All right. So in this next module, I'm going to be
giving an overview of the submission process.
After this module, there are three modules that follow that are me interviewing long
time journal editors, and they're going to tell you a lot more about the publication
process. So I'm just kind, sort of setting it up,
and then listen to them for more advice and tips.
So how does this admission process work? So, the very first step.
You need to, hopefully, even before you start writing your manuscript,
You need to identify the journal that you're gonna be submitting to.
And that is a, a whole art in itself. You need to spend a lot of time thinking
about what is the appropriate journal. Of course, everybody wants to submit to
the most prestigious journals. But that's not always the right fit for
your article. You have to figure out, really, who is the
audience that's going to care about my data, and it may not be the most
prestigious journal, it may be a more mixed journal where that audience really
does care. You've got something really significant for a particular audience.
So spend, some time, you know, especially if your junior talk with, some more senior
people, about what journal is really the appropriate journal for your submission.
You want aim high, but you know, be realistic about where, your paper belongs,
and you wanna. Identify that journal pretty early on in
the writing process. Because every journal has its own specific
instructions for authors. And you might as well write the journal
from the very beginning, format it, Have everything in the forum that, that
journal wants from the get go. So, that's the first step.
And that's hopefully happening before you write the manuscript.
The second step is to go online to that journal, all journals will have online now
an instructions for authors page, where they give you very detailed tips for how
to write and format the manuscript. How many references are allowed if there's
a limit? How, how should those references be
formatted, how should tables and figures be formatted?
And when I interviewed George Lumberg in an upcoming module he mentions many times
how important it is to follow those instructions.
If an editor sees that you haven't followed them you know, they, they feel
like you didn't really care enough and they question whether or not you know,
You're, you're detail oriented enough in your science, if you can't even follow
instructions for authors in your, your paper admission.
So, so pay attention to that, write. Be again, find those instructions before
you write and format the paper, so that you can do all that from the get-go.
Then once you've written your paper and you've had all of your authors read it and
edit it and you've got a final version. If you are the corresponding author then
you're going to be the one submitting the manuscript online.
So that usually the corresponding author's either the first author.
You know, again, often a graduate student who did the ground work and wrote up the
draft of the paper, Or sometimes the senior author will be the
corresponding author. But assuming that you're the corresponding
author then you're gonna be the one going through and submitting your manuscript
online. And it is it is so great nowadays.
It's that all of the journals have online submission systems.
Because way back when, when I was in graduate school it was the, it was pre the
era of online submission, and we still had to go and copy the papers, you had to make
multiple copies of your papers, put them in an envelope, send them in snail mail.
Months later you'd get a letter back in snail mail.
It was just a much less efficient process. So being able to submit the manuscript
online is just, it's just huge. So you go online, there's a series of
steps that the systems will walk you through Leave a couple of hours,
And usually it takes a couple of hours to enter all the information.
So leave yourself a couple of hours. Though that's all done online the one
thing that's not usually done online is again,
All the authors must fill out the specific forms that each journal has.
So usually that's done offline, And again, you need to leave some time if
you've got multiple authors for collecting those signatures.
You may need to follow up with authors and make sure that they get those forms in.
Alright so you've submitted your manuscript.
Now what happens? So the next thing that happens is within,
Sometimes you'll hear back in a week. Sometimes it might be, you know, as much
as two months. But you're going to get a letter back from
the editor of the journal. And there's generally one of four
categories your paper has going, Is going to have been put in.
You might get the paper accepted outright with no changes.
Well, that hardly ever happens, as you'll hear when I talk to the journal editors in
the upcoming modules. And so that's a very weird case.
That's usually only going to happen when the paper was something that an editor
solicited ahead of time. So, when you're just sending in a
manuscript cold, it's very unlikely that it's just gonna get accepted outright.
There's another category, accepted pending minor revisions.
That one also doesn't happen that often. I've had several letters to the editor
accepted with just minor revisions. But that's, again, a different kind of
paper. For original research manuscripts.
It's not usually the case that the editor's going to accept it right away
with only minor revisions. So papers that are eventually published in
journals usually go through this third category.
So almost all the papers that you see in print will actually have been rejected at
first, But would have been allowed the
opportunity for resubmission. So there's a, there's, revise and resubmit
category that all journals have. And when you get the letter back, telling
you that you, your paper's been put in this category especially if you're a first
time author you will go, oh my gosh, it sounds terrible.
You feel like you've been rejected because it says you've been rejected.
But you have to read the fine print because if you are allowed re-submission,
if they're inviting you to revise and resubmit your paper, that's actually a
positive outcome. So the very first you know, paper I ever
submitted I got this letter back in the, you know, again in the snail mail, They
said the paper, you know, was rejected. And I was, like, oh, you know, I guess my
paper was rejected. But I showed the letter to somebody more
senior, and they said, no, no, no, no, no. This is actually a good outcome.
