pursuit of impact should be "an ongoing commitment to learning and applying knowledge to solve real-life problems"
Read 5 tweets
Dec 24, 2020
Holiday reading - haven't been as excited about a new book as much as this for ages... Image
Love this approach to theory building. Theory is useful when it both explains and helps, and if it isn't helpful enough, keep applying and refining your theory in practice until you have something that actually works Image
Engaging with uncertainty is a prerequisite to social learning because:

1) It creates urgency when we want to make a difference but don't know how, "restless uncertainty...as an edge, pulling learning, insisting that learning help make a difference"
Read 5 tweets
Nov 21, 2020
New book by @_JustinGest, "Mass Appeal", will enable you to make a step change in your communication with policymakers. Some take home messages...
In addition to having robust evidence, researchers need to communicate why they are qualified to deliver the message - don't assume your audience will know your work or trust you.
Different media lend themselves to communicating different types of message to different groups. We need to become multilingual:
Read 6 tweets

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