How to read journal instructions for authors

10th Jun 2013

Journal editors often complain that few authors seem to read their instructions for authors. But journals don’t make it easy to read these instructions. Every publisher has its own way of displaying the instructions, with differences in the wording for the same thing, in the order in which information is presented and in how the information is split over web pages. I’m going to attempt to bring some order to the chaos by picking out the points that really matter. These are: Subject areas Threshold... Read more

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Submission to first decision time

5th Apr 2013

Having written previously about journal acceptance to publication times, it is high time I looked at the other important time that affects publication speed: submission to first decision time. As I explained in the previous post, the time from submission to publication in a peer reviewed journal can be split into three phases, the two discussed previously and here and also the time needed for the authors to revise, which the journal can't control. A survey of submission to first decision times I... Read more

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SpotOn London session: The journal is dead, long live the journal

31st Oct 2012

I'm co-hosting a workshop at SpotOn London next week on the future of journals. It's time to end a long blogging hiatus to tell you about an exciting event coming up on Sunday 11 and Monday 12 November. SpotOn London (formerly called Science Online London) is a community event hosted by Nature Publishing Group for the discussion of how science is carried out and communicated online. There will be workshops on three broad topic areas – science communication and outreach, online tools and digital... Read more

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