Because if you read further in the letter, it says that they are, would allow you to
revise and resubmit. So that means that they actually think
that the paper will be publishable or is likely to be publishable down the road.
If you can address the concerns of the reviewers.
And again, most papers that end up in the published literature have gone through
this step. That is, they have gone through at least
one round of revision and resubmission. Journal editors want you to have to go
through a round of revision to make sure that the paper has been thoroughly vetted,
And that the paper is as good as it can be.
So, so, that's really what you're aiming for when you submit an original research
manuscript. You're aiming for that reject but resubmit
category so, it, it sounds a little negative, but in fact, it's actually a
pretty positive category, and we'll talk more about, that process of resubmission
in a minute. And, then, the final category is, you may
get an outright rejection, and they say that, you know, they give you no
opportunity to resubmit. And, of course, this is the category that
you don't want to be in. But sometimes the rejection has really
nothing to do with the paper itself. You might get a rejection very quickly
from an editor who just simply realizes that the paper is not a good fit for their
journal. So don't feel bad about that.
That just means you targeted the wrong journal.
And you're just gonna turn around and sent it to a more appropriate journal.
So that will happen sometimes. That the editor won't even send it out for
review. They'll just kind of look at it and say,
you know what? This isn't significant enough, for our
journal. Or, you know, for a wide enough audience
that our journal targets. Or it's not the, you know, it's not a good
fit because of who, who our audience. Is.
So that means you just you've you haven't sent it to the right journal.
So be thankful that they just sent it back without sending it for review.
You have an opportunity to send it elsewhere.
So that's one possibility. You also might have a paper that is sent
out for review. It's vetted by a number of reviewers, and
the editor looks at the critiques of the reviewers and decides that, there's too
many major problems with the paper, that it's not gonna be, it's not likely to be
acceptable after revision. And they will send you back those
critiques, and say, sorry, you know, we're, we can't, publish it, and they
don't offer you the resubmission. So, that happens.
Again, don't feel too badly about it, because there's always, you know, there's
lots of reasons that papers get, rejected. That means that you're going to have to
turn it around and, send it elsewhere. The thing to keep in mind is you will be
tempted to just send it as is elseewhere. That is you will be tempted, you are gonna
get the viewers comments back with that review.
And you're going to be tempted to ignore those viewers comments, and just say I'm
going to send the paper as it is with no work somewhere else.
Don't do that. Make sure that you read through those
reviewers' comments, Even though you don't have to respond to
them. You read through them and figure out the
problems in your paper and revise it before you send it somewhere else.
Because likely if you send some where else the same problems are gonna pop up again.
So use that as an opportunity to make the paper better and increase your chances of
getting it published elsewhere. All right, that revision and resubmission
step. I'm going to talk about this in great
detail in a minute, but basically you're gonna have to resubmit with a detailed
letter that addresses the reviewers' critiques point by point, where you
address every single critique the reviewers have brought up.
So this is where you have the opportunity to get the paper published down the road.
You make sure that you address each of those reviewers critiques in great detail.
That doesn't mean you have to make all the changes they request, but you need to, if
you don't make a change that they requested, you need to say, say why you
didn't make that change. If you get to revise and resubmit, it is
not guaranteed that, that paper is going to get published in that journal.
So you really need to make sure that you adequately address those reviewers
critiques if you want to eventually get published in that journal.
I have seen papers go back also for multiple rounds of revision and
re-submission. So just realize that you might do one
round of revisions and that may not be adequate.
You may have to do yet another round and I've seen papers go for as many as four
rounds of revision and re-submission. So try to address all the reviewers'
critiques as best you can early on so it doesn't have to go through too many rounds
like that. And then hopefully your paper will get
accepted. Congratulations once it's accepted.
The last step that you'll have to do is before the paper is published the, the,
The journal will put together a final proof.
They're going to format the paper in the journal style, they're going to put the
tables and figures in the journal style, they're going to send you some final
proofs. Make sure you look at those carefully
because it is almost always the case that some all errors get introduced in that
formatting and layout process. And you want to catch those.
You don't want things published that are incorrect.
I've also caught, just silly mistakes, in the proofs, and, and managed to catch them
before they went to publication. So, make sure you review those proofs very
carefully. Alright, that reject but re-submission
category. Again, it, it, it feels pretty bad when
you get that letter. But, you gotta remind yourself that this
is a good outcome. This is the outcome you're actually
shooting for with the first submission of the paper.
So, it will say something like, your manuscript is not acceptable for
publication. It's very negative. But if you keep reading, it'll say
something like, however, if you feel that you considerably addressed the reviewers'
comments then I invite you to revise and resubmit your manuscript.
