Publication is a marathon, not a sprint. Writing the book is only the start.

Jo Linsdell Marketeer (1980–)

1 Through What Stages Does a Paper Pass Before It Is Published?

There is a famous proverb by Sir Francis Bacon, ‘reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man’. The first two are still easy to achieve but for the last, there are many barriers. It is a fact that only 10–30% of science research is published in journals [1]. A first-time publication is associated with fear and excitement for the author but it is the role of his mentor to guide him or her closely and make it an enjoyable experience (Fig. 31.1).

Fig. 31.1
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An overview of the road to publication

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After authors have uploaded their manuscript, there are two processes that are involved. They include:

  1. 1.

    Review process.

  2. 2.

    Production process.

2 What Is the Review Process?

The review process includes manuscript checking by the editors for quality and plagiarism, (discussed in Chap. 26), formatting according to the journal’s style and type of article, which has been covered separately and summarized in Table 31.1 (the details of the peer review process and authorship issues are discussed elsewhere in this volume).

Table 31.1 The structure of the research article
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Registration of clinical trials and protocols in the case of systematic reviews are now required by many journals. This can be done through the Clinical Trial Registry website (http://ctri.nic.in/Clinicaltrials/login.php).

Before publication it is expected that ethical clearance has been obtained from a board, the basic experimental work has been completed and the results are available. You started with an idea or a research question on a topic of interest from, for example, your thesis. Review the relevant literature and think about whether you can produce one or more publications based on this thesis (e.g., one review and one original article). Do not make salami papers, i.e., thinly sliced publications from the same material. It is easy to detect this as they all carry the same hypothesis and the same methodology [2]. Do not procrastinate after the first thought.

A suggested algorithm is given in Fig. 31.2.

Fig. 31.2
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Journey towards the submission of a manuscript

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An alpha reader is someone who will inspire you and give you a genuine and honest option to get onto the next stage of revision. Your alpha reader could be your mentor or any physician who has experience in writing and editing medical papers. A beta reader may be a friend or a family member who can tell you which portions of the paper are weak and which portions are not easily understood. He can opine on the issues that have become invisible to you during your numerous rounds of revisions.

3 What Are the Requirements for a Manuscript at the Time of Submission?

You need to create an account with some basic information on the journal site and keep all this information handy before online submission.

  • Covering letter—A manuscript will be reviewed for possible publication with the understanding that it is being submitted to that particular journal alone at that point in time and has not been published anywhere, simultaneously submitted, or already accepted for publication elsewhere. Include why you chose this particular journal and what is interesting and unique about your paper.

  • Ethics clearance—many journals now ask for this in the case of original articles involving human subjects. Can be submitted separately or referenced within the paper.

  • A file containing the full manuscript needs to be uploaded. Some journals require an XML, HTML or pdf format.

  • File containing tables and clinical photographs.

  • During submission, the contributor is requested to provide the names of two or three qualified reviewers who have had experience in the subject of the submitted manuscript, but this is not mandatory.

  • If it is an animal study, the experiment should be done according to ‘The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving animals’.

  • Information on conflicts of interest.

  • Information on funding.

4 What Happens to the Manuscript After Submission?

The submission of the article should be done to a journal according to its relevance to the topic and subject area and its standing (Impact Factor, Open access, etc.). You should avoid ‘predatory’ journals. A guide on how to choose Journal has been discussed in another chapter (Fig. 31.3).

Fig. 31.3
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Shows the series of events that can happen after submission

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figure a

The Editor is the focal point with whom the reviewer or author interacts. The responsibilities of the Editor, Author and Reviewer are listed below [3]:

Editor

  • Assigns reviewers for manuscripts.

  • Forwards the reviewers’ comments to the corresponding author.

  • Makes the final decision on whether the article should be published.

Author

  • Responds to the reviewers’ and editors’ comments.

  • Corresponds with the editor and co-authors.

Reviewers

  • Accepts the offer to review the assignment.

  • Provides feedback on the manuscript to the editors (Fig. 31.4).

Fig. 31.4
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Direction of workflow

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5 What Is the Role of the Peer Reviewer of a Manuscript?

The details of the peer review process have been discussed elsewhere. The peer reviewer assists the journal by critically reading and analyzing the manuscript and provides an independent evaluation to the editor about the worth of a paper (Table 31.2). Through constructive feedback, he helps the authors to publish their work. The mnemonic REAP REWARDS stands for how to get the maximum benefit from the reviewer’s comments [4].

Table 31.2 Details of peer review process
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6 What Is the Production Process?

This is a series of events that happen after acceptance (Fig. 31.5). These include copy editing, English language editing, galley proofs and proof editing.

Fig. 31.5
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Publisher’s flow chart

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In proof editing the manuscripts accepted for publication are edited by laypersons before publication for the following:

  • Grammar, punctuation.

  • Print style.

  • According to the format of the journal.

  • Page numbering.

  • Running title of the article.

The page proofs are then sent to the corresponding author. The entire process of submission of the manuscript to the final decision and sending and receiving proofs is completed online.

Proof editing is different from content editing in which the article’s scientific content is added or deleted and copy editing in which the sentences are polished.

7 What Is a Copyright Form?

Upon acceptance of an article, the authors will be sent an e-mail to fill a form regarding the copyright agreement. This allows the publishers to reproduce the manuscript for circulation within their institutions. Permission from the publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution (Fig. 31.6).

Fig. 31.6
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Copyright form with permission from Editors CMRP

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8 Why Do Journals Take Such a Long Time to Publish a Paper?

The time to print after submission can be divided into three sections:

  1. 1.

    From submission to peer review.

  2. 2.

    From peer review amendments to the corresponding author’s resubmission.

  3. 3.

    From final acceptance to publishing.

The first two periods are due to the journal processing the manuscript but the second interval is due to the authors. The process of peer review is slow and also involves two independent individuals. Also, journals try to publish articles of common interest first and about what the readers want. They are called ‘fasttrack’ articles. This is decided by the editors and they would, for instance, during the corona pandemic prefer to publish an article on COVID over one on the epidemiology of diabetes. Some journals publish the average time on their website after acceptance [5]. Examples of these are given in Table 31.3.

Table 31.3 Average time taken to publish after acceptance
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In a retrospective study to assess the speed of publication in General Medical Journals a total of 18 journals (whose impact factors ranged from 1.1 to 19.7) and which published 781 papers were studied. It was found that the mean submission to acceptance time was 123 days, acceptance to publication time was 68 days and submission to publication time was 224 days [5]. In another article it was suggested that journals with higher impact factors had longer acceptance and publication times. This could be related to their larger workloads [6].

9 What Is Epub Ahead of Print Mean?

‘Epub ahead of print’ means that the article is being published electronically before it is available in print. Digital Object Identifier (DOI) helps to link the full text and citations for such articles. Very recently a ‘preprint server’ was started by Yale University and The BMJ called ‘MedRxiv’. This service is for academic manuscripts that have not undergone the process of peer review and have not yet been published. The authors can post papers and receive feedback even before journals review and accept or reject them [7].

10 Conclusions

  • There are two main processes involved in publication, i.e., reviewing and production.

  • The review process is long and involves checking for formatting, plagiarism and assessment by peers.

  • Peer review adds value to a paper and maintains the standard of the journal.

  • The production process after a paper is accepted may be lengthy because a paper has to undergo various checks before publication.

  • The acceptance to publication time varies from journal to journal.

  • Copyright forms need to be completed by the authors after acceptance.

  • Epub is printing of a manuscript electronically before its printed version. MedRxiv is a new service for preprints.