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[tutor_dashboard_password_reset]The research is yours; the system around it is the trap. Open-access fees can swallow months of salary, predatory journals wait on that pressure, and one wrong choice burns the money and the paper. The credible route runs slow, desk rejection with no feedback, and from the Global South no one tells you which journal is a real fit. Your coach walks that whole journal lifecycle with you, on your own work.
One coach, hands-on · Weekly live sessions, up to an hour each · Built for African social sciences PhD students
A skill is acquired by doing it under guidance, not by watching. You can read about spotting a predatory journal or judging journal fit and still gamble the fee and months of your thesis clock when a real submission is in front of you. Coaching is where the skill becomes yours: you do the technique on your own manuscript, your coach gives close feedback in the moment, and each week adds another craft the journal publishing journey depends on, from journal credibility and fit to manuscript structuring, ethics and AI-use disclosure, a live submission and reviewer response, publishing at conferences, and getting your paper indexed with a DOI and found. Open any pillar below to see how it moves your paper toward print.
Every module follows the same learning loop. The coach demonstrates the step, you do it yourself on your own manuscript, and you are corrected and checked until it is automatic. You never simply watch a video alone and hope it sticks.
Why this matters: A publishing step you do not perform yourself is a step you cannot repeat for the next paper. Doing it yourself is what makes it yours.
Across the coaching: this doing-it-yourself loop runs through all ten modules, from journal selection to a live, scholar-executed submission.
See the ten modulesYou work with one coach who stays with you for the whole engagement. They come to know your manuscript, your field and your target journals, so the guidance is specific to you rather than generic advice repeated to a room.
Why this matters: Continuity compounds. A coach who already knows your paper can go straight to what matters, week after week.
Note: your coach never replaces your supervisor or co-authors. They work alongside them, so the paper you submit is already sharper.
See the ten modulesYou practise every step on the document that matters, your own manuscript, or on AOSARS' practice manuscript if you are equipping ahead of your own paper. The journal shortlist you build, the ORCID you register, the cover letter you draft and the disclosure you write are all on real work.
Why this matters: A step applied to your own paper turns into publishing progress the same week, not abstract knowledge you still have to transfer.
The bright line: you drive the work throughout. The coach guides and corrects, but never writes or submits your manuscript for you.
See the ten modulesBecause the coach reviews your own work, you are corrected the instant a step slips, not weeks later. A journal that rejects on scope, an ethics disclosure that misses a standard, a cover letter that undersells the contribution, all fixed while you are still in the work.
Why this matters: Correction in the moment is the fastest way to build a skill. You do not carry the mistake into the submission.
How it lands: you leave each session with three concrete things to do, so the correction turns straight into your next week of work.
See the ten modulesMost scholars are doing this around teaching, work or family. The coaching is built for exactly that. The hands-on practice happens in your own working days, and the one hour with your coach is reserved for substantive work on what you already did, never for catching up.
Why this matters: An hour a week becomes a paper submitted, because the rhythm respects the little time a working, teaching or caring scholar can spare.
Your week, mapped: the switcher further down the page walks through each day, from your practice to your sixty-minute hour.
See the ten modulesThe publishing skills you build in coaching do not expire when this paper is accepted. Built once, they carry you through the revisions, and through every manuscript, journal choice and submission that comes after.
Why this matters: You are not renting help for one submission. You are building a craft that serves every paper you ever publish.
See the packages: Compare the three coaching packages
See the ten modulesCoaching builds the publishing know-how and the tool fluency into you, so you can do the work yourself, on this paper and every study you publish after it. You stay the author throughout, and the skills stay with you for good.
Every module follows the same loop: the coach demonstrates the technique, you practise it on your own manuscript, and you are corrected until it is automatic. Together they carry you across the whole journal lifecycle, from turning your study into a paper to a live, scholar-executed submission, on to conference publishing and a paper that is indexed and found. The path below moves on its own from 01 to 10; hover the card or use the pause button to take your time, or select any step to jump.
Your journey, 01 to 10
Most scholars juggle publishing with teaching, work and family, so coaching has to fit a real week. The hands-on work happens in your own working days, where you practise the step and the tool on your own manuscript. The hour with your coach is reserved for substantive work on what you already did, never for catching up. Here is what each day looks like.
