Deadly Sins of Publishing: The Co-author Calamity

Finally returned to my Deadly Sins series - and apologies for the gap in posts, I've been on a break and also changing to freelance journal admin and copy-editing, which means I'm open to offers and teaching sessions. And yes, that was shameless self-promotion.

 Back to the issue at hand.

Deadly Sin No. 2: The Co-author Calamity.

Firstly, let me state very clearly: this is in no way meant to discourage having, or being, a co-author. Quite the contrary, actually, as I wholeheartedly encourage collaboration and academic partnerships. My discipline rarely uses co-authors, and I think that's a shame.

So what's the deal with co-authors? Why are they on the deadly sins list?

The calamity is when a co-authoring goes wrong. And I'm not talking about disputes in writing. Honestly, from the journal's point of view, we really don't care about how well you and your co-author(s) get along. But omission, fraud, and misattribution are all very serious and can land you on a journal's watchlist. Or even their blacklist if the transgression is worthy of it (yes, I have a list of authors that we won't consider because we can't trust that their work is genuine).

So here's what to watch out for:

1.) Omission:  Ensure all co-authors are listed and full contact details are given, as required by the journal. 

Don't leave co-authors off with the thought that you'll add them at a later date. If you can't remember Jimmy's email address, don't submit the paper and think you can go back. Wait until you have Jimmy's email address to include in the submission. When a paper is submitted the system will email you and all your co-authors to say the submission has been received. And always double check you have everyone.

2.) Fraud: Do NOT include someone who is not a co-author, especially if you have never met them.

We received emails from our publishing house not too long ago asking us to be especially aware of this rising issue. Simply put, authors are adding bogus co-authors to their papers to try to get them accepted sooner due to the bogus academics' names and reputations. This is why it's so important that we have full contact details of all co-authors and why they receive communication as well. If you have a paper on a topic, fraudulently adding Eminent Professor's name to it will not help your acceptance. It'll get you blacklisted from a journal, just like any major ethics violations. Fraud like this doesn't just harm your reputation though, it jeopardizes everything else a journal publishes, as well as the editor's, the publisher's, and Eminent Professor's reputations. 

3.) Misattribution: Make sure that all your co-authors are actually co-authors. 

What do I mean by this? Simple. The person who proof-reads your paper is not a co-author. Do not list him/her. Is your supervisor a co-author because s/he helped you revise your paper for submission? Most likely not. If you are not sure, ASK. A competent and honest supervisor can easily judge whether or not the work s/he did constitutes authorship. If someone helps you out with a small piece of data analysis, is s/he a co-author? That's up to the level of work. Don't forget about acknowledgements. But if you aren't sure, just ask a more experienced researcher or your supervisor/mentor.

Another point is that if you are the corresponding author, then you must correspond. If we send a query or quibble, then it'll go to you. Don't leave your co-authors in the dark about the process. I once had an email from a very anxious co-author asking for an update because no one had heard anything. I had to break it to them that their corresponding co-author had neglected to tell them the paper was rejected six months ago (clearly they hadn't read this or this about selecting a journal). 

And that's the deal with co-authors. Be clear, be honest, be precise. Above all, enjoy the collaboration that a good co-author can provide. 

Next on the docket: Guest posts! You finally get to read from someone other than me. I've got an exciting two-parter lined up about writer's block and the experience of publishing. 

As always, questions and comments are welcome. Just tweet, email, or comment. 

-theAdmin

Reasons for Rejection (Part I)

My goal with this blog is to help early career researchers navigate the rather complex world that is getting published. I can’t tell you how to write the perfect article because, honestly, there is no such thing. Yes, there are papers that whiz straight through the system and are published without corrections. I’ve counted 2 out of the roughly 850-900 that I’ve overseen. That’s less than one percent of papers, which includes papers by the biggest names in the area. So don’t expect your paper to be as flawless as you think it must be, especially since you haven’t slept in three weeks due to proofreading it repeatedly before submitting.

In order to help out your quest to get your paper to the peer review stage, I’m going to, over the next few posts, give you the main reasons for rejection. Other editorial staff may disagree, but I stand by my list of reasons. Some may sound trivial, and that’s because they are. Hopefully, by knowing why so many papers are rejected, you can make sure your paper doesn’t fall victim to any of these pitfalls, and between your research and my tips, your paper will have the best shot in life that we can give it.

Just for fun, I think I’ll go in no particular order except for the top 5 (though the eagle-eyed amongst you will note that I’ve actually given the number one reason in a previous post…)

10.) Your submission is unprofessional or unethical.

