Thank you for your participation in Enago’s panel discussion—Behind the Scenes with Editors-in-Chief. We are overwhelmed with the positive response received and we hope you found the session informative. We received some very interesting questions from the participants and following are the responses shared by our experts:
1. Is similarity check playing any role in desk rejection?
Indulging in plagiarism or self-plagiarism which results in high similarity score is a serious ethical breach resulting in rejection of your manuscript. However, one can avoid committing this misconduct by using online plagiarism checker to acknowledge sources even if you are paraphrasing sentences.
2. Are there any academic politics in desk rejection, especially if the authors are not well known in the field yet?
Ideally, there should not be any academic politics involved in desk rejection. However, the results of a recently published article which assessed reviewers’ reaction to the authors’ status, revealed that the more famous and well-known the authors are, the more positive are the reviewers’ comments on their paper. It’s likely that single-blind reviewers could choose papers from top universities. Generally, double-blind peer review is more preferred in order to eliminate such bias in review process.
3. What necessarily constitutes to a major revision vs. minor revision? Does inappropriate image quality or non-representative images constitute a major revision? Provided there is no other comment on the research quality or quantity as such!
In most of the journals, the poor quality of images is not generally a criterion to suggest a major revision/rejection. Generally, if there is a problem with image quality, the authors will be asked to redo it. However, lack of understandability and incompleteness are major issues that could lead to major revisions/rejections. Also, there are software available online which would allow you to check the quality of the figures. One could use the software or manually double-check to improve the images before submission.
4. I need to understand the reason of rejection indicating that the manuscript issue is out of scope or should be more generic to benefit other countries, while similar papers with same scope and unique cases are published by the journal.
An important but subtle distinction between journals is to do with the geography or the international/regional scope. International journal could mean two different things; it could either accept papers from around the world or accept only those papers that have a global application and are relevant on a global scale. For example, European journal publishers may either publish articles only from European countries or articles with relevance to Europe. This is a subtle yet complex distinction and can be the reason why a paper gets rejected for being irrelevant although there are similar papers published by the journal.
5. How would European editors view research on phenomenon happening in China (which may be quite a unique situation and different from what happens in other regions)? Would they consider it to be irrelevant to European development and prefer to reject it, or would consider it to be quite interesting?
If the purpose of the research is to compare and contrast the phenomenon happening in China with that across the world, then the authors need to emphasize that it is an important feature of the article. The authors should provide enough explanation in the introduction and discussion regarding how the study is relevant to Europe. The authors also need to check if the aims and scope of the journal includes the publication of globally relevant articles. Although European journals may be interested in such research, they may not necessarily have the background to understand the projects like the Chinese journals do. In such cases the review process can be longer as the reviewers may not necessarily have enough background or understanding. In such cases, the young principle investigators can be benefited from international collaborations, specially to improve the quality of research.
6. Authors write reduction and removal interchangeably without knowing the significance of both. Interchanging them is a fatal error, for e.g., Chromium removal from a system and reduction in oxidation state have different meaning.
In order to make corrections that do not undermine the results in the article, the author can submit a corrigendum which briefly describes what he/she wants to have corrected or clarified in the article.
7. Do you recommend an external English language editor to correct and improve the language for non-native English authors?
The editors focus on the understandability and clarity of the language in the submitted paper. So, if the author is not confident of writing the manuscript in English, it can be beneficial, especially for early career researchers to have the manuscript edited by professional language editors. It has become increasingly common, also among native English speakers, to use such editing services to ensure that their manuscripts are error-free and meet the high standards of publishing before submission to an impactful journal.
8. 对于中国的硕博士学生来说，有哪些比较好的技巧提高自己写作英文的专业性 (For Chinese master and doctoral students, what are the better skills to improve their professionalism in English writing?
Most prominent international journals only accept articles written in English and have a high benchmark for language accuracy and clarity. Therefore, it is important for non-native speakers of English to seek the help of proficient English editing services to help bring their manuscripts to the desired standard. The authors need to edit the language of the manuscript to include simpler sentence structures by reducing the length of the sentences and regulating vocabulary usage, thus preventing complexity of expression. Many authors also use online writing assistants such as Trinka. It is an AI-powered tool that performs advanced grammar checks and helps authors not only deliver high-quality writing, but also makes them better writers by giving tips on using English grammar correctly.
