Catching Up with Published Authors #2- Amal Ali
Araneum is reaching out to authors who have published original research in our journals! We recently caught up with Amal Ali, who is preparing to pursue her Master’s degree. Amal’s article, “Health Disparities After Redlining: A Comparative Analysis of Health Outcomes and Health Disparities in Richmond, Virginia and Portland, Oregon,” was published in our Spring 2025 issue, and you can read her work here!
What are your plans after you graduate?
In September, I will be traveling to England to attend the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. I will be pursuing a Master’s in Public Policy as a Jepson Scholar.
How has Araneum helped you in getting into your graduate program?
Having never published a paper before, I was unaware of the amount of time and attention it takes to prepare your work for an academic journal. Araneum helped me understand the process better and polish my paper so I was truly sending my best work out into the world. With this experience, I felt comfortable talking about my research in my graduate school applications and communicating why my work was important to me and my future studies. Passion shows when you’re writing a Master’s program application, and revising my paper through Araneum helped me develop the tools and the language I needed to articulate why I care so much about health policy. I’m so happy with the Master’s program I’ll be attending in the fall, and with one publication behind me, I feel prepared to take on more advanced projects at Oxford.
Can you talk about your experience with the publication process? What did you learn by going through it?
The editorial team at Araneum is incredibly patient with you when you are preparing your paper for publication. Like any paper, my paper needed some rounds of editing before it was ready to go, and I gained many skills through each iteration of the revisions. I learned how to tighten the language in my paper to make it clearer for readers. I learned about the intricacies of perfecting your citations for an academic journal. Much of the publication process is also about clear communication between editors and writers, so I learned how to both accept critiques and ask questions when I wanted clarification. All of these skills are essential if you plan on conducting more research, and I hope to take my work to the next level with my graduate studies.
Would you recommend Araneum to a friend? Why?
I would recommend Araneum because publishing a paper will help you strengthen your voice as a writer and catch all the weak spots you might have. Working with an editorial team instead of just one editor gives you ample opportunities to address how you can improve your work and transform your paper from good to great. The paper I originally submitted to Araneum was not as strong as the paper that ultimately made it through publication, and I truly think that I have become a better researcher because of it.
What advice do you have for prospective writers and peer reviewers?
For prospective writers, be prepared to continue working on your paper throughout the semester if it is being considered for publication. It takes a lot of thought and attention to get a paper to its final draft, and it can be easy to get overwhelmed on top of a full course load. Treat the paper like a serious assignment for a class and give it the same care you would if you were submitting it as your final. At the end of the day, your paper will be accessible to academics from other institutions if it’s published, so you want it to be the best it can be!
For peer reviewers, take it slow with the revision process and put some time into each paper you are reviewing. You might want to breeze through a paper and offer some minimal commentary, but the more thorough you are, the more the writer will actually benefit from your edits. Read the paper as if you are doing an assigned reading for a class– this mindset will help you identify any weaknesses. Be critical but kind, and don’t be afraid to be honest with your thoughts.
