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Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, Vol. 48, Issue 1, 2002 pp. 42-45 Editors and the Editorial Process Address for Correspondence: Peush Sahni, Associate Editor, The National Medical Journal of India All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi - 110 029, India. E-mail: peush_sahni@hotmail.com Code Number: jp02013 "Editors are arrogant, egoistic people who have little knowledge on subjects which they sit in judgement on". Indeed, a common refrain from prospective authors, who often feel that the editor is a demon whose sole purpose is to reject an article. An insight into what goes on inside an editorial office and in the minds of editors, I hope will help prospective authors and peer reviewers not only get a grip on `what happens' but also how they could help the `right thing happen'.
Types of Journals Broadly, there are two types of journals—those that are peer reviewed and those that are not. The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME; www.wame.org) defines a peer reviewed journal as one which sends most of its submitted manuscripts to reviewers outside the editorial office. Compared to journals which are not peer-reviewed, editors of peer-reviewed journals have the additional task of organising a peer-review system. Journals which are not peer-reviewed are often small, specialty journals in developing countries with limited resources. Most such journals would also have a system for evaluation of submitted manuscripts, though it would involve only the editors and `advisors' of the journal.
What do Editors do? The editor has a mutli-faceted role. Based on the journal's broad aims the editor needs to decide the overall content of the journal, ensure that it adheres to publication schedules, communicate with the editorial board members (if there is a board), keep prospective authors informed about the status of their articles, select appropriate peer reviewers for an article, commission articles and in the case of small journals, even look after the printing and distribution of the journal. WAME has outlined the responsibilities of editors into 4 broad categories (www.wame.org). These are:
While the above statements encompass the best editorial practices and all editors should strive to achieve these, the extent of implementation of these practices would depend on the resources available to the journal and the scenario in which the editors work. The editorial processes in most journals work towards achieving these objectives.
The Editorial Process At the core of a journal is its editorial process and editors of all journals have the responsibility to run this process in a transparent and fair manner, decreasing bias to the minimum possible. Depending upon the type of the journal, its editorial process may vary. However, the broad outlines remain more or less the same. The editorial process is based on the content of the journal and its policies. These policies are directed towards the constituents of the journal: the authors, readers, and peer reviewers. The editorial team of a journal starts defining its policies much before receiving its first manuscript. These address issues such as the content of the journal, whether it would be peer-reviewed or not, the peer-review process, framing instructions for potential contributors, guidelines for advertisements, etc. The content would broadly relate to two areas: the types of articles (original research, reviews, case reports, etc.) and the subject matter. Specialty journals would publish articles related to the specialty, however, the focus of interest would still need to be defined. The task is difficult for the more broad-based general medical journals. A reader as well as a prospective author should be aware of the policies of the journal, as these would influence their decision to subscribe to or submit articles for publications. Most journals would declare these policies in their information to contributors as well as in the material they would send to potential subscribers. Besides these broad policies, journals would also state the nitty-gritty of submission of a manuscript for publication. Most journals today require a declaration signed by all authors which would contain the following:
It is necessary to comply with these requirements so as avoid a lengthy process of correspondence between the editorial office and the authors. With the wide availability of electronic mail in most parts of the world, an increasing number of journals are now accepting electronic submissions. The electronic formats in which manuscripts are required to be submitted are usually stated and these need to be adhered to, not because editors are fussy people but to allow the process to be smooth and helpful. Another aspect, which needs to be kept in mind, is the number of copies of manuscripts that are required by a journal. This depends upon the kind of evaluation process that a journal follows. A journal that is not peer-reviewed might ask for a single copy while a peer-reviewed journal, which sends manuscripts to three peer- reviewers, might require 4-5 copies of the article to be submitted. Journals often state that they would like articles to be submitted in accordance with the "Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals" as laid down by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org). A careful look at these prior to submission would ensure that very little changes would be required while submitting the article to another journal, which also accepts manuscripts in this format. In fact, these requirements were drawn up by editors of a few leading journals with the sole purpose of eliminating the need for authors to have their manuscripts re-typed at the time of submission to a different journal. However, each journal has its own idiosyncrasies (beyond the "Uniform requirements") which authors might need to conform to at the time of submitting their manuscript. Most journals which have requirements beyond the uniform requirements would take it upon themselves to make any changes that the author may not have made. It is important to be aware that most of the instructions that journals provide their prospective authors allow for a simply, easy and `quick' decision to be taken on the article submitted for publication.
Decision-making This begins with the receipt of the article in the journal office. Every journal has an evaluation process irrespective of whether it is peer-reviewed or not. Articles which do not `fit' into the journals policy on content obviously go no further than the editorial office. The rest would go through some process of screening. Some of the questions that go through editors' minds while reading an article are: Is it original? Is it of relevance to the readers of the journal? Is it valuable confirmation of some previously known facts? Is it scientifically correct?, etc. Having answered these questions articles which seem to be suitable would be sent to peer-reviewers (if the journal is peer-reviewed) or would be looked at by members of the editorial team with a special interest in the subject (non peer-reviewed journal). In most cases, the peers' opinion would influence the editors' decision. However, journals which receive a large number of articles often have constraints of space. This would also play a major role in the ultimate decision to publish or not. Often, editors would require authors to add or remove pieces of information considered important or irrelevant. Also, based on the reviewers' opinion, editors may ask authors to respond to a set of comments. The receipt of a letter asking for an article to be revised or comments to be answered should not make an author presume that the article is accepted for publication. It is not necessary for an author to agree with all or any of the comments raised by the editors. However, it is imperative that authors respond to all the comments and provide a reason for their positive or negative response to the comment. Among the most frustrating things for an editorial office is to receive a revised manuscript with no explanations. It is even more frustrating to find that the original and the revised manuscript actually have no difference and none of the comments have been answered. A satisfactory set of explanations and replies to the comments sent by the editor helps expedite the final decision making process.
