Once your paper has been through the first round of reviews and the revised article has been resubmitted, what exactly do journals do with your paper?
Read on and see that beyond the scientific experts that oversee peer review, policy specialists must also confirm the manuscript for a journal to put their “stamp of approval” on your study. | | |
“There are two kinds of people, those who finish what they start and so on.” - Robert Byrne |
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Revised Submission Received |
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Before the revised paper returns to the editor for further review, a second technical check is performed on the manuscript to ensure that journal requests in the decision letter have been addressed. These checks confirm that the paper adheres to metadata and reporting standards. | | | | | |
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Preliminary Acceptance |
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Once the editor submits an Accept decision certifying that the article is suitable for publication from a scientific perspective, formatting changes and any outstanding journal requests are resolved in a third and final technical check. Only when all requests in the preliminary acceptance letter are resolved can a paper proceed to publication. | | | | | |
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Formal Acceptance and Publication |
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Journals send a formal acceptance letter to confirm that the paper is being passed from the editorial team to be typeset and transformed into a standardized publication. It’s best to double and triple check a manuscript prior to formal acceptance, as late changes can cause unfortunate delays. | | | | | |
What exactly is a technical check? | | |
While editors are responsible for checking scientific content, journal requirements and standards must be followed for a paper to be published. Accordingly, all elements surrounding the scientific content are systematically checked by journal staff during the publication process, from figure legibility to data access and ethical approval.
Technical checks work in conjunction with peer review to confirm that both the metadata and presented scientific discovery are appropriate for publication. | | | |
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What’s next?
Keep an eye out for our next issue, on how to identify and select the best journal for your needs. |
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