The first two days are spent doing the thing you and your coach worked through in the session: revise the methods section to the journal's requirements, format the manuscript to the journal template, redo the journal shortlist you screened together, or tidy the reference list in your citation software.
This is the smallest, most achievable kind of progress: applying a step you have just been shown, on the manuscript that matters. Most scholars find these the most productive days of the week.
Now the harder practice. You push into new territory: draft the ethics and AI-use disclosure, set up your ORCID and look up a Crossref DOI, or write the cover letter and assemble the submission pack, using the process you are building, on your own manuscript or a set exercise.
This is where the publishing journey feels lonely; you sit with the requirements until they make sense. Even imperfect drafts are better than none, and your coach will sharpen what you wrote.
You send your coach what you practised this week: the journal shortlist you screened, the methods section you revised, the disclosure you drafted, the cover letter you assembled on your own file.
You add two or three specific questions, the places the step did not click. Sending it by Day 5 gives your coach two full working days to review your practice before you meet, and that is what makes the session substantive.
Behind the scenes, your coach goes through what you practised: noting where the step slipped, which part to demonstrate again, and the hands-on work to do with you tomorrow, the journal to re-screen, the disclosure to correct, the template to fix.
You are not idle on Day 6. You are reading, practising or resting. But the substantive coaching work for the week is already under way on what you practised.
You arrive with your practice already reviewed, so the hour is substantive from the first minute. You work the step together: screen the journal shortlist, structure the manuscript, set up ORCID and the DOI, sharpen the disclosure or the cover letter, while the coach guides and you drive.
You leave with three concrete things to practise for the coming week, so the momentum carries straight into your next working days.
Within five working days of your session, a written summary of the fixes follows, so nothing from the hour is lost and you can act on it in your own time.
That summary, plus your three practice tasks, is what turns one live hour into a full week of forward motion, and it repeats, week after week, until your manuscript is submitted.
Plays through on its own. Hover to pause, or click any day to jump.
A view of one coaching week. The practice happens in your manuscript days, and your live hour is reserved for substantive, hands-on work.
Every session runs the same way, so you always know what to expect and how to prepare.
Coaching builds the publishing know-how and the digital literacy your manuscript and submission depend on, into you. These are the skills you walk away able to use yourself, on this paper and every piece of research you publish after it.
Shape a finished chapter, dataset or draft into a paper built for a specific journal, so your research reaches the field instead of sitting in a thesis on a shelf.
Screen any journal for fit, indexing and quality, read a DOAJ listing and a journal's scope, and recognise the red flags of a predatory outlet before you ever pay an APC.
Shape your finished chapter, analysed dataset or draft into a paper that matches the target journal's structure and template, so it clears editorial screening rather than being desk-rejected on format.
Register and use your ORCID, understand and obtain a DOI through Crossref, and manage your citations and references cleanly, so your identity and record travel with every paper.
Write ethics and AI-use disclosures to COPE, ICMJE and WAME guidance, run a similarity check, and negotiate APC waiver options, so a submission is not rejected over a disclosure or a funding gap.
Assemble the cover letter and submission pack, execute a live submission under your own name, respond to peer review, and keep every skill so it carries into the papers that follow.
All three are the same one-to-one, hands-on journal publication skills coaching, taught on your own work in progress. They differ in how much of the ten-module publishing lifecycle they cover, and in whether e-learning access comes with them. Tier one coaches the foundational core, modules 01 to 03; the middle tier adds modules 04 to 06 and six months of e-learning access to that ground; the top tier coaches the complete set, modules 01 to 10, with six months of e-learning access to every module. You author and own every word throughout. You pay to enrol, then book your weekly sessions. Most scholars choose the middle option.
Live one-to-one coaching across the complete seven-module journal lifecycle, from laying the foundations and positioning your paper, through strategic extraction of the publishable paper from your study, targeted choice of where to publish, and rigorous structuring to the journal's requirements, all the way through submission and reviewer response, publication fees and payments, and visibility after publication. A complete, usable outcome on its own: your own paper coached from a positioned idea to a live submission and set up to be indexed and found. Taught on your own draft in progress, or an AOSARS practice manuscript if you have none yet, and you own every output.
