HelpHelping Authors Get Published

Can an Author’s Editor Help Expedite Peer Review of the Manuscript They Edit?

Presented by:

Donald Samulack, PhDPresident, U.S. Operations

Cactus Communications / Editage

The World Is so Flat …It’s Starting to Curl!

Survival of the Fittest

Science Research

Source: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=205 (April 15, 2013)

• Territory size shows the proportion of all scientific papers published in 2001 written by authors living there.• The number of scientific papers published by researchers in the United States was more than three times as many as

were published by the second highest-publishing population, Japan.

Survival of the Fittest

• This map shows the growth in scientific research of territories between 1990 and 2001. If there was no increase in scientific publications that territory has no area on the map.

• In 1990, 80 scientific papers were published per million people living in the world, this increased to 106 per million by 2001. This increase was experienced primarily in territories with strong existing scientific research. However, the United States, with the highest total publications in 2001, experienced a smaller increase since 1990 than that in Japan, China, Germany and the Republic of Korea. Singapore had the greatest per person increase in scientific publications.

Source: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=206 (April 15, 2013)

Science Growth

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Source: Royal Society of London, Knowledge, Networks, and Nations, 2011

Current and projected publication trends

There Is a Tsunami Coming

There Is a Tsunami Coming

Source: http://sciencewatch.com/grr/building-bricks (April 15, 2013)

“Unfortunately, neither the researcher’s fascination with their work, nor their desire for a clear-cut recipe for success in publishing is of much help in actually getting published.”

—Benson and Silver, 2013 (What Editors Want)

The Research Dilemma

Anything you do that makes the job of the Journal Editor or the Peer Reviewer easier,

makes the manuscript more attractive!

Success = Pleasing the Gatekeepers

Journal Editor and Reviewer Bias

• By-line bias• Institutional bias• Geographic bias• Language bias• Research integrity and ethics bias• Methodology bias

• By the time the journal editor and/or the reviewer has read the title and the abstract, bias has set in!

• Bias is unfortunately a by-product of scientific scrutiny.

Q: How do East-Asian submissions compare with those from other non-English speaking countries?

– In terms of compliance with ethical guidelines – 1.9%

44.4%

35.2%

18.5%

East Asian submissions better

East Asian submissions worse

Submissions from all non-English-speaking countries similar

I don't know

Bias Surrounding Research Integrity

A survey of 54 journal editors of English-language US and European journals

You dno’t have to be raelly smrat to raed tihs. In the Elgnsih lugnagae it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers are in a wrod. The olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers are pneiostiod in the rghit pclae. The rset of the lrtetes can be jmulebd and you can sitll raed it wiuthot porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn barin deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but lokos for sncetnene and luganage petatnrs.

Quirks of the English Language

You don’t have to be really smart to read this. In the English language it doesn't matter in what order the letters are in a word. The only important thing is that the first and last letters are positioned in the right place. The rest of the letters can be jumbled and you can still read it without problem. This is because the human brain does not read every letter by itself, but looks for sentence and language patterns.

Common Reviewer’s Criticisms

Importance of the Topic• Rehash of established facts• Insignificant research question• Irrelevant or unimportant topic• Low reader interest• Little clinical relevance• Not generalizable

Study Design• Poor experimental design• Vague/inadequate method description• Methods lack sufficient rigor• Failure to account for confounders• No control or improper control• No hypothesis• Biased protocol• Small sample size• Inappropriate statistical methods, or statistics not applied properly

Adapted from: Byrne DW. Publishing your medical research paper. What they don’t teach in medical school. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 1998.

Adapted from: Byrne DW. Publishing your medical research paper. What they don’t teach in medical school. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 1998.

Overall Presentation of Study and Findings• Poor organization• Too long and verbose• Failure to communicate clearly• Poor grammar, syntax, or spelling• Excessively self-promotional• Poorly written abstract Interpretation of the Findings

• Erroneous or unsupported conclusions• Conclusions disproportionate to results• Study design does not support inferences made• Inadequate link of findings to practice• Uncritical acceptance of statistical results• Failure to consider alternative explanations• Unexplained inconsistencies• Inflation of the importance of the findings• Interpretation not concordant with the data• Inadequate discussion

Common Reviewer’s Criticisms

Looking for Solutions

• The pending impact of the publication tsunami, administrative challenges of manuscript triage, growing burden of peer review, and inefficiencies in journal production processes necessitate studies on how to make the process more efficient.

• While we can’t “fix” the tsunami – and we are probably only experiencing the first swell – we can look up-stream to build efficiencies in pre-submission and pre-peer review processes.

Looking for Solutions

• What is the role of professional editing services (author’s editors) in helping non-native English-speaking (NNES) authors get their work published?

• Is there a place for manuscript screening services?

• Is there a rationale for commercialization of peer review?

• Where should efforts be placed?

Research by Editage

• First, we looked for weaknesses in how journals structure their “Instructions for Authors” in an attempt to identify how journals should communicate these instructions more effectively.o Best Poster at the Council for Science Editors meeting in Montreal,

Canada in May, 2013 (a copy of the poster can be found at our booth)

• More recently, we asked whether there were any specific errors peer reviewers most frequently point out in manuscripts of non-native English-speaking (NNES) authors that an author’s editor could/should fix before manuscript submission; the premise being that if these could be fixed before submission, then the burden on the peer reviewer would be lessened, and the process expedited.

Study Design

Study design and execution by Shazia Khanam and Clarinda Cerejo at Editage; accepted for publication in Learned Publishing (ALPSP).Awarded “Best Poster” at the ISMTE/EASE conference in Brussels, Belgium in September, 2013.

Study Results (Slide 1 of 3)

Study design and execution by Shazia Khanam and Clarinda Cerejo at Editage; accepted for publication in Learned Publishing (ALPSP).Awarded “Best Poster” at the ISMTE/EASE conference in Brussels, Belgium in September, 2013.

Study Results (Slide 2 of 3)

Study design and execution by Shazia Khanam and Clarinda Cerejo at Editage; accepted for publication in Learned Publishing (ALPSP).Awarded “Best Poster” at the ISMTE/EASE conference in Brussels, Belgium in September, 2013.

Study Results (Slide 3 of 3)

Study design and execution by Shazia Khanam and Clarinda Cerejo at Editage; accepted for publication in Learned Publishing (ALPSP).Awarded “Best Poster” at the ISMTE/EASE conference in Brussels, Belgium in September, 2013.

• An author’s editor, in addition to checking the grammar, writing quality, and style of manuscripts they edit, should point out instances of incomplete and unclear reporting, especially in the Methods and Results sections. This is crucial for the study to be able to be replicated by other research groups.

• Special attention should also be paid to ensure that figures and tables are consistent with (but not redundant to) the information presented in the text.

Study Conclusions (1 of 2)

• Further, an author’s editor should provide the author tips to improve the overall structural organization of the Results and Discussions sections.

• A qualified author’s editor helping an author address these aspects before submission will allow the peer reviewer to focus on the validity of the science and novelty of the study.

• Thus, an author’s editor can indirectly help expedite the peer review process.

Study Conclusions (2 of 2)

Contact Information

T: +1-267-332-0051 ext. 104F: +1-267-332-0052

Cactus Communications Inc.1 Neshaminy Interplex, Suite 206Trevose, PA 19053USA

Donald Samulack, PhDPresident, U.S. OperationsCactus Communications / Editage

donald.samulack@editage.com

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