Ever wondered what happens to your manuscript once it is submitted to a journal? Does the fate of your paper depend solely on peer review? What are the stages your paper goes through before it is finally accepted or rejected by a journal? To what extent does peer review influence the editorial decision? This SlideShare gives you a detailed account of the journal screening process and tells you what exactly goes on behind the scenes! Read on to find out more.

1. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at
Journals
Helping you get published

2. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
The peer review process is essentially a quality control
mechanism. It is a process by which experts evaluate scholarly
works, and its objective is to ensure a high quality of published
science. However, peer reviewers do not make the decision to
accept or reject papers. At most, they recommend a decision.
At peer-reviewed journals, decision-making authority rests
solely with journal editors or the journal’s editorial board.
Indeed, it is the journal editor who is considered to be central
to the decision making process.1

3. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Journal decision-making process
Typically, after a paper is submitted to a journal, a journal
editor screens the manuscript and decides whether or not to
send it for full peer review. Only after clearing the initial
screening is the manuscript sent to one or more peer
reviewers.
Finally, journal editors or the journal’s editorial board consider
the peer reviewers’ reports and make the final decision to
accept or reject the manuscript for publication.

4. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Journal
Author Journal editor editor/editorial Author is
Manuscript is
submits screens board decides informed of
peer reviewed whether to decision
manuscript manuscript
publish
Some
manuscripts are
rejected before
peer review

5. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Initial screening
Approximately 3 million manuscripts are submitted to journals every year.1 Given the large
volume of manuscript submissions, more and more journals follow a policy of screening
papers before sending them for full peer review. During the initial screening, journal editors
mainly check the following:
Does the manuscript fit the journal’s scope and aim and will it
be of interest to the readership?
Is the manuscript of minimum acceptable quality ? Is the
content and writing good enough to make it worth reviewing?
Is the manuscript compliant with the journal’s instructions for
authors?

6. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Journal editors typically look at hundreds of manuscripts a year. One of the first items
that editors will look at is the cover letter, and they may not get further than the cover
letter if the study does not seem interesting enough.
Therefore, it is imperative that authors craft a well-written cover letter that highlights
the significance and strength of their research as well as provides a good reason why the
manuscript is a good fit for the journal. Editors will then go through the abstract and may
even skim through the introduction, figures and tables, or other sections of the paper to
determine whether the manuscript passes their quality threshold.
Benefits of initial screening:
1. If the manuscript clearly lies outside the scope of the journal, then a rapid rejection
allows the author to quickly find and submit their manuscript to another journal.
2. Peer reviewers’ time is wasted when they have to spend time evaluating and giving
feedback for a manuscript of clearly inferior quality.

7. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Did you know ?
Journal editors reject anywhere between 6% to 60% of submitted
manuscripts at the initial screening stage.2 One study found that on
average, 21% of submissions are rejected during the initial review
by journal editors across disciplines.3

8. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Peer review
Generally, a minimum of 2 peer reviewers (up to 6) are chosen for the peer review. Peer
reviewers are ideally experts in their field. Journals usually build a pool of peer reviewers
that have a good track record of producing high quality reviews. Or they may scan the
bibliography to identify potential reviewers or contact researchers they met at conferences
and seminars.1Many journals will first ask potential reviewers whether they are willing to
review the manuscript before assigning them as reviewers.
Editors have to be careful to select reviewers who have sufficient subject matter expertise
to do justice to the manuscript. Therefore, highly technical papers or papers from niche
subject areas may take longer to review, because it may take editors some time to locate
appropriate reviewers.

9. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Some journals give authors the option of
recommending preferred and non-preferred
reviewers. Authors would do well to take
advantage of this option if available as it can Common types of peer review
expedite the review process, since it saves the
journal time in looking for reviewers. Single blind: names of reviewers are not
Furthermore, studies have found that author revealed to authors
recommended peer reviewers tend to
recommend acceptance more often than journal Double blind: names of reviewers and
recommended reviewers.4,5 authors are not revealed to each other
The peer review is completed once all the
reviewers send the journal a detailed report with Open peer review: Names of authors
their comments on the manuscript and their and reviewers are revealed to each
recommendation. Typically, journals ask other
reviewers to complete their reviews within 3-4
weeks.6 However, few journals have a
mechanism to enforce the deadline, which is why
it can be hard to predict how long the peer
review process will take.6

10. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Final decision
The journal editor or editorial board considers the feedback provided by the peer
reviewers and arrives at a decision. The following are the most common decisions that
are made:
1. accept without any changes (acceptance): the journal will publish the paper in its
original form
2. accept with minor revisions (acceptance): the journal will publish the paper and asks
the author to make small corrections
3. accept after major revisions (conditional acceptance ): the journal will publish the
paper provided the authors make the changes suggested by the reviewers and/or
editors
4. revise and resubmit (conditional rejection): the journal is willing to reconsider the
paper in another round of decision making after the authors make major changes
5. reject the paper (outright rejection): the journal will not publish the paper or
reconsider it even if the authors make major revisions

11. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Final decision
The first option (accept without any changes) is rare.
The second decision (accept with minor revisions) is typically the best outcome authors
should hope for.
Once a journal rejects a paper outright, authors are well advised not to resubmit to the
same journal.
If the journal wanted to reconsider the paper, they would have issued a conditional
rejection.
An outright rejection means that the journal thinks the paper will not meet its publication
standards or interests even after heavy revisions.

12. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Editor Speak
In general, I classify manuscripts into three groups: 1) excellent-quality work that
makes a contribution, 2) satisfactory-quality work that may make a contribution,
and 3) poor-quality work that makes no contribution. Categories 1 and 3 are dealt
with quickly, with the majority of manuscripts in category 2. This group of
manuscripts takes time and reflection before a decision can be made.7- A former
journal editor

13. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Do peer reviewers and editors always agree on what’s worthy
of publication?
Editors’ decision-making policies vary: some reject when even
one peer reviewer recommends rejection, some when the
majority recommend rejection, and some only when all
reviewers recommend rejection.2
It is common for peer reviewers to give conflicting feedback on
the same manuscript.8,9 One journal editorial went as far as to
say “Unanimity between reviewers is rare.”10
In cases of conflicting feedback, the journal editor may choose
to send the paper to a third reviewer before arriving at a
decision, and the author may have to wait longer for the peer
review process to be completed.

14. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Do peer reviewers and editors always agree on what’s worthy
of publication?
In reality, reviewers tend to recommend acceptance more often
than rejection.10 Thus, journal editors end up rejecting many
papers that peer reviewers actually recommended for
publication, with their decisions based on their own opinions of
the papers’ publication worthiness. The role of peer review is
considered to be helping authors improve their manuscripts
rather than deciding whether they should be published, which is
the journal editor’s job.

15. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Journal Speak
The primary purpose of the review is to provide the editors with the
information needed to reach a decision. The review should also instruct
the authors on how they can strengthen their paper to the point where it
may be acceptable.11 - Nature

16. Peer Review and Editorial Decision Making at Journals
Conclusion
Because of a large number of submissions, top-tier journals are
often forced to reject even high quality manuscripts for various
reasons, like a large number of submissions or lack of fit with
the journal’s editorial focus.2 While reviewers and editors easily
agree on what is clearly not acceptable for publication, deciding
what is worthy of publication is a tougher challenge.12 Finally,
journal editors make decisions to accept or reject papers based
on their opinion of the papers’ publication worthiness and
reviewers’ comments.10

17. Most Common Reasons for Journal Rejections
References
1. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (2011). Peer review in scientific
publications Vol 1. House of Commons: London, UK.
2. Schultz DM (2010). Rejection rates for journals publishing in the atmospheric sciences. Bulletin of
the American Meteorological Society, 91(2): 231-243. doi: 10.1175/2009BAMS2908.1.]
3. Thomson Reuters (2011). Increasing the quality and timeliness of peer review: A report for scholarly
publishers [white paper]. Available at: http://scholarone.com/media/pdf/peerreviewwhitepaper.pdf
4. Hutchings A (2006). Differences in review quality and recommendations for publication between
peer reviewers suggested by authors or by editors. JAMA, 295(3): 314-317.
5. Wager E, Parkin EC, Tamber PS (2006). Are reviewers suggested by authors as good as those chosen
by editors? Results of a rater-blinded, retrospective study. BMC Medicine, 4: 13. doi: 10.1186/1741-
7015-4-13.
6. Association of Learned and Professional Society (2000). Current practice in peer review. Results of a
survey conducted during Oct/Nov 2000. Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers:
Worthing, UK.

18. Most Common Reasons for Journal Rejections
References
7. Samet JM (1999). Dear author-advice from a retiring editor. American Journal of Epidemiology,
150(5): 433-436.
8. Rothwell PM & Martyn CN (2000). Reproducibility of peer review in clinical neuroscience: Is
agreement between reviewers any greater than would be expected by chance alone? Brain,
123(9): 1964–9.
9. Ray JG (2002). Judging the judges: The role of journal editors (editorial). Quarterly Journal of
Medicine, 95: 769-74.
10. Coronel R (1999). The role of the reviewer in editorial decision-making. Cardiovascular Research,
43(2): 261-64. doi: 10.1016/S0008-6363(99)00177-7.
11. Nature. Peer-review policy. Last accessed August 4, 2011. Available at:
http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/peer_review.html
12. Howard L & Wilkinson G (1999). Peer review and editorial decision-making. Neuroendocrinology
Letters, 20(5): 256-260.

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