9. 如何在满足期刊基本要求的情况下，提高论文被接受的概率 (How to improve the probability of your paper being accepted while meeting the basic requirements of the journal)
Publishing research is no easy task, and manuscript rejection is a common occurrence in academic writing. Every researcher faces rejection of their manuscript at some point in their career. Every failure is a stepping stone to success, and researchers can learn from their mistakes to ensure a smooth publication journey for their next manuscript. Up to 90% of the rejections are due to language errors, missing publication readiness, and other issues. Hence, making use of online free tools like Trinka can help avoid such rejections. Indulging in plagiarism or self-plagiarism can result in rejection of your manuscript. However, one can avoid committing this misconduct by using online plagiarism checker to acknowledge sources even if you are paraphrasing sentences. Research papers should be novel and original, and any paper that does not meet this criterion will not be considered for publication. Inflated results are another cause of rejection, and inflation of results is often detected during the peer review process. Authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are error-free and meet the high standards of publishing before submission to an impactful journal.
10. 在写作英文论文的过程中，各位专家学者写作的顺序是怎么样的，有哪些技巧可以对来自中国的硕博士学生有一些很好的借鉴意义 (In the process of writing English papers, what is the order in which experts and scholars write? What skills can be used for reference by master and doctoral students from China?)
You can begin writing once you’ve confirmed that your manuscript falls within the scope of the Journal. Don’t wait until your research is over to start writing. Begin with writing the Methods section followed by Results. These can be written first, as you are doing your experiments and collecting the results. Write Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion sections next, once you have had a chance to analyze your results, have a sense of their impact and have decided on the journal you think best suits the work. Write your Title and Abstract last as these are based on all the other sections. It is advisable to use a reference management tool such as EndNote or Mendeley which can help you with your research by storing and organizing your references, generating citations and bibliographies in the preferred style, and easily converting referencing styles to suit publication requirements.
11. 各位专家学者有没有推荐的书籍和文章对提高个人英文写作能力有一定帮助的介绍 (Do experts and scholars have any recommended books and articles that are helpful for improving personal English writing skills?)
Desk rejection due to poor language is a critical impediment to successful publication in established journals. Authors must ensure that each section of their manuscript has excellent readability and clarity with minimum or no inconsistency. Since English is predominantly used as a knowledge dissemination language by high-impact academic journals, ESL authors often face challenges in writing manuscripts for the global audience. Here are some resources which could help improve your English writing skills:
https://www.enago.com/academy/improve-grammar-resources/
https://www.enago.com/academy/english-language-editing-imperative-non-native-speakers/
One can also check out these webinars which discuss the usage of English language along with accurate grammar, tone, and style requirements:
https://www.enago.com/academy/how-to-effortlessly-translate-academic-manuscripts-in-english/
https://www.enago.com/academy/how-to-avoid-rejections-due-to-language-mistakes/
12. Why doesn’t the journal hide the authors’ names in the review stage?
Single-blind peer review is a conventional method of peer review where the authors do not know who the reviewers are. However, the reviewers know who the authors are. Whereas, double-blind peer review, is when neither authors nor reviewers know each other’s name or affiliations. Double-blind peer review provides a false sense of security. Well-known authors can be easily identified by the nature of their work. The paper may also make reference to previous work that they published. This means that, even without the names, reviewers can figure out who wrote a paper. Double-blind peer review may not actually eliminate bias; hence researchers feel that it is better to switch to open peer review.
13. Also, is there a viva or a meeting where we will be asked about the article before it is published?
There will not be a viva or meeting held before the article publication. The originality of articles for publication along with validity and quality of the research work is usually assessed during the peer review process. The process aims to provide written feedback in the form of commentary/criticism to the author, prior to the manuscript’s publication.
14. Dear Editors, it is my pleasure to ask one question concerning desk rejection. It seems sometimes difficult for authors to understand the rejection letters. What is your reflection?
