Revision of a Scientific Manuscript
Once the manuscript is written, the next steps of the publication process include submission and revision of the paper. Before submitting the paper to a journal, decide which journal is of most interest to you. Consider to what extent the goals of the journal are in agreement with the goals of your manuscript. Determine the type of audience the journals reaches and the type of audience that you want to reach. Once these issues have been deliberated, submit your manuscript according to the guidelines set forth by the particular journal.
After the paper has been submitted to a journal, the editorial staff will first examine the content for obvious issues, such as conflict of interest, and determine whether the manuscript is in accordance with their goals. If the manuscript meets their requirements, it will be turned over to peer reviewers who will, anonymously, examine the manuscript more closely to determine if it is worthy of publication or if changes are necessary to improve its quality. Among other things, they will be checking to see if the science is methodologically sound and clinically relevant in order to ensure that the manuscript is of the highest standard. After the review process, the editors will decide if they want to accept the paper as it is or request the authors to resubmit the paper after making the changes suggested by the reviewers. The author, at this point, can accept the offer, decline the offer, or resubmit the manuscript after revising it according to the reviewers’ recommendations. If the author chooses to resubmit the paper after making the requested revisions, he/she must clearly indicate to the editors what changes were made in response to which comments and rewrite all sections that were unclear or incomplete.
Some of the most common reasons why manuscripts are initially rejected include factors such as the manuscript not being compatible with the journal’s goals, the manuscript not adding any new information to its field of study, the science being unethical, the manuscript being poorly written and not in accordance with the guidelines set forth by the journal. If a manuscript passes this initial screening, the reviewers are most likely to reject the paper if the research is of bad quality (methodological flaws, for example) or if the manuscript is written or presented poorly. To avoid such rejection is it important to, first, conduct ethically and methodologically sound research and then to carefully read through the standards set forth by a particular journal of interest. Also, it is important to take into consider the reviewers’ comments because they are a good representation of the target audience. Ignoring their suggestions may not only result in the rejection of your paper, but also make the manuscript incomprehensible for the general public. Because considering their requests makes your manuscript more clear, it is important to take the time to thoroughly address the issues raised by the reviewers. Be sure to outline the changes that were made and state explicitly what steps were taken to accommodate the reviewers’ suggestions.
After years of work to conduct the research and hours spent to write and revise the manuscript, once the paper is finally accepted the author is asked to sign copyright forms and submit an electronic copy that is reread for clarity and accuracy.
Flow Chart of the Review Process (edited image adopted from The Medical Journal Meets the Internet)