Everything in the complete-path package, plus two coached defences of your submission once it is out for review. When a decision letter arrives on your own paper, your coach works through it with you and rehearses your revisions; and if the first journal declines, your coach helps you re-target the same paper to a second journal so a single no does not end the road. You write and send every word yourself.
Everything in the revise-and-resubmit package, plus a whole second paper coached end to end. Your coach helps you extract a second publishable paper from the same study and take it through the entire lifecycle to its own live submission, doubling what your fieldwork yields, and you keep six months of e-learning access to all seven modules.
Two low-pressure ways to explore before you enrol: ask us to call you back on WhatsApp at a time that suits you, or book a fit call to talk it through and review your manuscript and your tools together. Neither commits you to anything.
Leave your details and the time that suits you. We call you on WhatsApp, so it costs you nothing.
Pick a slot yourself on our calendar and we meet by video. We can talk it through and, if you like, review your work together.
The questions social sciences scholars ask most before enrolling. If yours is not here, ask before you pay.
We answer every enquiry personally, usually within a day, before you commit to anything.
It is one-to-one coaching. You work with a coach who, in weekly live one-to-one sessions across the engagement, demonstrates each step of the publishing journey and guides you hands-on through the manuscript, the journal choice and the submission while you do the work yourself. That is different from our self-paced courses, which teach the same craft as structured modules you study alone. Coaching is the higher-touch, higher-value option for applying the steps to your own manuscript; the courses are the lower-cost way to build the basics. Many scholars use both, in sequence.
It is built for both. The ten modules carry you across the full publishing pipeline, journal selection and fit, manuscript structuring, DOI and ORCID setup, ethics and AI-use disclosure, article processing charge negotiation, through to a live, scholar-executed submission. Whether you arrive with a polished draft or a chapter still taking shape, the coaching meets your work where it is and moves it forward from there, and the top package coaches you across the complete ten-module set on your own manuscript, so you carry it toward submission yourself.
No, and that is the bright line. Your coach explains each standard, reviews your own work and corrects it in real time, but you author every word and you press submit yourself, under your own name. The coaching builds your skill and confidence; it never ghostwrites a manuscript or lodges a submission on your behalf. That is precisely what keeps the paper, and the credit, honestly yours.
Screening for predatory journals is a core part of the coaching, taught hands-on. You learn to check a journal against DOAJ and the journal-matching databases, read its indexing and peer-review claims critically, and spot the red flags in an unsolicited invitation to publish. An AI-assisted first pass helps flag journal fit, waiver options and warning signs, but you make every judgement yourself, so you leave able to vet any journal on your own, long after the engagement ends.
No. If you already have a thesis chapter, analysed dataset or draft manuscript, you are welcome to bring it in. If you do not have one yet, you work through AOSARS' own practice manuscript and dataset instead, covering the identical journal selection, DOI, ORCID and ethics-disclosure ground. Institutional affiliation details are needed only once you are ready for ORCID and DOI setup, not to begin. You need only a stable internet connection, a laptop or desktop computer, a working email and a few protected hours each week.
You practise through the week on your own manuscript, revising the methods section, formatting to the journal template or drafting the cover letter, then send your work and two or three specific questions by Day 5. You meet your coach for one live hour, up to sixty minutes on video, booked through Calendly, to work the step together. Because your coach has reviewed your practice beforehand, the hour is substantive from the first minute. You leave with three things to practise, and a written summary of the fixes follows within five working days.
Your supervisor remains your supervisor; we do not replace them. The honest reality is that most African postgraduate supervisors carry many students alongside heavy teaching and administrative loads, and few have walked the full publishing pipeline recently enough to guide you through DOI, ORCID, article processing charges and the COPE, ICMJE and WAME disclosure standards step by step. That structural shortage is not their fault. Coaching fills the gap: weekly, hands-on, focused on getting your paper into a credible, indexed journal, so the work you take back to your supervisor is already sharper.
You enrol through secure checkout and pay in your local currency, by card, bank transfer or mobile money where it is supported. Payment confirms your place, and we then email you instructions for booking your weekly sessions. If you are unsure which package fits before you pay, email your situation to info@aosars.com or use the no-commitment options above.
Enrol today and turn the opaque publishing system into a journey you can navigate, one live hour a week, on your own work.
One coach, hands-on. Weekly live sessions, up to an hour each. Pay in your local currency on mobile money, card or bank transfer.
