Before the journal editor has seen it, before the reviewer has
evaluated it — and way before the first decision to accept or reject is
made — I've read, corrected and sent back your manuscript. And, yes, you
have to make this "laundry list" of editorial changes.
From the "thank you notes" in my inbox, I suspect many of you are not thrilled to receive my constructive criticism.
I
am the Managing Editor of four health science journals, and more than
900 submitted manuscripts a year pass by these eagle eyes. If you've
submitted a manuscript, my co-conspirators and I have picked through
your methods and results, your figures and your references (Oh, the
references!), and we've seen that you've been a naughty researcher (
tsk, tsk). You did
not follow
the author guidelines on the journal's website – you know, the
point-by-point instructions in the Guide for Authors that you
conveniently ignored to save precious time in submitting your
manuscript. The same guidelines the editor, publisher and I
painstakingly wrote in order to make the review and publication process
run smoothly and in turn get your paper published and cited more
quickly.
What's a managing editor to do? I'll tell you what an ME doesn't do, and that's get reprimanded by her editor!
So to save both of us from grief, I present to you the top six reasons I'm returning your manuscript.
In
no particular order – except perhaps the order in which the editor
would have my head if I send through a manuscript with these issues.
1. Your ritten English could use improvement.
"But I did my residency at NYU Medical Center!"
Global
manuscript submissions are on the rise. Great! And they are, for the
most part, written in English. Also great. You speak English, you speak
English well, you speak English well to your English-speaking
colleagues. (And when it comes to science, you're as brainy as it gets.)
However, your written English … mmm, not so great. Speaking and writing
are two different things. Even native speakers could use a second pair
of eyes to proofread their papers. In fact, a proofreader will read this
article
write right after I type it. (Postscript: As you can see, the proofreader did her job.)
If
you're not a native speaker, I would highly recommend you have at least
one colleague look over your work, or consider paying for a language
editing service. (At Elsevier, we have
English Language Editing).
And don't forget to edit your own copy. In a note to an author
recently, one of our editors pointed out that even as a native speaker,
he proofreads his own manuscripts three or four times before submitting
them. Whatever you do, don't make your editor re-write your paper in
frustration.
2. References should not be an afterthought
"But I used EndNote!"
Picture
this. I just received a manuscript and am opening up the PDF file. I'm
already on the edge. I see a few minor changes to be made. Scrolling,
scrolling, scrooooool — Nooooooooo!
About 75 percent of my time is spent reformatting references.
Now
I hear you. Every journal has a different referencing format. You waste
time formatting and reformatting depending on which journal you submit
to – and there's no guarantee your paper will even be accepted.
Should
journals strive to have a more uniform referencing style? Yes! Your
time should be spent more productively on your findings and data.
Fortunately, your colleagues at Elsevier agree with you, so they created
Your Paper, Your Way.
The program is rolling out to more and more journals here. It allows
you to skip those "pesky style guidelines" for the initial submission as
long as the basic article elements are there. Only if your paper is
accepted will you be asked to format it to the journal's style. Elsevier
will even convert the references for you as long as they have all the
necessary information.
Of course, not every journal has this
program, so check with the Guide for Authors, and submit your references
according to specs. You will make your managing editor smile.
3. Your copy is crawling with acronyms
"Everyone knows what STDBUEA stands for!"
Now,
I know that HbA1c is glycated hemoglobin;
you know that HbA1c is glycated hemoglobin;
the editor
knows that HbA1c is glycated hemoglobin. So then everyone else should
know that HbA1c is glycated hemoglobin, right? Not quite. Although we
live in a virtual alphabet soup of technical jargon, not everyone is up
on the lingo. For example, if your paper is published, it will likely be
read by researchers in other disciplines who are unfamiliar with the
abbreviations. The Guide for Authors on the journal's homepage usually
states that you need to define your abbreviations when they are first
introduced in the manuscript, or include an abbreviation list so that
reviewers and eventual readers don't have to scratch their heads trying
to remember that GLP-1 is glucagon-like peptide-1 (yes, I had to look
that one up).
4. Your manuscript is a sea of red
'Voilà, I used the language service."
So
you've written your manuscript or re-written your revision. You've
checked it once, you've checked it twice. You've even sent it to a
proofreader – hooray! But you've left the tracked changes on so we can
see, in red, all the changes you've made. But that's all I can see: RED,
underlined and crossed out all over the page. Comment bubbles, back and
forth from you to the editor to your co-author. The journal should
receive a clean final copy of your submission. For revisions, you are
usually asked to upload your responses to reviewer comments as a
separate document, or highlight the changes in the manuscript in a
manner than does not impede the natural flow of reading of your paper.
5. You "conveniently" embedded figures and tables into the manuscript.
"But, that's how it appears in print"
Yes,
I know. In the printed article, tables and figures appear right
alongside the text they complement – and yes, it would make it easier
for the reviewer to have them right there next to the text. This is
where you have the opportunity to make someone else smile: the
production team. When your manuscript is accepted – kudos by the way –
and I send your files to our production team for copyediting and
typesetting, they will need those files submitted separately. If not,
guess what one of the first production queries will be (right after the
missing Conflict of Interest statement: Number 7 if I did a Top 10
list). This adds extra time to the production process, and we want to
get your paper to the citable stage as quickly as possible. There are
drop-down menus for each submission type conveniently located at the
manuscript upload page. Feel free to use them with wild abandon.
6. The line numbers are lost in translation.
For
one of my journals, we ask authors to insert line numbers, again to
make the review process smoother for our many manuscript-fatigued
reviewers. On some papers coming from nations that use the right to left
formatting on their word processing software, the line numbers somehow
get embedded right through the text of the manuscript. Darned if I can
figure out how to fix that dilemma other than overly exaggerating the
left margins, or copying and pasting the entire manuscript into a new
document. Something in the conversion to a Western format just makes the
line numbers go higgly-piggly, and it drives me batty! If anyone has
any suggestions or remedies, I would greatly appreciate it.
I look forward to receiving your next submission – in the proper format of course.
Source: http://www.elsevier.com/connect/confessions-of-a-managing-editor-or-6-reasons-im-returning-your-manuscript