While manuscripts have to go through the peer review process in order to be published, they can be rejected without peer review. For high impact, general science journals, the majority of submitted papers may be rejected in this manner. While this may appear surprising or disturbing, it is essential to understand the underlying reasons and the inevitability of this undesired aspect of the research publication process. Read the review letter objectively. Poor language is the most come reason for manuscript rejection along with formatting issues. Many journal editors reject an article at the initial stage because of factors such as multiple articles on similar lines of topics, etc. Sometimes, rejection may also be due to causes that authors have no control over, such as the ratio of submitted to published manuscripts is large, especially for top-tier journals, the journal receiving two papers dealing with the same topic, peer reviewer quality, constraints regarding resources and time, etc. So, carefully consider the comments you received from the editors and work to improve your manuscript.
15. What are the requirements for systematic review and meta-analysis while submitting for publication?
Since a systematic review uses clearly defined methods to gather all available empirical research and obtain answers to a specific question, it is important to submit a populated PRISMA-P checklist as an additional file for all study protocols. While submitting your manuscript for publication, it is essential to include all declarations such as:
- Ethics approval and consent to participate
- Consent for publication
- Availability of data and materials
- Competing interests
- Funding
- Authors’ contributions
- Acknowledgements
Alternatively, for meta-analysis which is a statistical process of analyzing and combining results from several randomized studies, it is important to submit either a CONSORT checklist or CONSORT Flow Diagram to prove the ethical standards of your research study. Additionally, mention the software used to carry meta-statistics, future directions of your study, funding, consent declarations, etc.
16. Please share some tips for successful meta-analysis
The key to a successful meta-analysis is by following these 10 simple steps:
- Define the research question exactly
- Strategize and conduct a systematic literature review
- Follow study inclusion criteria and sample composition
- Form correct effect sizes and convert them to a common measure
- Choose a meta-analytical method which is directly connected to the research question of the meta-analysis
- Select the write software based on the complexity of the methods used and the dataset
- Formulate the coding sheets as per effect sizes
- Conduct preliminary sensitivity analyses before conducting the primary analysis to ensure the robustness of the meta-analytical findings
- Choose the correct models depending on fixed- or random-effects
- Report the final results
17. Is meta-analysis quantitative in nature?
Meta-analysis is quantitative in nature. It is a formal and epidemiological study design used to systematically assess already conducted research studies and derive conclusions about that body of research. However, it also allows systematic review of qualitative studies in a way that is more interpretive than aggregative in the form of qualitative meta-analysis.
18. How do journals evaluate a review paper to increase its likelihood of acceptance for publication?
Journals evaluate and make a decision for accepting or rejecting a submitted review paper based on the following criteria:
- The submitted article aligns with the aim and scope of the journal
- The aim of the article is well defined
- It should provide a comprehensive foundation on the topic
- Explains the current state of knowledge
- Identifies gaps in existing studies for potential future research
- Highlights the main methodologies and research techniques
- Critical discussions are included
19. How to prove to the journal that your manuscript is plagiarism-free?
It is essential to prove it to the journal that the article you submit to them is plagiarism-free. You can do this by submitting a plagiarism report from a trusted plagiarism checker tool such as Turnitin or Enago Plagiarism Checker.
20. What kind of information is better to display in tables and figures?
The copious amounts of research data can be summarized and presented visually to be read easily with the help of tables and figures. Self-explanatory statistics, quantitative data, or comparative date can be presented using tables. On the other hand, descriptive data of basic concepts, mechanisms and cycles, natural trends, key discoveries, or even conclusions cane be presented in figures for all kinds of researches.
21. How authentic are the e-mails received by the authors from editor- in -chief to submit a manuscript? How do we make sure that they are not predatory journals?
An editor-in-chief can send you an email to submit your paper if they have seen you present its shorter version at a conference or seminar. The best way to find if the journal is predatory or authentic is to check if it is indexed by JCR or/and DOAJ. Searching DOAJ database is quite easy – you just need to enter the journal’s name, ISSN, or the journal’s publisher.
22. How does the editor decide on two contrasting decisions by reviewers about an article? Wherein, one reviewer recommends rejection and the other recommends some amendment, what will be the final decision of the editor?
It is a predicament; however, the decision is totally up to the editor in this case. Since one of the reviewer suggests amendments, the editor would mostly do one of the following: (1) read the paper him/herself and pick a side based on logical and evidence-based contemplation; (2) send the paper to another reviewer to draw a conclusive decision; (3) ask the author to revise the manuscript based on the suggested amendments.
