Deadly Sins of Publishing: The Multiple Submission

Deadly Sins of Publishing: Submission of a Paper to Multiple Journals

This is a periodic column I plan to write that outlines some of the worst things you can do as a prospective author. These are things that might get you “watchlisted” if not blacklisted (no joke, I used to have a whiteboard up in my office with a list of names to watch for).  A journal’s reaction to them will vary – some will just tell you how you are wrong, others will chalk it up to a rookie mistake, and then there’s the ones that will simply not engage with you in the future. I plan to do another column of “Lesser sins and misdemeanors” that will outline what we more or less file under rookie mistakes and hope they aren’t repeated. But this column is for the ones that are more serious than that. 

And so here is the launch of my “Deadly Sins” category:

DEADLY SINS 101: THE MULTIPLE SUBMISSION

Other than more obvious sins such as plagiarism (diatribe about that planned for the future), this is one of the most serious, unethical issues that you can possibly perpetrate. Usually, it is done by early career researchers who simply don’t know how bad it is.

What do I mean by multiple submission of an article?

I mean you’ve taken a paper and submitted it to multiple journals at the same time.

Why would anyone do this?

It’s pretty simple really. The best way I’ve had it described is as a “scattergun approach” with the misguided argument that if you submit a paper to, say, six different journals, then you’ve instantly increased your chances of someone accepting it.

What’s wrong with this?

There is so much wrong with this that I don’t even know where to start. Mainly, you have wasted the time of multiple administrators, reviewers, and editors with absolutely no intention of publishing a paper with that journal. As I’ve said in previous posts, reviewers are not paid for their contribution; they do it as good citizenry and part of their wider academic duty. If you have six journals using a minimum of two reviewers each, you’ve wasted the time of at least twelve reviewers and six editors (and possibly six administrators).  Editors have to contend with a major balancing act to avoid what I’ve seen called reviewer fatigue. That’s when reviewers are used too extensively and  simply don’t have much time left in their days to do any more reviews. Simply put, they stop taking our calls (well, more accurately, our emails).  That means they aren’t available to other scholars who may submit their work because you have wasted their time. 

How are you supposed to know this?

It’s a general rule in academic publishing. But more than that, if you have submitted a paper, chances are, you have confirmed that this is the only active submission of this paper that you have.  In pretty much all submission systems there is a box you must tick that confirms this; or, alternatively, you are required to submit a cover letter that clearly states that the paper is not currently under consideration in any other journal. So basically, if you have submitted to six separate journals, then you have violated the submission policies of six separate journals, and they have every right to reject your paper (and most likely keep a close eye on anything else you submit in the future, because, hey, copyright rules).

What else is wrong with this?

What happens if all six papers agree to publish your paper and send it automatically to the publisher after the final acceptance? Most online portals do it like this. You obviously can’t publish the same paper in different journals, so you must then confess to the editor what you’ve done and ask that your paper not be published. This will leave five out of six very unhappy editors, and chances are that the editor of the journal you want it published in will reject the paper out of principle.

So in other words, the efforts to increase your paper’s likelihood of being published will do the exact opposite.

When CAN you submit a paper to another journal?

When it is released by the journal. This means once a decision has been made, whether that be a rejection or one of the “needs revisions” decisions. If you decide you wish to submit to another journal whilst it’s still in process, you need to write to the editor or administrator and request to withdraw your paper from consideration.

So basically, one journal at a time. This is also better for you because even if you get a rejection from Journal A, then your submission to Journal B will be built upon reviewers’ and editor’s comments to improve your paper. 

Have I ever seen cases of this?

Yes, unfortunately. It never really ends well. Usually a reviewer responds with a “decline” and a comment that s/he has JUST reviewed an identical paper for X journal.  This is when alarm bells start going off.

I have known a case in which the Editor sent a paper to Reviewer A and Reviewer B. Reviewer A returned the review, but Reviewer B got in touch. As it turns out, Reviewer B is also an editor of a journal that had just reached a decision on an identical article. This is how you get simultaneously rejected from two journals and a very stern email from both editors (assuming both editors are nice people and feel you simply aren’t aware that you can’t do this).  Keep in mind how relatively small the world of publishing is - whilst you think no one will ever find out, it’s actually high risk, especially if you are in a specialised field.

And that is the end of my first Deadly Sins post. I do hope it was helpful. Thanks for all your lovely, lovely emails and tweets so far! Please, keep them coming. Remember, if you have a question or an idea for something you think I could shed some light on, then by all means, get in touch either via email or Twitter.

Now for some pumpkin bread, methinks.

-theAdmin

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