Hi, Muhammad,

There are so many factors that influence publication for each researcher that I imagine the range of answers you might get will be substantial. I would categorize these factors into three main clusters: (a) personal factors, (b) institutional factors, and (c) disciplinary factors.

Personal factors will include stage of life, length of professional career, and family size and responsibilities. Institutional factors will include teaching loads, record of extramural funding, and research supports. Disciplinary factors will include the expectation of methodological rigor and publication outlets.

One simply cannot simply quantify the number of publications for comparison. A 30 year old qualitative sociologist committed to ethnographic inquiry is not capable of producing the same number of manuscripts as a 30 year old biologist conducting laboratory experiments that take less than six weeks to complete. Neither, of course, can be compared to someone of any discipline who entered the academy later in life.

All that being said, I would suggest a rule-of-thumb like this:

One submission for publication bi-annually for those teaching a 4x4 teaching load.

One submission annually for those teaching a 3x3 teaching load.

Two submissions annually for those teaching a 2x2 teaching load.

Hi, Muhammad,

There are so many factors that influence publication for each researcher that I imagine the range of answers you might get will be substantial. I would categorize these factors into three main clusters: (a) personal factors, (b) institutional factors, and (c) disciplinary factors.

Personal factors will include stage of life, length of professional career, and family size and responsibilities. Institutional factors will include teaching loads, record of extramural funding, and research supports. Disciplinary factors will include the expectation of methodological rigor and publication outlets.

One simply cannot simply quantify the number of publications for comparison. A 30 year old qualitative sociologist committed to ethnographic inquiry is not capable of producing the same number of manuscripts as a 30 year old biologist conducting laboratory experiments that take less than six weeks to complete. Neither, of course, can be compared to someone of any discipline who entered the academy later in life.

All that being said, I would suggest a rule-of-thumb like this:

One submission for publication bi-annually for those teaching a 4x4 teaching load.

One submission annually for those teaching a 3x3 teaching load.

Two submissions annually for those teaching a 2x2 teaching load.

It depends on an individual. I think 50 research papers are reasonable.

Good response from Peter - and he is right. Many responses would add to the myriad of what constitutes 'enough' and/or success in publication. The 'playing' field is not a level one though - and 'enough' can only be relative. Other factors would include:

1. The academic status of an individual ie.. a professor is expected to produce more than an associate lecturer.

2. Many institutions state a contractual 'minimum' of publications over a period of time. Many researchers are guided by that - no more; no less - which may determine how many they end up with in their lifetime.

3. Many researchers change many institutions. It takes time to build up new networks and capacity each time one moves.

4. There is often the 'controversial' demand of metrics/citation. many institutions now demand quality over quantity. Also - different software bibliographics are more or less conservative than others. For instance, Scopus will state that I have less publications than Google Scholar (and the likes of RG) states.

5. Different institutions and locations may dictate i.e. 'newer' universities dictate less publications (perhaps more teaching) than established and traditional research institutions. Developed countries are more likely to demand more than developing countries.

6. Does 'enough' mean that you are mainly first author on all your publications? With me, for instance, I am now far less likely to be first author than in the past. I'm more likely to be publishing with my supervision HDR students who always are first author - or I may be brought in as a 'consultant' and claim last author position.

7. It depends what constitutes a 'research' paper? If you look at my profile, do books, book chapters, editorials, conceptual articles etc count?

Many thanks for all valuable answers. And yes i also agree with the cluster division by Peter. In my own opinion the institutional requirement should be sufficient which is normally 15 to 20.

Does it matter how many papers we published? The whole discourse here situates publication into only one domain-academics. No, anyone with any viable, researchable idea and has the methodological abilities could write and publish. Meanwhile, I agree with earlier answers but more importantly, it depends on the individuals' abilities and capabilities to conceptualize a research problem and write for publication. We should be more into the quality of what we produce as research articles rather than how many are produced.

I'd rather have one that changes people's lives for the better than 1,000 in A's list journals that lead to tenure yet no real impact on improving people's lives.

The best research one discovers in life is not publishable.

Respected friend

It depends. I do agree with the reply of Peter A Kindle