How To Get Your Research Published: Editors' Thoughts

With so many investigators vying to have their papers appear in the scientific community's most prestigious journals, it's no wonder some scientists in pursuit of publication confuse cutting-edge research with work that simply cuts loose. According to Nature associate editor David Lindley, some recently submitted articles that have not graced his journal's pages border on the ridiculous. "There's a lot of perpetual motion machines, refutations of Einstein," he says. "And I've had people write me recently saying you could solve the greenhouse effect--by moving the earth farther away from the sun." He pauses, laughing. "And I thought, `Well, yes, but there seems to be a step missing.'" That paper wasn't the only one submitted to Nature that took the offbeat approach to the greenhouse effect. Another manuscript made the same claim about moving the earth to solve the problem, and went on to suggest a method for accomplishing the task--exploding nuclear bombs on the moon. This article, too, didn't make it into the journal. Regarding less alarming work, however, the question of pub-lishability is hardly so clear-cut, leaving some aspiring authors perplexed, often unable to determine the best market or approach for their work. However, the reality, stated by editor after editor, is that getting one's research published just isn't that difficult. Says Lindley, "I rarely see people who can't get published without there being some simple explanation," such as the downright outlandishness of these articles on the greenhouse effect. In fact, he says, if your work is good and "you're a persistent scientist, you can get something published." In other words: Do good work and somebody, somewhere, will print it. Can it be that simple? There are thousands of scientists out there, all competing for publication in the same couple of hundred serious scientific journals. These scientists feel the pressure to publish from many directions. Publication can smooth the progress of a grant application, convince a tenure board of a faculty member's merit, or enable a research group to "scoop" another team doing similar work. The types of journals to which scientists can submit their work varies. There are the prestigious, glossy, ad-filled, multidisciplinary weeklies like Science and Nature, and widely read biweeklies like Cell and the twice-monthly Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). On the other end of the scale are smaller, more specialized publications, such as the International Journal of Tropical Agriculture and the Journal of Arachnology. The degree of production done at the offices of each publication also varies. While Science and Nature typeset all articles, Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications uses the submitted manuscripts as camera copy; moreover, it carries no ads. Clearly, these journals reach different audiences and have their own standards, requirements for submission, and rules for acceptance or rejection. The first, and seemingly most obvious, step a scientist can take toward getting work into print is to submit it to the right journal and in the right format. Does it belong in a wide-ranging publication like Nature, or a much more specialized journal like, say, Marine Mining? According to editors, many authors never consider this. "There are people who don't even read the instructions," says Chuck Hancock, manager of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, referring to the exhaustive "Instructions for Authors" that appear at least twice a year in every journal. The instructions set forth any rules a contributor needs to know to facilitate publication of his or her work in a particular periodical. Included at the outset of these instructions is usually general information regarding the scope of the journal and the type of work it accepts. It is this portion that prospective authors often ignore. Instead of targeting their work to the publication that seems most likely to print it, many authors use a sort of trickle-down approach to getting their work published. That is, they start with the highest-profile journal they can think of and keep submitting until the work lands somewhere, allowing rejection to determine their market. Says Frances Zwanzig, managing editor of PNAS, "There is a pecking order. Whenever we get anything, we assume that Nature and Science have already seen it and rejected it." Of course, this doesn't describe the situation entirely: Scientific journals often compete for cutting-edge papers, and getting scooped is always a possibility. And though editors tend not to dwell on past mistakes, Zwanzig does look back on an article by Linus Pauling on the effect of vitamin C on cancer that was rejected by her publication a few years ago, only to be published here--to considerable attention. "That was run past at least two [successive] chairmen [of the editorial board]," Zwanzig says with some regret. There's nothing wrong with the practice of submitting rejected work to other journals, says Science managing editor Monica Bradford. "Those scientists have a right to go somewhere " she says. "Science makes mistakes, too." But forcing the editors to make such decisions rather than targeting the proper journal clogs up editorial offices and causes precious weeks of delay, not to mention unnecessary letters of rejection. Says Bradford, "Lots of times, what keeps an article out of Science is the feeling that it's good work, but it belongs in a technical journal, not an interdisciplinary journal." Unless they are thoroughly revised in response to the reviewers' comments, rejected articles are usually submitted to other journals, not the one that originally rejected them. Simultaneous submission of a paper to multiple journals, however, is flatly prohibited, and many journals require all authors of a paper to sign forms pledging that they will not do so. This rule is explicitly stated in each journal's "Instructions for Authors"--which, unfortunately, often go unheeded. "Authors should read and follow the instructions for authors," says Richard Glass, deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), emphasizing the point once again. "It's amazing how often this is not done." Still, not one editor contacted for this article could remember a submission rejected because of failure to follow style guidelines or rules outlined