The Versatile Master Artist

”Uncle Osborne misunderstood, I didn’t mean it that way, I really appreciate your help with this matter.” Miss Anna shifted the conversation lightly, ”This year, for the Scholastic Group Writing and Art Master Award candidates, I remember, Uncle Osborne, you have the right to nominate, right.”

”The nomination for the Writing and Art Master Award candidates... Oh heavens, is this the idea of Detective Cat’s agent, or is it yours, Miss Anna?” Osborne’s tone was strange.

”Does it make a difference?” the girl tilted her head.

”If it’s the idea of Detective Cat or her agent, I would immediately slam the phone down on her face, call her delusional, and tell her to scram as far away as possible. If it’s your idea, Miss Anna...”

Osborne was silent for several seconds, then helplessly said, ”This is the Writing and Art Master Award. Even for the lesser Outstanding Contribution Award, countless highly paid writers and renowned artists are eagerly awaiting nomination. You want me to nominate Detective Cat, Anna, you really don’t care about your uncle’s reputation, do you?”

”How could that be? If Vellein can win, isn’t Detective Cat’s painting knife painting worthy of being called a master?” Anna smiled, ”Uncle Osborne, let’s say it’s my idea then.”

”Vellein can win? Miss, Vellein’s work really is good. However, this isn’t about artistic skill; you want me to nominate an online illustrator with no official serious art pieces—what would outsiders think? How would the board view me?” Osborne lamented.

It’s like nominating a player from the Java Dao league for the World Footballer of the Year award; it would be a laughingstock.

”No, by the time of the awards, ’Little Prince’ would have long been published and sold, how can you say there’s not a single serious art piece?” Anna argued.

”He might not even get ’Little Prince’... never mind, sigh, Miss Anna, it seems you’ve got me figured out.”

”Thank you, Uncle Osborne, for the trouble.” Anna sincerely thanked him.

”Alright, I’m afraid of you.”

Osborne sighed, ”Let me give you a heads-up: The most I can do is nominate. Even if I nominate Detective Cat, and ’Little Prince’ is already published, if ’Little Prince’ doesn’t set a sales record, Detective Cat’s chances of winning are as likely as an asteroid destroying Earth—pure fantasy.”

”Being nominated itself is already a huge honor, isn’t it?”

Anna questioned.

Honor is ephemeral, but it’s exactly what Detective Cat needs most now after being excluded from the ’Oil Painting’ magazine.

Becoming a nominee for the Writing and Art Master Award,

is far more beneficial than if Curator Tangkis filled the Taylor National Art Gallery with Detective Cat’s quotes.

”That’s true. It seems you really like Detective Cat, going so far as to have our Miss Ilina pave the way for her—this African female artist is truly fortunate.”

Osborne said, ”Let’s agree upfront, she must outperform Vellein Painter in market research before I can nominate Detective Cat, that’s the basic bottom line. Otherwise, it will indeed become a laughingstock.”

”I never considered passing the market research to be a problem.” Anna revealed a satisfied smile.

...

”Thanks to Professor Xiao Shan and Professor Chiba of Tama Art University for their guidance and valuable insights during the writing of this paper...”

In the study room,

Miss Sakai softly read the final drafted acknowledgments.

Now, this paper, approximately 7000 words in total, is basically completed.

Journal papers are different from doctoral dissertations; the latter often exceeds hundreds of thousands of words, commonly published as books by contacting publishers directly.

This length for a journal is reasonable, after all, if you submit a hundred-thousand-word manuscript, even if it meets the publication standards, the journal doesn’t have that much space.

On average, scientific SCI papers are about 3000-6000 words, whereas humanities papers tend to be longer, which is normal.

words neither seems lacking in content nor overly verbose; for Gu Weijing and Miss Jiu Jing Shengzi’s paper topic, Uncle Sakai thinks this length is just right.

They haven’t formally submitted it, so they don’t need to thank journal contributors since they haven’t received a review decision yet.

Two middle school students completing a high-quality paper on their own, is extremely difficult.

Thanks to Uncle Sakai’s connections, they received substantial guidance from several professors during the writing process.

According to the etiquette of paper writing, these professors who helped during the writing process need to be acknowledged at the end of the paper.

This also indirectly indicates that these professors had a favorable opinion of their paper.

If the article was too superficial, mentioning their names in the acknowledgments would still embarrass them.

Seeing Miss Sakai type the last period on the keyboard, Gu Weijing let out a long sigh of relief, feeling a sense of ease.

”For the journal submission, does Miss Shengzi have any thoughts?”

Sakai Shengzi thought for a moment: ”Regarding our article’s theme, my father has two suggestions: one is the ’Taylors Journal of Art’ with an impact factor of 2.543, and the other is ’ARTIBUS ASIAE’ with an impact factor of 3.752; both are journals listed in the AHCI index directory.”

The so-called impact factor is an important metric for measuring the influence of academic journals, representing the average citation rate of a paper published in the journal over a certain period, published yearly by the Clarivate Analytics literature database in the United States.

’Asian Art’ ranks 19th worldwide with a 3.752 impact factor, making it the most significant arts journal in Asia. ’Taylors Journal of Art’ ranks 43rd, also within the top fifty.

Aside from length differences, humanities papers and science papers also differ in impact factors.

Some reputed cancer medicine journals in science can have an impact factor upwards of 500, and high-quality SCI journals have impact factors of 4 or 5.

However, citation rates in humanities fields are much lower; achieving an impact factor of over 1 is quite good. The impact factor cannot fully reflect the level of a journal article.

Some significant papers that profoundly impact the field do not have high citation counts either.

Historically, humanities papers didn’t even calculate impact factors, and this year is the first year of Clarivate Analytics releasing humanities journal impact factors.

’Asian Art’ ranks higher than ’Taylors Journal of Art’, but any journal selected for the AHCI index directory are prestigious, without any weaklings.

”My father suggested ’Asian Art’ because it’s the best humanities journal in Asia, and he knows some of the reviewer professors at the magazine; he can recommend a few more lenient reviewers.”

This is the advantage of having connections.

Reviewers decide whether a paper can be published. Arts journals lack quantifiable data standards, giving reviewers greater discretionary power.

With identical content, the manuscript with better writing style is passed, while the one with poor writing is rejected.

Or a genial reviewer passes it, and a strict one rejects it, which is entirely normal.

A borderline paper might include a humorous joke to amuse the reviewer and get approved, and such events are not entirely fictitious.

Nowadays, academic paper reviews mostly require double-blind reviews; authors don’t know who the reviewers are, and vice versa.

But...

There are still sometimes operational spaces.

At least for ’Asian Art’ submissions, Uncle Sakai can justifiably have them indicate their recommended reviewers in the submission email, targeting specific reviewers to put the paper in front of several reviewer professors.

This is not a violation.

With disciplines becoming more specialized, many professional journals now require authors to indicate six or eight preferred reviewers for their submissions.

If completely anonymous, submitting an oil painting paper to a professor in avant-garde sculpture art—neither will understand each other’s topics.

This would indeed be comical.