Playing the PhD Game - Submit early and often

I have learned a lot over the past two years in doctoral school but would definitely say that the most enlightening period of my time thus far occurred when I received my first set of comments from a journal submission. This leads me to my point #5 in my "Playing the PhD game" series:

#5 - Submit your work early and often.

In my (admittedly limited) experience, it is only when you submit your work to a reputable journal or a conference that you get the real skinny on the quality of your work (there are a number of ways to figure out the ranking of a journal, including the social science citation index, but you can use the acceptance rate into as a way to gauge quality). A couple of my colleagues were able to get their work reviewed for journals in their first year and this made all the difference when preparing their summer papers for submission.

Journal reviewers "don't know you from Adam" and thus can be brutally honest without worrying about bumping into you the next day in the hallways. You may think that you have an adviser who will tell you the truth about the quality of your work but there is nothing like a blind review to verify this.

Taking the plunge and submitting my paper was one of the best things I could do to improve my writing. When you start working on your own research in doctoral school, I suggest you take my advice and submit often and early!