in the instructions. "That's bookkeeping," says Zwanzig of PNAS. "That's really not important." While the format of a submitted paper seems not to determine its rejection or acceptance, incorrect style certainly does cause delay and extra editing. Another issue editors say is less important than it is claimed to be is the matter of pure writing mechanics. The question of clarity comes up regularly, as many English-language journals currently receive--and actively pursue--a greater percen- tage of articles from researchers whose first language is not English than they did in the past. Although editors may not reject solid re- search that is poorly presented, they do complain about it: "Clarity of writing and presentation is fairly commonly a problem," says JAMA's Glass. "If good work is presented in a way that readers don't understand, that doesn't advance anything." But in the end the editors remain aware, Lindley of Nature says, that "the function of a scientific journal is to get scientific data into the general public," and though incomprehensible work cannot be published, work must be, in the words of Science's Bradford, "so poorly written that you can't judge the science" before it's rejected. Says PNAS's Zwanzig with a shrug, "That's why we have editors." Editors give manuscripts they receive an initial screening, rejecting and returning to the authors articles that are plainly inappropriate for the journal or clearly not up to its standards--often as much as 40 to 60 percent of the total submitted to them, they say. Papers that are not rejected because of something obvious to the in-house editors will be sent out for impartial review to two or three scientists in the field. These peer reviewers are charged with determining whether the scientific content of the article is worthy, important, and well presented. The percentage of papers that make it through the process varies from journal to journal. Lindley estimates that Nature publishes "around 20 percent" of the articles it receives. Bradford figures that Science publishes "18 or 19 percent," noting that 40 percent make the first cut. Glass places JAMA's figure at "about 10 percent of the unsolicited manuscripts we receive." Ryn Miake-Lye, reviews editor for Cell, guesses that 25 percent of manuscripts received make it into print, but explains the relatively high number by citing authors' "very strong self-selection process--we don't end up having to make much of a cut on technical grounds." More specialized journals, of course, publish much higher percentages of the papers they re- ceive--Hancock of the Journal of Biological Chemistry estimates that "overall we're running in the 50 percent acceptance range." (Journals like PNAS or Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications can offer no percentages, since they have independent editorial boards, each member of which receives and accepts or rejects papers. In-house editors at these publications hear about a manuscript only when it is accepted.) Peer reviewers generally spend from three to four weeks (at Cell, Science, and JAMA, for example) to seven to 10 weeks (at the Annals of Internal Medicine) determining whether the scientific content of the article is worthy, important, and well presented. And though the instructions for contributors published in Science bear the comforting information that "tardy reviewers are prodded," reviewers who take longer than expected to comment on a paper can slow down the process drastically. "Sometimes getting them to return the paper they're reviewing within a couple weeks can be a problem," says Glass of JAMA. Nonetheless, says Glass, the peer reviewers, who often get several papers to review at once, are making an important contribution. "[They] are performing this very valuable and often quite time-consuming service completely gratis." Some editors report that authors respond well to reviewers' comments, recognizing that the suggestions, if carried out, will make their work better and more publishable. But often even a request for minimal revision will elicit intransigence, which further slows the publication process. "One plea I'd make is for authors to take reviewers' comments seriously, even if they don't agree," says Lindley. Articles revised and accepted then enter the final processes of publication--copyediting, typesetting, and printing. Some journals have begun receiving manuscripts on disk, which can improve editing and typesetting; none yet receive manuscripts by electronic mail, as the security risk is still seen as great. To offset the costs of editing and production, journals that do not sell ads often require authors to pay page fees. Publications that sell ads, like Science and Nature, charge no page fees, though they still charge to reproduce color artwork; Cell and PNAS charge page fees ($15 and $75, respectively) but acknowledge that fees can be waived in cases of hardship. In fact, the whole concept of page fees is intended as a way of spreading costs around. In general, university libraries buy the bulk of journal subscriptions; page fees, which authors usually charge against grants, keep subscription fees down by getting grant agencies to carry some of the load. The process of editing and producing a journal can take from a few weeks to a few months; thus, the total turnaround time from submission to print can range from the 20 weeks that a weekly publication like Science can manage at best, to the 210 days the Journal of Biological Chemistry realistically allows for its submissions. In most cases, says Lindley of Nature, editorial staffers just do their best: "In principle we could publish [a paper] in three months," he says, "though a few years ago Supernova 1987A went off, and we got a lot of papers, and rushed some into print in two or three weeks. But that involves a lot of exertion--and it doesn't always work." In short, these editors' explanations of the mysteries of the publication process boil down to a few simple suggestions. Direct your work to a journal you're familiar with, one that publishes research similar to yours. Follow the journal's guidelines. Write as well as you can. Respond fairly to reasonable comments from reviewers. And work as quickly as possible. Scott Huler is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.

How To Get Your Research Published: Editors' Thoughts

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