This one tends to shock academics the most. The last person I mentioned it to responded with something along the lines of “WHAT? People actually submit papers like that?” Well, in short, yes. To be fair, it’s often unintentional and perhaps just phrased incorrectly. It doesn’t matter. Anything that will cause a journal legal or reputational trouble will be rejected. Especially if you are an early career author. It’s just not worth the gamble. What do I mean by each?:

1. “Of course his/her research would find that outcome though, s/he’s a racist/sexist/biased pig”

That is libellous. Can you criticize someone’s research? Yes, of course. Can you then, by extension, criticize someone personally? That would be a no. [NB: we’re talking about scholars and not figures in history, but still, keep the language professional – you wouldn’t call anyone anything like a ‘pig’ in a journal submission. Unless you’re George Orwell. (That was an admittedly poor Animal Farm joke for a former teacher)]

There is, of course, a grey area here, especially for academics such as historians. The point I’m trying to make is be careful with your language. If, for example, I were writing a piece that criticised a historian of yore, then I would be careful to analyse and make comments on the research and history of that historian rather than personal criticism, unless my argument clearly and legitimately concerned a personal evaluation.

2. Unethical papers are fairly straightforward. If it doesn’t adhere to a journal’s ethics guidelines, then we won’t consider it. We have to be sure that we’re not going to be targeted for publishing something that didn’t receive ethics board approval. Read the journal’s requirements regarding ethics board approval and follow them exactly. This is one area that journal editors will NOT compromise, bend, or make exceptions for early career researchers. Doing so compromises the integrity of the journal, the editor’s entire editorship, and the validity of every other paper published.

3. Rule of thumb: don’t use language you wouldn’t want to read to your grandmother. Or, more shockingly, your PhD supervisor’s grandmother. There you go, that should have been a sufficient enough horror scenario.

9.) Poorly presented and clearly not proofread.

I will say it once. Proofreading is not the job of reviewers and the editor. I will say it again in case you missed it. Proofreading is not the job of reviewers and the editor. We have standards. We have guidelines on presentation. Make sure you adhere to them. Don’t leave your tracked changes with comments to your co-author unless you're at the revisions stage and have been instructed to do so. Don’t leave random indentations and paragraph formatting because you’ve cut and pasted and moved around your text without reformatting. Don’t leave typos, misspellings, grammatical errors, or miss out sentences (or whole paragraphs). All modern word processing software has spellcheck and grammar check. USE THEM. But don’t rely solely on them. They can be confused. For example, have you noticed yet that I use both American and British English spelling in my blog? Yeah, neither has my word processing programme, because technically, both are correct and the program isn’t smart enough to know that I’ve used something incorrectly. The key to submissions is to act as though you are the professional that you are. Want your paper to be taken seriously? Then take it seriously. And, for the love of all things holy, make sure you submit the correct file.

8.) Your submission isn’t an acceptable kind of paper. In short, it’s not a real article.

Who would submit something that wasn’t a proper paper? So. Many. People. If the journal you are submitting your paper to accepts only certain kinds of papers, you better make sure your paper fits. For example, the journal I currently work for does not normally accept opinion pieces, preliminary white papers, discussion pieces, or unsolicited book reviews. So any of the above that gets submitted is rejected pretty quickly. Make sure your paper is a proper research paper if that’s what you want to submit. I once received a submission that was a very pretty pictorial comparison of various kinds of architecture with no reference, analysis, or evaluation whatsoever. We aren’t an architecture journal, and we only publish research papers.

One of the themes of this blog is that every journal is different and will have different aims & scopes and guidelines. This includes acceptable kinds of papers. If your paper is rejected from journal A, don’t just send it to journal B without another thought. Make sure that journal B publishes that kind of paper or you’re in for another rejection.

Stay tuned - the next post will have some more common reasons for rejection. Have you noticed yet how little I've said about your actual research...?

I've had some great questions come in via Twitter and email - keep them coming and I'll do my best to answer.

-theAdmin

Contacting a Journal

Today’s post is dedicated to a friend of mine, who is petrified of contacting an editor.

Why is my friend scared, you may ask. I honestly don’t know, but my main guess is that the editor represents all of academia and stands to cast out judgment. It’s pretty common to develop at least a shade of imposter’s syndrome during graduate studies, and this really comes to the fore when postgraduate students start discussing article submissions. 

So here are my thoughts on the issue. The part of my friend will be played by bold. The conversation isn’t verbatim because when I said “friend”, I quite obviously meant a composite of every graduate student I’ve ever met. Though I do have friends. I promise.

I have a question about something in my paper, and I’m really not sure what common practice is. It’s a non-standard term, and I don’t want to sound dumb. What would you do? I’ve asked around and everyone is saying something different.

Well, composite friend, I know what I would do, but that’s irrelevant. You’re interested in what the journal would want. If you are so very concerned about it, contact the journal and ask. It’s very rare for something like this to decide whether your paper is accepted or not, but chances are, it’s not the first time someone has asked. Is there an administrator to contact? Email and ask.

But won’t that make me look overly paranoid and pesky?