So again, that's a positive. That means that they're interested in the
paper and all you've got to do is you've got to address the reviewer's concerns.
But that means that the editor thinks that you've, your paper can be publishable if
you do address those concerns. So take that as a positive.
And then you're going to prepare that detailed response to the reviewers.
So you know, be polite a, a, again You know the review process is meant to make
your paper better. And ultimately, it usually does.
So you know, we appreciate your helpful comments, be polite, and those of the
reviewers, thank the reviewers, we feel that the manuscript is now greatly
improved, When you first, get that set of criticism from the reviewers, it won't be
your first, instinct, to be polite, and, courteous and thank them.
Usually, most of us respond to criticisms, defensively, so it's, it's everybodies,
sort of natural instinct, to when you get a bunch of criticisms about your paper to
get defensive, it's natural. We will, we all do it.
So you know, on a first draft of your response to your reviewers.
You, you know, you might find yourself writing, well, the reviewers just don't
know the literature. You know, and, and being too defensive and
your tone being too negative. So make sure that you go back and
increase, you know make that tone more positive.
The reviewers are volunteering their time. They are trying to help you make your
paper better. And ultimately they usually do make your
pape, paper better. And it's interesting because you know,
sometimes the reviewers are off the mark. That is, they don't quite identify the
flaw in your paper correctly. They'll get it wrong.
But what's really interesting is, even when they get it wrong, they usually
identify some other flaw. It leads to you figuring out that there's
a different flaw. So, for example, they might think you did
your analysis wrong. But it's not that you did your analysis
wrong. It's just that you explained it, poorly.
You, you weren't clear in your writing. So you figure out where the problem is in
your manuscript even if the reviewers didn't pinpoint the right problem.
By them raising an issue it usual leads to you finding something that was wrong in
the paper and that needs to be fixed. So just realize that. We had a situation
where we'd screwed up on the numbering some references, and the way that was
found is that one of the reviewers was talking about the literature in the area
and, and that reviewer was wrong. they had the literature mixed up.
And I was, you know, my temptation went, first was to say, well, this, you know,
this reviewer just doesn't know the literature.
Clearly, they're you know, they're, ignorant.
You know, of course that was my first instinct.
But as I looked carefully, what I realized is that the reason that they were quoting
the literature wrong was because we had numbered our references incorrectly.
And they were using our numberings they, they were find you know, inferring.
Okay, they were talking about the references as we had numbered them. And so
we pointed out that we had misnumbered our references. So, even though they didn't
get the, They, they didn't identify the actual
mistake we had. It led to me finding that mistake and tha,
thankfully fixing that before it went into publication.
And you're going to address each comment point by point with numbers.
So it will say like review one said there is little discussion of x.
So you respond very specifically. We agree with reviewers one and maybe also
two that the section on x was too abbreviated.
Therefore we added a paragraph that highlighted this and you point out the
specific paragraph. So you're going to address every comment
very specifically. If it's a small thing that the reviewer's
asking you to change, go ahead and change it.
If it's something you really don't want to change that you really disagree and you
think the reviewer's got it wrong. Again, reviewers often get things wrong,
But, explain to the reviewer why you're not making that change.
Explain to them why you've decided not to take their recommendation and explain that
carefully to them. So, you don't have to make every change
they request, but you do have to explain why you're not making a change if you
choose not to. Could you comment on X?
Well, we've added a sentence to paragraph nine.
Be very specific about where it is in the methods and materials section.
That comments on next to it. So every single comment that they've
brought up, you've got to respond to it directly,
Either where you made the change or why you didn't make the change.
And most journals also want you to include a copy of the paper where the change is
tracked. This is really helpful for editors and
reviewers so that they can go back and see exactly where you made those changes,
Cuz they like to verify. I like to verify when I'm re reviewing a
paper that the changes that I asked for and that the authors say they've made,
that those were actually made. And I like to see those so highlighted
with changes tracked is very helpful and usually is required by most journal
journals. And then finally as I was preparing these
lectures I was looking at this book Guidebook to Better Medical Writing and he
said something in, in, interesting in it. And, you know, he didn't have any citation
for this, so I'm not really sure where the statistic came from, but it really
resonates with me, so, he says about 60% of reviewers' criticisms pertain to the
quality of the writing or, the tables and graphs, and only about 40% pertain to the
quality of the scientific work, and, you know, so again, the importance of the
writing and presentation of the data is really huge in the publication process.
And this really resonates with me, again, I don't know where he got those numbers
from but I would say that it's very, it's true for me that probably more than half
of the time, the comments that I'm making do have to do with problems with the
writing and problems with the data presentation as opposed to any real
methodological problems in the scientific work.
So again, if you want to get published, the good writing and the good data
presentation can really help you. The preceding program is copyrighted by
the board of trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
Please visit us at, med.stanford.edu.