The Accepted Manuscript The acceptance of a manuscript for publication is followed by the actual process of editing the article to bring it in line with the style and format of the journal. While most editors would require that they be given a free-hand in editing a manuscript, any changes made must be conveyed to the author. An author has the right to disagree with the changes made especially if they tend to alter the interpretation of the information. This process should result in an article which is easy to understand. Following this, the editorial office would pass the article on to the publishing section (small journals rarely have such facilities) which would then do a final layout and design of the pages, the placement of the tables and illustrations. This would result in the first set of proofs which most journals would send to authors to correct. These need to be read carefully and returned within the required time frame. As is quite evident from the above description, the editorial process requires a transparent `process of negotiations' between the editors and the authors of an article on one hand and the editors and peer reviewers on the other. The purpose of this `process of negotiation' is to present to the readers of the journal an easy to understand and scientifically correct article.
Ethical Issues There are a number of ethical issues which editors encounter. Editors have been aware of some of these for a long time including redundant publication, salami, plagiarism and fraud. In more recent times, issues relating to confidentiality (study subjects, authors, reviewers and editors), conflict of interest (academic or financial; authors, reviewers and editors), pharmaceutical advertisements and research ethics have come to the fore. There are also a number of issues which relate to authorship. These have been dealt with in the previous articles in this Journal.1,2 While editors have a responsibility towards detecting and exposing such unethical practices, authors have a responsibility to be aware of these practices and to avoid indulging in them.
Redundant publication Publishing the same data twice with minimal or no alterations in different journals is redundant. It only serves to bloat a curriculum vitae. However, detection of duplicate publication may result in a loss of credibility among peers. There are exceptions where such duplicate publication may not be redundant. These have been called `secondary publications' by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org) and include `publication in the same or another language, especially in other countries…' However, it is necessary to be transparent and inform all concerned at the time of submitting the article. Permission to re-publish the paper must be obtained from the editor(s) of the journal where the article was previously published, the editor(s) of the journal who would be re-publishing the paper must be informed that the paper was previously published in another journal, the original article and the re-published article must remain the same and the re-published article must clearly inform the readers of the original citation of the published paper. Essentially, the process should be transparent.
Salami The deliberate attempt to split up the research findings of a single study in to multiple articles is frowned upon. This is not only unethical but may also give readers an incorrect impression of the results of the study. Occasionally, a single study may produce two important messages that might be of interest to two different sets of readers. This might be used by authors as an explanation for publishing two articles from the same set of data. If this is felt to be necessary, the authors should again be transparent. They should inform the editors of both the journals where the articles are submitted about their intentions and also submit copies of both the articles to the editors. This allows editors to take an independent decision on the validity of the authors' argument and keeps the process transparent.
Plagiarism Stealing from previously published work is a serious offence. If such misconduct is detected most journals would take strong action against such author(s). This might include informing their readers of such an occurrence, writing to the institution where the author(s) work and asking for action to be taken, etc. It is not uncommon for an author to respond to a complaint of plagiarism by stating that the paragraph(s) which have been directly copied have the reference of the original article. A verbatim quote must be indicated as such and must be declared to the editors of the journal where the article is submitted. In fact, it is best to obtain permission from the author who is being quoted verbatim as well as from the editors of the journal where the article was published.
Fraud Falsification and fabrication of data is amongst the most serious of scientific misconducts.
Confidentiality The editorial process is a confidential exercise. The author expects the editor and the peer reviewer(s) to keep the contents of the manuscript submitted for publication confidential till such time as the manuscript is published. Even in an open peer review system, the contents of the submitted manuscript need to be kept confidential. The only difference is that the authors are no longer blinded to the peer reviewer. This system has its advantages and has been adopted successfully by a few journals. The correspondence between editors, authors and peer reviewers must also remain confidential except while investigating an alleged redundant/fraudulent publication. While journals have different policies on returning manuscripts not found suitable for publication, it is imperative for editors to ensure that such manuscripts remain confidential and are either destroyed after a stated period of time or returned promptly to the author. Similar policies need to be conveyed to peer reviewers with regards to manuscripts sent to them for review.
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), UK and the Ethics Committee of WAME (www.wame.org) are two groups that provide guidance to editors on ethical issues. Another useful document, Managing Allegations of Scientific Misconduct: A Guidance Document for Editors, is available at the website of the Office of Research Integrity at the US Department of Health and Human Services (http://ori.dhhs.gov/html/publications/guidelines.asp). Editors have been called the `custodians of scientific literature'—an onerous responsibility. In their endeavour to fulfil the multi-faceted role assigned to them, editors expect their constituents (readers, reviewers and authors) to be aware of the current standards in scientific publishing. The editorial process including the peer-review process (in all its avatars) is a means used to fulfil these responsibilities. However, no individual or system is perfect and this is also true of editors and the editorial process.
References
The article is last in the series of articles covering issuse related to medical journal publication. Previous articles were:
This article is also available in full-text from http://www.jpgmonline.com/ © Copyright 2002 - Journal of Postgraduate Medicine |
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