No. That’s why there’s a contact for queries like that. Same goes for word counts...concerned whether the word count includes references, etc.? Ask. Editors and administrators don’t bite (usually).

What if they don’t respond?

Read the guidelines for authors (the answer might be in there), then submit the paper with the best guess you’ve got. Don’t wrap yourself into knots over such a small issue – be more concerned about the overall paper. Quite often when authors get wound up over a small issue, they lose the plot. Usually, if your non-standard use is going to be queried, it will be at the reviewer stage. They are, after all, the experts.

So you’re saying it’s OK for me to contact an editor before I submit a paper to them?

YES. A THOUSAND TIMES YES. Editors and administrators, in general, do not have a problem about being contacted about possible, potential papers. It actually makes a nice change sometimes to get an email from someone that isn’t an automated email from our online portals saying that “X has submitted a paper entitled Y. Please do something about it.”

No one has EVER told me I could contact an editor before.

I know. It’s one of the flaws of the system. We pressure students and early career researchers to publish, but the system provides very little guidance on the practical process and the nitty gritty of actually getting to the point of publishing. Yes, you can contact the journal. Yes, you can ask questions before submitting your paper. Yes, you can send an abstract and ask if the journal is right for your paper your paper is right for their journal.

What was that last bit?

Choosing the correct journal is one of the single most important parts about getting your paper published. It’s the number one reason for rejection. The onus of finding the right journal is on the author – and it’s well worth your time to research this carefully. I’ll be doing a separate post on this sooner or later. It’s not uncommon for potential authors to email an abstract and ask whether the journal would be interested in the paper. Usually, editors will respond with a clear Yes, we’d love to consider it or no thanks, this one isn’t for us. Why would an editor do this? It saves them time. But there are rules to this.

The (previously) unwritten rules of contacting an editor or administrator:

       1. Be polite and be professional.

You would be surprised how many people forget this rather obvious starting point.

      2. Be clear and to the point. Do not give your CV in introduction.

To be frank, we don’t really care who you are. We operate a blind reviewing system, remember?

      3.  Include the title and abstract.

In-text is usually best. The abstract should conform to the guidelines for submission. Don’t send a 250 word abstract if the journal’s limit is 150 words. Don’t attach it as a separate file. Make it easy for us.

      4. IMPORTANT: Do NOT include the entire paper.

NEVER  send your paper to an editor outside of the formal submission/review process. It’s unethical and unprofessional. It also wastes time and makes it appear that you want to bypass the system that everyone else uses.

      5. Include your contact details

Yes, we should just be able to click reply, but things happen. This is a formal email. Treat it as such.

6.  Don’t overdo it.

Don’t email every editor under the sun. Don’t do this every time, only when you really need to or are unsure about the Aims & Scopes of a journal. Speaking of...

      7.  Be sure you have FULLY read the Aims & Scopes  and Author Guidelines before contacting an editor or administrator.

If you ask us something that is on those pages, we’ll just refer you to them. Take the time to see if we’ve already answered your question elsewhere. Chances are, we have.

       8.   Don’t give a deadline.

Again, you may be surprised how many emails include a phrase similar to “if you could let me know by...” These sorts of demands really irritate me. You’re the one emailing to ask for something extra.

      9. Always include manuscript reference IDs and previous correspondence.

This is for after submission. If you are emailing about a paper, ALWAYS include the reference identifier for your paper. We don’t keep track of authors, we keep track of IDs. It’s infuriating when I have multiple queries to deal with and have to go searching for which paper we’re talking about. We have hundreds of papers in our system.  If you have previous correspondence, include the email trail. We’re more likely to know the answer to what you’re asking if we actually know what you’re talking about.

Treat contacting an editor or even the administrator as emailing a colleague in another institution. Because that’s what you are doing. And don’t expect a glossy response. It’ll probably be short and to the point. We can’t spend oodles of time on a potential paper. Editors will usually, in good faith, say whether or not it falls into the interest area, but keep in mind that ALL submissions are good for a journal for two reasons: (1) it will end up with a good article (2) it will increase the rejection numbers, thus decreasing the acceptance percentage, thereby attracting better quality papers that will result in (1). 

I suppose my closing thoughts are this: Editors and administrators are just people. Academic people, yes, but just people who were once at the same stage of their careers as you. That being said, don’t be scared to contact us, especially if it’s likely to come up later on down the line.  Editors edit because they enjoy it. Trust me, what pay there is for editors isn’t enough to make someone do it unless their heart is truly in it, which means they enjoy encouraging early career scholars whenever they can.

Still scared?  One last thought: if you do email, you’ll probably get a response from someone like me. Which can’t be too bad, can it? (maybe don’t answer that...)

Anything else? Email or comment - or tweet Tweet to @ECRPublishing

-theAdmin

Tweet

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

Tweet