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It's not me, it's you
Tired of medical journals giving
you the runaround? Join one physician's fight to better
the system
Dr Mark Bernstein
I know it's a big job putting out
a medical journal � some publications are receiving
upwards of 100 submissions a day. But it's also a lot
of hard work for the busy clinicians and scientists
writing those manuscripts. If we're to be expected to
continue sharing our research � the result of blood,
sweat and tears and many, many late nights � journals
must make quick reviewing and decisions a much higher
priority.
Given the substantial experience
I've had in biomedical publishing, I've naturally picked
up a few stories along the way. Here are a few personal
examples from the last few years that I'm sure many
of you can relate to.
THE
GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
After a manuscript has been in
the review process for four months, a journal responds
favourably to your article asking for relatively minor
revisions, which you promptly provide. Five months later
(ie, nine months after submission) the paper is rejected
with inadequate explanation.
A high-profile journal 'loses'
a manuscript and after acknowledging the fact but not
apologizing, takes an inordinate length of time to review
and accept it. Another lengthy period follows before
proofs are seen and the article is finally published.
You haven't heard from a journal
after they've had your submission for six months. You
drop them an email courteously requesting an explanation
for the hold-up. You promptly receive a tirade from
the editor who sounds like a schoolmaster berating a
student who has misbehaved. A month later you receive
a short rejection letter.
The reviews of a paper you submitted
finally arrive. In one of them, a reviewer essentially
accuses you � without a scrap of evidence � of lying
about a fact in your article.
You are invited to submit a paper
for a special issue of a journal. After you submit according
to the instructions for authors, you are asked to reformat
all 90 references as they changed the references format
but hadn't posted it on the website yet. You comply
and it takes an extra two hours of your time.
Sadly, all these stories are true,
and there are many more where those came from. I don't
think I'm unique or have just had incredibly bad luck.
The editorial review process at many journals clearly
requires a major overhaul. Claims of high work volumes
and stress in the effort to provide better quality peer-review
is no excuse for delays and lack of respect for the
authors.
A
SIMPLE PLAN
Is there a solution to this ever-growing problem? There
are no guarantees, but after examining the system I
can make a few suggestions to minimize the problems
and perhaps help the process run more smoothly.
All submissions to journals should
be electronic. This shouldn't entail filling out a complicated
template on the internet as is sometimes the case. Email
submissions as word files should be adequate.
Acknowledgement of receipt of
the manuscript could then be done automatically or manually
by return email within a week of receipt.
If the editor feels the manuscript
is obviously inappropriate for his or her journal's
readership then the submitting author should be notified
to save time and allow the author to submit elsewhere.
If the review cannot be done in
a timely manner, the author should get a letter of apology
with the option of withdrawing the submission.
One of the reasons I'm publishing
this commentary in the National Review of Medicine
is that the journals that should publish it never would.
Most reasonable people can survive rejection if a process
is competent, fair and timely. Errors and oversights
can be forgiven. It's unfairness and inconsistency that
people object to, and it's probably contributing to
the number of doctors moving out of academic research
and going into private practice.
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