Company News, Training Services and Author Publication Tips

Preparing and submitting academic papers is a big investment of time and intellectual effort. When you work hard on a paper, it is often discouraging to receive the news that it has been rejected. However, it is important to remember that more papers are rejected than the number accepted. The work you put into your paper submission is not wasted; think about this as a part of the academic publishing journey and use any feedback received for the next version of the paper. Don’t take the rejection as an indication that the research in your study is not of value. The questions and answers that follow can help you decide what next steps to take with your paper.

There are several steps you can take as an academic to pave the way for a successful publishing career. Regularly reading journal articles in your field is invaluable. Co-authoring papers with colleagues is one way to experience the academic writing process without having to travel that journey alone. Seeking opportunities to write with more seasoned re-searchers, and avail of their mentoring, is a great way to hone your academic writing skills.  Another opportunity you should take advantage of is to serve as a peer reviewer for a journal and experience the review process. 

It is exciting to receive an email confirming that your paper has been accepted. And certainly, congratulations are in order: it is not easy to have a paper accepted for publication so you should feel proud. Unless your paper has been accepted without revision, which is rare, you still have some way to go towards achieving publication. 

Peer Review: Module 3: Reviewing Peer Reviewers

Find out who are Peer Reviewers, about transparency in peer review as well as the different types of Peer Review.

Tune in to our bitesize webinar to learn more.

Peer Review: Module 4: Dealing with revise and resubmit

One of the most common outcomes of Peer Review is the "Revise and Resubmit" decision. Watch this video to learn how to deal with revise and resubmit.

Tune in to our webinar module to learn more.

Learn how to deal with rejection at the pre peer review stage.

Tune in to our webinar module to learn more.

In this module we discuss what is Peer Review, and why is it particularly important especially to early career researchers.

Tune in to our bitesize webinar to learn more.

In module 2 we discuss types of peer review and types of recommendations.

Tune in to our bitesize webinar to learn more.

As you know from the previous article, the quality of the manuscript is a decisive criterion for its screening in/out at the pre-peer review stage—that is, the initial editorial review. However, a manuscript may be rejected by the journal editors for a variety of reasons, including subject matter interest, and sometimes even simply pipeline management—namely, too many articles on the same topic. But, most typically, a preliminary editorial review aims at identifying whether the manuscript:

1. sufficiently satisfies editorial guidelines of that journal;
2. is likely to provide clear scientific contribution and implications for the domain in question; and 
3. has some likelihood to be favourably evaluated by the journal’s peer reviewers.

As you already know, the quality of the manuscript is a decisive criterion for its screening in / out at the pre-peer review—preliminary editorial review, that is—stage. During an initial review, the journal editors generally aim at identifying whether the manuscript:

1. sufficiently satisfies editorial guidelines of that journal;
2. is likely to provide clear scientific contribution and implications for the domain in question; and 
3. has some likelihood to be favourably evaluated by the journal’s peer reviewers.

• In single-blind peer review, only the reviewers are anonymous. Reviewers know the authors’ names and backgrounds, but authors don’t know those of the reviewers.
• In double-blind peer review, both the authors and reviewers keep their anonymity. Only the editor knows the identity of all parties involved.

What is Peer Review?

Peer review is the process where an academic author’s work is subjected to the examination of other experts in the same field as part of the journal publication process.

Withdrawing an academic article means asking a journal to stop considering the article for publication at any point prior to its actual publication. This means that the article will no longer proceed through the peer review process, will not be published, and becomes the authors’ “property” once again, to revise and/or resubmit elsewhere if desired.

Peer review acts as a quality check on academic literature, defined as ‘a formal system whereby a piece of academic work is scrutinised by people who were not involved in its creation but are considered knowledgeable about the subject.’^[1] The peer review process ensures that all manuscripts submitted to journals meet certain standards, with most journals following similar steps.^[2]

Peer review is the cornerstone of academic publishing, the process by which research manuscripts submitted to journals are appraised. Based on the comments of ‘peer reviewers’, journal editors make decisions whether, or not, to accept articles for publication.

Write to an editor if you feel too much time has passed between submission and the return of reviews.

No one likes getting rejection letters. Sadly, however, these are a fact of academic life; papers sent out to journals and grant applications are more likely to be rejected than accepted (or funded), especially if you are doing what you should be doing and aiming high with initial manuscript submissions (trying to get your work published in the best possible journals).

Our last blog of the week will reveal how to respond to comments you disagree with in order to maximise your chances of acceptance.

Research articles submitted to journals are initially evaluated by an editor, or an editorial board member, in a process we call ‘editorial triage’.

In today's Peer Review Week 2019 daily blog we discuss responding to minor comments received from a journal.