Publishers Roulette : How to Beat the Odds
By Christopher Edwards
Abstract
Scientists who want to improve their publication records should consider reevaluating how and where to submit their articles. Developing a publishing strategy may help them to publish more quickly and reduce the number of negative reviews. Here are some steps that can help scientists to clarify their goals, learn from previous reviews, and more effectively convince editors to publish their work.
Successfully publishing your work is far more complex than simply writing up your results and sending the article to your favorite journal. Competition at the top journals is extremely intense, and journals alter their editorial interests in subtle ways as their fields evolve. Your work has undoubtedly changed direction over the years, and you may now want to reach scientists in subfields that are different than your own. For example, you may have started your career by pursuing clinical research, but your work now deserves the attention of basic researchers as well. It may be time to review whether your interests and the interests of the journals where you usually submit articles have diverged.
Should you be publishing in the larger journals with more interdisciplinary focus, or do you want to maximize the impact of your work among a small group of peers? If you aim for the larger journals, such as Cell, NEJM, Nature, or Science, are you willing to risk a greater likelihood of rejection when compared with the journals in your subfield? If your interests are changing direction, the risk might be worth taking. On the other hand, if your paper is very time-sensitive, you could avoid months of waiting for potential rejection by simply sending it to a small, lower-risk publication. It is important to weigh these trade- offs. When you write your next article, examine the abstract objectively and ask yourself what types of researchers in what fields would be most interested in it. Then list the most relevant journals in each of these fields. You might discover that your articles should be targeted to new publications that you don’t even read on a regular basis. On the other hand, you may discern ways to write your articles to reach readers at your usual journals more effectively.
Besides examining the fit between your articles and potential journals, try scrutinizing reviewers’ comments from papers submitted earlier in your career. If you can dispassionately analyze these comments and look for patterns, you may learn a good deal about reader expectations, stylistic problems, or gaps in your approach to writing articles. Carefully note when your reviewers fail to appreciate the novelty of your results or its full significance. Their comments may accurately reflect your field’s evaluation of the quality of your work; on the other hand, the reviewers may not appreciate your results because you don’t fully spell out their significance within the context of your field. You may be underplaying your results for various reasons - including lack of self-confidence, cultural assumptions about direct communication, or because you have simply overlooked the importance of placing your work in context.
You may find, in contrast, that reviewers believe your articles inflate the significance of your work. If the reviewers seem annoyed, they may have perceived arrogance or might have interpreted your broad claims as being deceptive. If they are wrong, perhaps you are not backing up your generalizations sufficiently. (If they are right, you know what to do.) Also, different types of reviewers may hold different criteria for judging your paper, depending on their own biases. For example, empirically oriented biologists will look for different types of details than their more theoretical counterparts. Sometimes simply adding small explanatory sentences can bridge the gap between these two types of reviewers. If the gap between some reviewers’ expectations and yours is consistently large, it may reflect a general orientation of the journal or the editors who choose the reviewers. In that case, consider publishing in a different journal.
Understand your editors and the editorial process at each journal where you intend to publish, and pay significant attention to their idiosyncrasies when submitting articles. Some editors tend to rubber stamp their reviewers’ recommendations, while others actively analyze and judge papers with great care. The second type of editor can fight for your paper, send it out to additional reviewers if he disagrees with the initial reviews, or override the reviews. If you start or develop a relationship with this type of editor, you can interact with him and perhaps persuade him of the value of a revised paper instead of a rejection. This kind of editor can be an advocate and can offer good advice about trends at his journal or elsewhere, and he may even edit your paper and suggest ways to quickly improve it.
I always suggest contacting the appropriate editor personally before sending a paper, preferably phoning her before or after emailing an abstract. This helps in several ways. First, it improves the chances that the paper, if submitted, will receive her attention when it arrives and be more promptly reviewed. Second, it builds rapport with the editor throughout the review of this paper and future submissions. It also helps you to quickly pre-screen the paper’s relevance to the journal. If the editor reacts coolly to the paper, you can avoid a lengthy review-and-rejection process and submit it elsewhere. Finally, a call enables you to argue for your paper interactively and answer the editor’s questions immediately. You can use the editor’s responses in reviewing and changing your article, if necessary, before submission.
Before submitting a particularly important article, consider sending it to closely trusted colleagues for a pre-review. They will probably offer advice that will help you determine where to send the article and what changes you need to make before submission. When you finally submit the article, suggest appropriate reviewers and recommend the types of experts who can best judge your paper’s significance.
When you receive a negative review, consider that reviewers tend to fall into three categories: insightful, careless, and malicious. Occasionally, you may recognize a reviewer as a spiteful competitor by the syntax and content of the review. However, when responding to the editor you should never regard the reviewer as a competitor. The reviewer is a judge in this role, and the editor (or his board) is the supreme judge. Maligning the reviewer is thus an insult to the editor’s judgment, and it can only hurt you. You should at least feign respect for the reviewer and answer any criticisms objectively. Bear in mind that any response you write to the editor may be fed back to the original reviewers for reconsideration. Rather than arguing against the reviewer in your response to the editor, seek to “clarify” the issues and defend any criticism line-by-line with paraphrase and extra detail.
Whenever you submit or resubmit a paper, note the submission date. Be sure to remind the editor by email if you haven’t heard from him a month or so after the review process has begun. Manuscripts do get lost, editors go on vacation or leave their jobs, and reviewers can be forgetful or tardy. Tracking the submission and reminding the editorial office of it can determine whether you or your competitor is first to publish the results. If a paper is rejected and you believe it is appropriate for the journal, you can tactfully appeal the rejection. At this stage, any personal relationship you have formed with the editor will improve the chances that the editor will reread the manuscript and possibly send it out for another review.
Despite your best efforts at writing your paper and sending it to the appropriate journal, your articles occasionally may be rejected. Take heart in knowing that subjective judgment plays a role throughout the review process. Developing your publishing strategy will never eliminate this element, but it can help reduce its negative effects.