23. Will theoretical analysis or study support the article during publication?
A theoretical analysis or study validates the investigation of the research problem, its methodology, the peculiarities of the described problem, and the initial data impact on derived results. If this information does not align with that mentioned in the research paper submitted for publication, the paper may not be considered authentic due to lack of credibility. Hence, a theoretical analysis or study is imperative during article publication.
24. Is there a word limit per manuscript acceptable to a standard journal? How to maintain the word limit?
Every journal may set a different word limit for each kind of paper. However, most accept review papers with a minimum length of 3000 words and a maximum length of 6,000 words (the word count limit includes title, abstract, tables, figures, and references list). While writing a publication-ready review paper ensure the follow these tips:
- Read the journal’s aims and scope
- Define the scope of your paper
- Do a thorough literature review and evaluate the sources
- Make an impression with a compelling title, abstract and keywords
- Introduce the topic effectively
- Include critical discussion
- Summarize well in your conclusion
- Mention potential for future research
- Reduce the word count without losing the context of your article
- Use active voices and write shorter sentences
25. How to choose a suitable journal to increase acceptance?
Most rejections happen because of the dissimilarities between the scope of the journal and that of the manuscript. To choose the right journal an increase your chances of publication, you must ensure that your paper aligns with the discipline of your target journal. List the journals based on subjects and audience. Ensure that factors such as impact, publication time, peer review process, and ethical publishing are also met considered. Read the “Guidelines to Authors” and only then begin writing your paper.
26. In some journals, the guideline of author suggested no. of words as 5000, how to structure your articles in such cases? How many words should be in the introduction, backgrounds? methods? results and discussion?
Most journals give an estimate range of word count for each section of a manuscript. However, in some cases if they have only given the total acceptable word count, you can decide to divide your research data in the elements without missing out on important information. For instance, if the total word count is 5000, you can follow this segregation:
- Abstract: 250-300 words
- Introduction and Background: 500-600 words
- Objectives: 250-300 words
- Methodology: 800-1000 words
- Results and Discussion: 600-800 words
- Key Observations: 300-400 words
- Conclusion: 200-300 words
- Future Prospects: 200-300 words
27. Why does reviewing a paper submitted in a reputed journal take almost 1 year? That too, just to reject the paper.
Submission of a manuscript to a reputed journal does not indicate faster reviewing. Editors need to find accurate subject matter experts to review manuscripts. With the dearth of reviewers, finding the right reviewer for the manuscript could take a much longer time. However, the journal should be transparent and provide a detailed timeline to the author. This could help the author take a decision whether to await a decision or look for another journal.
28. 尽管同行评审通常是盲目的，但评审专业人员属于学术界的事实与属于另一个部门的人不同，即使两者属于同一知识领域。为一篇文章选择审稿人的可行性如何？(Although peer review is often blind, the fact that a reviewer belongs to academia is not the same as someone who belongs to another department, even if both belong to the same field of knowledge. How feasible is it to select reviewers for an article?)
Some journals ask authors to suggest reviewers. Although this seems like a daunting task, suggesting reviewers could work to your advantage. Do not choose the reviewer randomly. Create a list of relevant people who would be able to provide objective and constructive criticism of your paper. In fact, the reviewers you suggest can sometimes indicate how well you know your field of study. Do not select reviewers who might have conflict of interest with your paper. And finally, it is always better to suggest names recommended by your colleagues or seniors in the field.
29. How long does it usually take to get a response after we upload a revision?
It depends on the revisions. If they were minor revisions, and the editor expresses the availability of reviewer. It should not take more than a few weeks. However, if there were major changes in the manuscript, it may take longer than intended. In any case, you must go through journal publishing guidelines and be aware of who is the point of contact, and whom to communicate with for delayed responses on the progress of the review. Furthermore, you could also check with your peers or authors who have already published in the journal, about the publishing process.
30. What does “reject and encourage submit” or “reject and resubmit” mean? Given this decision, what should authors do?
A “reject and encourage submit” or reject and resubmit is a decision similar to ‘revise and resubmit’. It indicates that the editor sees merit in your study, but does not consider it publishable in the current form. The author needs to make major revisions to the manuscript, like adding new experiments or redoing data analysis, and then resubmit the manuscript to the journal.
