42. How to please editors and reviewers and maximise your chances of acceptance
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47. BMJ peer review process 4-5000 annually 3-4000 rejected Approx 1000 for open review 500 then rejected 500 with Editor and adviser, statistician, BMJ team 4-7% with Open access No word limits BMJ pico Editorials Screen Research submitted External review Editorial meeting Accept
Please ensure that the structured abstract is as complete, accurate, and clear as possible—but not unnecessarily long—and has been approved by all authors. We may screen original research articles by reading only the abstract. For randomised controlled trials please provide all the information required for a CONSORT style abstract.
And title, authors, reference/doi, corresponding author’s email BMJ pico is our one page abridged format for research papers in the print journal, which some authors volunteered to help us pilot. We have designed BMJ pico with evidence based medicine experts to succinctly present the key evidence from each study, to help minimise delay between online and print publication, and to enable us to publish more research in each week’s print BMJ. There is no need for authors to prepare a BMJ pico to submit along with their full research article. Authors produce their own BMJ pico, using a template from us, only after the full article has been accepted. Examples at: http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/authors/article-submission/bmj-pico-abridged-research-articles
This applies to trials which commenced after 1 July 2005: for older trials retrospective registration will be acceptable, but only if completed before submission of the manuscript to the journal. Eligible trials have been defined by ICMJE since 1 July 2008 as "where human participants are prospectively assigned to one or more health-related interventions [including health services and behavioural interventions] to evaluate the effects on health outcomes", and before that were defined more narrowly as trials "where human participants are prospectively assigned to investigate the cause and effect relationship between a medical intervention and health outcome". This means that: trials randomising human participants to investigate the cause and effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome that commenced before 1 July 2005 can be registered retrospectively, but this must be done before submission to the BMJ trials randomising human participants to investigate the cause and effect relationship between a medical intervention and a health outcome that commenced after 1 July 2005 must have been registered prospectively, ie before enrolment of any participants trials randomising human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions [including health services and behavioural interventions] to evaluate the effects on health outcomes and that commenced after 1 July 2008 must have been registered prospectively, ie before enrolment of any participants
Groves T. Mandatory disclosure of trial results for drugs and devices. BMJ 2008;336:170 US Food and Drug Administration. Law strengthens FDA. 2007. www.fda.gov/oc/initiatives/advance/fdaaa.html .
Example from a real BMJ paper
US Office of Research Integrity http://ori.dhhs.gov/misconduct/definition_misconduct.shtml The Council of Science Editors defines plagiarism as "a form of piracy that involves the use of text or other items (figures, images, tables) without permission or acknowledgment of the source of these materials."
Scientists behaving badly Brian C. Martinson, Melissa S. Anderson and Raymond de Vries Nature 435, 737-738(9 June 2005) doi:10.1038/435737a Editor's Summary 9 June 2005 Own up In a questionnaire-based survey of US biomedical researchers, respondents admitted to a range of dubious practices. Transgressions included failing to present data contradicting one's own research (6%) and ignoring data based on a 'gut feeling' that it was wrong (15%). Writing on the survey, Martinson et al . call this picture of misbehaviour "striking in its breadth and prevalence".
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COPE = Committee on Publication Ethics http://publicationethics.org/
4-5000 research papers, 4-7% accepted approximate numbers at each stage: 1000 sent to two reviewers; 500 more rejected 500 to weekly manuscript meeting attended by the Editor, an external editorial adviser (a specialist or primary care doctor) a statistical editor, and all BMJ research editors 250-300 research articles accepted, usually after revision value added by commissioned editorials and commentaries; often written by reviewers
Most papers end up being published somewhere. See: Lock, S. A difficult balance: editorial peer review in medicine. London: BMJ, 1991. 68% of papers rejected by the BMJ during 7 months of 1979 were eventually published elsewhere, most in specialist journals. A quarter, however, remained unpublished. Relman AS. Are journals really quality filters? In: Goffman W, Bruer JT, Warren KS, eds. Research on selective information systems. New York: Rockefeller Foundation, 1980. Random sample of 300 papers rejected by NEJM in 1975. Questionnaire showed that, among the 55% who replied, four fifths of authors said their papers had been published elsewhere. Only a fifth of these, however, had been revised according to peer review comments received before submission to final journal. Must interpret these findings cautiously. Both studies are old - things may have changed since.