The following sections summarize the journals' publishing processes and describe how manuscript are handled from submission to publication. At all stages of the process, you can access the online submission system and find the status of your manuscript.
1 Author submits a manuscript
2 Journal editor screens manuscript
Within one week of being submitted, each journal paper undergoes a preliminary review by the journal editor. The journal editor decides among three options for routing the paper:
Send out for review.
The manuscript meets the basic requirements of SciEP. At least two reviewers will be located by the journal editor, who will send each reviewer a copy of the paper.
Return for revision If your manuscript has not passed the preliminary review, the review comment will be returned to you for revision.
Rejection without peer review While manuscript have to go through the peer review process in order to be published, they can be rejected without peer review. For high-impact, general science journals, the majority of submitted papers may be rejected in this manner. While this may appear surprising or disturbing, it is essential to understand the underlying reasons and the inevitability of this undesired aspect of the research publication process.
There could be many reasons for rejection without review:
- Content of the article is not within the scope of the journal.
- Non-conformity with journal style, format or guidelines.
- Duplication or large overlap with existing work or apparent plagiarism.
- Results are not novel or significant enough; lead to only an incremental advance
in field.
- Article is too specialized/in-depth or superficial.
- Limited interest to journal target audience.
- Poor quality of research.
- Results or interpretation are too preliminary or speculative.
- Lack of clarity/conciseness in presentation.
3 Manuscript is peer reviewed
4 Journal editor/editorial board decides whether to publish
Once peer review has been completed, the original author(s) of the article will modify their submission in line with the reviewers' comments, and this is repeated until the editor is satisfied.
Review Decisions by Reviewers and Editors:
1Accept in present form
The reviewer will decide that the manuscript is ready for publication in its present form when at least two reviewers are in agreement. The associate editor will sum up the results of the review and report them to the chief editors. The secretary will then send an acceptance letter to the author on behalf of the chief editors. The paper will be moved to final editing for online publication.
2Revision Required
The reviewer will decide that the paper is not ready for publication and needs revision when at least two reviewers are in agreement. The associate editor will send the reviewers’ comments to the author for revision. The author should include with his(her) resubmitted version a new cover letter that includes a point-by-point response to the reviewers' and editors' comments, including an explanation of how you have altered your manuscript in response to these, and an estimation of the length of the revised version with figures/tables.
3Declined final
The reviewers will decide that the paper is inappropriate for publication when at least two reviewers are in agreement. No revisions will be requested for further consideration. The paper may not be resubmitted without substantial revision.
5 Copy Editing and Typesetting
Copy editing seeks to ensure that an article conforms to the journal's house style, that all of the referencing and labelling is correct, and that there are no spelling or grammatical errors. Typesetting deals with the appearance of the article — layouts, fonts, headings etc., both for print and online publication.
Copy editing and typesetting are carried out by copyeditors (also called subeditors), who refine it so that the text and figures are readable and clear to those outside the immediate field; choose keywords to maximize visibility in online searches as well as suitable for indexing services; and ensure that the papers conform to house style. The copyeditors are happy to give advice to authors whose native language is not English, and will edit those papers with special care.
6 Proof Reading
The typeset first proofs are sent to the author electronically as a PDF. Corrections to the proofs should be minor – authors should not rewrite or make substantial additions.
7 Printing
The final text and cover proofs will undergo a thorough editorial review before they are accepted and sent to print. All papers are published in the print edition and, in PDF and HTML format, in the online edition of the journal, in full.