31. 如果审稿专家回复的审稿意见不是特别专业，对这篇文章关键问题的理解与作者本意不同，所以审稿专家给出的修改意见也偏离了本篇文章的关键创新之处。那修改稿件时，如何回复与修改呢？(If the review comments replied by the reviewers are not particularly professional, the understanding of the key issues of this article is different from the author’s original intention, so the revision opinions given by the reviewers also deviate from the key innovations of this article. When revising the manuscript, how to reply and revise?)
If the reviewer comments are not aligned with the research study and intend to deviate from the uniqueness and originality of the study. The author must reply to such comments with a thorough literature backing and explain why their suggestions could not be implemented. In academia, it is not encouraged to give and receive unprofessional criticism. It must be avoided at all costs and intimated, if need be, to the editor of the journal, very politely.
32. If the author suggests that some reviewer and his former co-authors can have conflict of interests with him, will the Editor necessarily exclude such reviewers?
If the co-author is involved in the current submitted manuscript, then the editor will have to exclude the reviewers with whom the co-author can have conflict of interests.
33. If the author wishes to suggests some reviewers have conflict of interests with their former author, how should the author write to editors to explain the background?
The author should intimate the editor by mentioning the details of the author’s relation with the former co-author, the co-author’s contribution to the current manuscript submission, and the association between some reviewers of the field and the co-author. This will help the editor get clarity and bring transparency in publishing process.
34. As mentioned during the webinar, bad English, incomplete sentences and lack of article language are elements that lead to rejection of the manuscript. So what should authors do to minimize rejections due to language and grammar errors?
It is an author’s responsibility to submit a manuscript which is ethically sound and grammatically correct. If authors are unsure about their command on language, it is advisable for them to opt for reliable editing services online.
35. What if authors from a non-English speaking background using software such as Trinka and Grammarly for grammar editing purposes? In your experience, can such software replace professional editing by humans since some of us cannot afford the service costs for such proofreading? Thank you.
The idea behind creating such software is to create a sense of reliability and provide professional language editing services. Proofreading and editing services done manually by humans is time consuming and always comes with the risk of human error, while a software is programmed and has minimal risk of human error. Manual editing services cannot be completely replaced by AI-based editing tools – as yet. But these tools are less time consuming as compared to the online editing services. And, an author should choose judiciously.
36. Do you edit the paper writing in French?
No, we do not have online editing services for research papers written in French.
37. What do you advise when an article submitted to a journal is published without acknowledging the author’s name? And what if e-mailed complaints do not receive a reply from the journal?
I must admit, I have never seen an instance were a journal published a paper without any authors and claims ownership of it. Perhaps there is more to this question; maybe that there were authors listed, but one author was left off.
If that author has a legitimate claim to be listed on the authorship of the article, then yes, they should write to the journal.
If a journal does not respond to messages then the author should try to contact the publisher. If there is no publisher, my suggestion for process/hierarchy of people to contact is as follows:
- Managing Editor/Journal manager/admin
- Editor in Chief
- Other senior Editors (if there are any)
- The University / Faculty of the Editor in Chief to try to raise a response from them
If all these routes do not produce any responses, I am not sure what else to suggest (this does happen unfortunately)
38. If the authors have low h-indexes, how likely is it for the article to be accepted in a high IF journal?
The h-indexes of authors should not effect the editorial decisions of submitted papers in any way.
39. My questions concern the editorial policy adopted by some journals, mainly minor journals, which have rules permitting the editor-in-chief to reject a paper after its acceptance, at his or her unquestionable judgment without being obliged to provide explanations to authors.
Now, my questions are:
a. Is this behavior ethical for a journal, especially a scientific journal?
If the phrasing of this policy is that the editor can reject for no reason, then that would be unethical. If the paper has been deemed acceptable by the processes and people put in place at the journal to determine this, then that should ideally be the decision that matters. If a paper has to be rejected after acceptance, there should be a good reason for this.
b. Should such rules be considered, since they infringe the social contract between the editor and the author, who usually undertakes not to submit the manuscript to other journals during the peer-review process?
