You’ve just announced the publication of a new scholarly journal issue full of insightful articles. Now what?
You and your fellow editors are likely eager to move on to your next big issue. Right? But wait!
Don’t just turn the page on articles online like in the print days of yore. Digital publishing is brimming with opportunities to resurface past content to keep expanding its reach and increase the potential impact of your journal and the authors you serve. Think of it like the iceberg analogy. Only about 10% of an iceberg is visible at a time — the rest is below the surface. Your journal is the same, with so much content to explore beyond your latest issue.
So, as you release new publications, don’t forget to carve out time to revisit your previous articles and consider which might be good candidates to bring back to light.
Below, we cover five ways to resurface relevant past content at appropriate times. Let’s get to it!
1. Invite commentaries on notable past articles
The most popular journal articles are often the most controversial ones. They introduce novel research concepts or challenge prevailing assumptions, leaving readers eager to dig deeper into the topic at hand and curious about all the possible future implications. So why not have scholars revisit them in the future?
One of the best ways to do that is to publish commentary pieces (or commentaries for short). Commentaries are brief articles (usually around 1,000 words) that discuss a research topic from the authors’ perspective. A commentary can be editorial in nature, considering an issue of import to the journal in the context of all the research literature, or it can focus on one past article, study, or case report. The latter approach is a prime way to resurface particular past content that warrants further discussion.
In general, journals usually invite commentaries. However, you can also allow unsolicited commentary submissions to give members of your research community a say in what gets covered.
To make commentary dialogue more open and robust, you may even want to invite the author of the commentary subject to write a rejoinder to the new comment piece and then publish their response alongside it. Doing so will allow the author to reflect on new developments since their original research was published and reevaluate their work in that context.
2. Help readers find related content on timely themes
One of the primary benefits readers get from digital publications versus print is a broader (potentially unlimited!) browsing experience. Rather than only being able to flip through the journal issue they have in hand, online readers can peruse all of your available articles at once. Now the question is, are you making that easy for them?
Readers coming to your website should be able to quickly access articles on related topics from your past journal issues without having to click through all of those issues to find what they’re looking for (no wants to do that — or at least we don’t think so!). The first step is ensuring your journal website has supporting navigation. For example, all journal websites hosted via Scholastica (like this one from Media+Environment) include the option to add an “Articles” dropdown to the top navigation bar where journals can group their articles by topic and/or type (e.g., book reviews) as well as clickable keywords on each article page that lead to pages of articles that share the same keyword.
From there, you can get even more granular. If you’ve published multiple articles dealing with a specific research area that is especially timely, consider featuring them on a resource page to resurface all of that valuable content to readers at once. This can be done at the individual journal level or publisher level, by pulling articles from a portfolio of journals touching similar topics.
For example, Emerald Publishing has launched an initiative to align their publications with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) as part of their commitment to promoting real-world impact. One of the steps they’ve been taking toward that aim is creating mission-led research resource pages on specific SDGs, including Poverty and Gender Equality. Each resource page features an overview of the SDG being highlighted and links to related articles and book chapters from Emerald titles that they’ve made freely available. They’ve also smartly included calls for related submissions on these resource pages with links to their most applicable journals.
If you’re part of a smaller-scale journal publishing operation, a less resource-intensive way to highlight articles on timely topics than creating dedicated landing pages could be periodically publishing blog posts about how you are working to advance research in pressing areas with links to related articles. As in the example from Emerald above, you can maximize the potential reach of the articles you highlight by making them free to read.
3. Publish annual article highlight roundups
Speaking of highlighting journal articles in blog posts, another prime opportunity is at the end of each year. December is a great time to reflect on all the great content you’ve put out over the last 365 days and resurface some of the notable contributions. There are many different approaches you could take to do this, including:
- Editor recommendations: Invite your editors to each pick their favorite article of the year and write a brief commentary on why they chose that piece
- Most read articles: Use readership analytics to determine which of your articles had the highest pageviews and/or download counts of the year and highlight the top 10 or 20 with brief overviews
- Most cited articles: Publish annual roundups of the 10 or 20 most-cited articles from the previous year or even a broader timeframe to report on citation trends over time
- Top Altmetric scores: If your journal tracks altmetrics scores for articles, you can also publish annual roundups of those with the highest attention scores and commentary on the possible contributing factors (e.g., scholars were actively sharing this article on social media)
4. Repromote past articles as applicable
As you’re taking steps to resurface relevant past articles, remember to include them in your ongoing journal promotion strategy — especially when it comes to social media. Share updates about commentaries you invite or roundups of related research you curate from your journal and publisher’s social media channels (and those of your editors — remember, editors can be great co-promotion partners!).
You can also take note of national and international awareness days/months your reader community cares about and promote timely past articles on those themes at those times. For example, a journal in psychology, psychiatry, or neuroscience might share a selection of its articles on ways to advance mental health throughout Mental Health Awareness Month. Many social media platforms such as X/Twitter and LinkedIn offer post pre-scheduling tools that you can use to queue up this kind of content in advance.
Bonus tip: be sure to tag the authors of past articles you’re resurfacing on social media in those posts so they can share and engage with them too
5. Optimize for online search
Finally, remember that online search is the ultimate content-resurfacing opportunity. Leverage it by optimizing your journal website and individual article pages for search engines and indexes. We’ve covered this topic a lot in past Scholastica blog posts, so rather than re-hashing them here, we’ll send you straight to the sources:
- Check out our academic journal indexing guide to learn more about when and how to apply to have your articles added to scholarly indexes.
- Read our ultimate guide to journal SEO to learn steps your editors and authors can take to optimize articles for search engines.
- Learn more about the specifics of Google Scholar indexing and how to improve the chances of your journal articles being included in this blog post.
Journals using or considering Scholastica’s Open Access Publishing Platform should know that we take search seriously and offer many key features to help improve article discoverability. You can learn more in this overview blog.
Putting it all together: Repurpose to resurface
At the end of the day, so much of resurfacing past articles comes down to content repurposing or adapting, repackaging, and resharing relevant past content to get it in front of new readers.
The key to effective content repurposing and ultimately resurfacing is carefully considering your audience and the research areas that are most important to them. Then, develop strategies to help your readers find what they’re looking for and get the most value possible from your entire publication corpus, not just your newest issue. Ready to get started?
We’d love to hear your thoughts and any additional content resurfacing suggestions you have in the comments section below and on social media. You can find Scholastica on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).