Perhaps the editor in chief of this journal only checks papers for inclusion in the journal after acceptance. There may be some papers that they do not want to include, as being outside the aims and scope they want to achieve. This would not be an ideal workflow, but might be a reason why they have this policy. However, ideally those rejections should still come with a reason, and the acceptance letter should still say that acceptance is subject to final Editor approval.
I am not sure how this relates to authors not submitting to multiple journals at once; these seem separate issues.
c. How the presence of such rules can be compatible with the reader’s rights to be informed since the editor-in-chief exclusively decides what is eligible for publication without taking into consideration the evaluations of the journal’s staff (Handling editors, Specialty editors etc….)?
The fact this is in their policies at least makes it a transparent process, albeit not ideal and of dubious ethical standards.
40. I know you have already addressed this issue yet I request your guidance on how can authors who are new to the research area publish in journals. Usually it gets rejected.
This is a very big question – there are plenty of guidance available about structuring research projects, developing research questions, creating a methodology appropriate to ansewrign the research questions, conducting research, and then author guides on writing articles.
41. Some authors hesitate to share the simulation code and unfortunately, the simulation results cannot be reproduced, which is an indication of inaccurate results. Why can’t the sharing of simulation code become mandatory? Why can’t it be shared with the public?
It is understandable that some readers and the wider research community could be frustrated with an author who might not be willing to share their simulation code. This is usually because the author wants to maintain sole authorship of the code for proprietary purposes or perhaps it might be due to legal restrictions placed on the author due to institutional policies or funding agencies.
An interested reader might contact the author to inquire further about their policies related to sharing code, for example, even if the author is not willing to share the final code, they might be willing to share an earlier version or some smaller segments of the code. Also, some projects have been open-source for years or even decades (I am thinking specifically about N-body simulations in astronomy, the original code of which was developed in the 1960s, but it is still an active, ongoing research field with freely-shareable open-source simulation code), and if you are interested in pursuing this route, it is best to do some research before devoting a large amount of time and effort to a potentially closed-source or proprietary project.
42. What if the number of participants for testing the association of two independent variables did not meet the required sample size? Does this mean it will be rejected? Or, should that specific part of the objective be deleted?
Of course, having a larger sample size in most scientific studies can generally provide more conclusive results, but in terms of statistics, establishing a correlation or association between two variables does not necessarily require a large sample size. Larger sample sizes generally provide a better quantification of error or higher level of significance. However, even if the sample size is not as large as what is required by the statistical limits desired, the researcher can still draw some conclusions from the study. In addition, it is always best to be as transparent as possible when reporting scientific results, even when the results are not what the researcher expects.
43. How to deal with an author who has a lot of proven data manipulation such as manipulated figures in the author’s articles? Do journals have any tool to detect such manipulations?
This is a very complicated issue, and there is not necessarily a simple solution. Many journals apply plagiarism software to all incoming articles, and a common threshold for rejection is 20%, that is if the software indicates that 20% of the text is somehow plagiarized, it is automatically rejected. Cases of manipulated data and/or figures would probably be investigated by a researcher’s university or institute, the journal that published the original article, or the professional society supervising the author’s work.
To my knowledge, investigations of fabricated or manipulated data are quite rare compared to the overall number of scientific articles published. For example, some colleagues have told me in the past that, at least in the field of astronomy, on the order of tens of thousands of scientific research articles are published per year, but cases of possible investigated fraud are on the order of tens per year.
44. What if the paper’s findings don’t go in line with the public belief or is contradicting the general belief? Will you retract the paper in this case?? (an example paper is scientific mentorship paper)
This is likewise a complicated issue and, I would suggest, depend on the specific circumstances involved. Generally speaking, a researcher should report results and conclusions in the most honest, objective way possible. If the conclusions contradict the general belief in some field, the researcher should point this out and justify their reasons why such research results support a contradictory conclusion. As long as no fraudulent activity was associated with the article, there is not really a reason to retract an article, or if further analysis or evidence casts doubt on the conclusion of the article, the author might publish a retraction in the future honestly stating the reason for the retraction. However, I think this is quite a rare occurrence, and more common is for the author to publish an “erratum” stating there was some minor error in the original article, but the general conclusion of the article is still valid.
