Chapter 10
Presentation and Publication of Papers
Robert V. Smith*
Llewellyn D. Densmore†
Abstract
Scientists discover, confirm, and communicate new knowledge – all involving understanding of the requirements and skills of presenting at scientific meetings and publishing papers in the scientific literature. Presentation preparations include the development and timely submission of abstracts and conference reports, careful crafting of materials (e.g., PowerPoint slides or poster boards) appropriate to the length and requirements of the presentations (i.e., podium or poster), practice – especially for podium presentations – mentally and before an advisor and colleagues, and failsafe routines and procedures to avoid failures during actual presentations, and subsequently addressing audience questions and participating in related discussions. Publication of research articles requires decisions and efforts related to journal selection (including the so-called “open access” options), preparation of manuscripts, authorship, submission to journals, responding to reviews, handling galley and page proofs, ordering reprints, dealing with page charges, referring to unpublished work, and the ordering of reprints and responding to reprint requests, as appropriate.
Keywords
presentation
publication
podium
poster
manuscript
journal
review
Scientists, starting as graduate students or even earlier, are measured primarily not by their dexterity in laboratory manipulations, not by their innate knowledge of either broad or narrow scientific subjects, and certainly not by their wit or charm; they are measured, and become known (or remain unknown), by their publications.
– Robert A. Day (1924–) Professor Emeritus of English, editor, and writer and Barbara Gastel (1952-) Professor of Integrative Biosciences and Medical Humanities [149]
The job of the scientist is to discover, confirm, and communicate new knowledge. Writing research reports and papers, as discussed in Chapter 8, is a prerequisite to communication, which includes presentations at meetings and publications in books and journals.
Presentation of papers at meetings
Presenting papers at meetings is an important part of the research process. Work is better understood after it has been presented before an audience. Also, the exposure gained through presentation helps researchers meet colleagues who may become important future contacts.
Besides providing contacts, presentations invite criticism. This allows for changes in research directions and new interpretations. Occasionally, compliments will be received for outstanding presentations, and the individuals who make complimentary comments may be helpful in securing future postdoctoral or tenure track job opportunities. Such favorable experiences also promote self-confidence, and stimulate personal development. Receiving compliments should also encourage your praising other deserving scientists. Heightened sensitivity to others’ achievements is essential for personal growth, and the development of new friendships. Indeed, few things stimulate conversation better than expressed interest in others’ work.
Scientific presentations require planning, and they involve the “art of science.” It takes imagination and skill to develop good presentations. It also takes the courage and the confidence of a performer to present one’s work before peers. Fortunately, like the work of the artist, the task is eased with practice.
Submission of abstracts
A paper (the term typically used to describe either an oral presentation or a poster) must first be “accepted” before it can be presented at a scientific meeting. This requires the submission of an abstract or conference report of the work for review by members of the scientific organization that is sponsoring the meeting. The abstract covers work that is complete, but unpublished. The previously discussed guidelines for abstract preparation can be used, but there will be strict length and format requirements. Signatures of sponsors may also be required on the abstract form. A second, more extensive conference report may have to accompany the abstract.
According to Day and Gastel [149], the conference report should omit the Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion headings, and be written more like a lengthy abstract. The conference report serves as a truly preliminary report. It can include modest speculation, alternative theories, and suggestions for future research. The abstract, conference report, and supporting documents, if any, may have to be submitted 6–9 months before the meeting; for really large conferences, such as World Congresses, the submittal date may exceed 1 year prior to the meeting. Thus, the timely submission of abstracts takes considerable planning and attention to detailed instructions, supplied by the sponsoring society or association. Your advisor, as well as other students in your lab who have made successful presentations, are good sources of guidance on meetings and societies in a discipline.
Types of presentations
Papers are given at scientific meetings as podium or poster presentations. A podium presentation is typically a 15–20-min oral and visual (e.g., PowerPoint™ or Prezi™ slides) description of work. Poster presentations are visual descriptions of work represented on poster boards that are displayed for at least hour-long (up to overnight) periods. During at least part of the viewing period, the author or authors are available to answer questions or explain their work.
Podium presentations. Podium presentations are often frightening to new scientists who fear going blank or erring before an important audience of scientists. You can, however, minimize the chance of this happening by planning, hard work, and practice.
Preparation of a good podium presentation starts with a written talk or notes. The written material is prepared from an outline, and addresses the following questions:
1. Why was the work done?
2. How was the work done?
3. What was found?
4. What do the results mean?
5. How can the results be summarized, and what do they mean for future experiments?
Answering the first two questions should take about one-third of the presentation. The last two-thirds of the talk should be devoted to the remaining questions, with the bulk of time devoted to questions 3 and 4. During the write-up, avoid getting bogged down in too many details. Stick to the salient aspects of the work. Stress those points that will be most important and easily understood by the audience. Day and Gastel [149] recommended that an oral presentation be pitched to a more general audience than would read one’s publications. Material should be prepared that can comfortably be covered in the time allotted.
Although most scientific societies have adopted English as the language used at meetings, those occasional presentations in a foreign language should be prepared for verbatim delivery, unless one is fluent in the language. Talks in English should not be read, if English is your first language. Rather, notes to guide the presentation are prepared in large type (18–24-point) with a word processor. The typed material, prepared on index cards or sheets of paper, should be correlated to the slides or other visual aid in the talk – one card or sheet per visual aid. Many software packages (e.g., Microsoft PowerPoint) also allow for notes to be seen by the speaker, but not by the audience.
During the preparation of the presentation outline, ideas will emerge for visual aids. Some of these will include tabular data and figures that may have been prepared previously for research reports and papers. As the write-up is revised for the presentation, the functions of visual aids should be considered:
1. To support the spoken word. Audience recognition is aided by visual aids that provide depictions of necessary jargon (e.g., geologically important crystals, genera and species of plants and animals, names of diseases).
2. To amplify the spoken word. Supplementing oral descriptions of periodic, patterned, and cyclical events through diagrams. Emphasizing a point made metaphorically by a carefully chosen cartoon, remembering that the goal of such an exercise is to help the audience to understand or appreciate the topic better, not distract them.
3. To replace the spoken word. Certain conditions or phenomena (e.g., weather patterns, topographical features, trends in data) can be understood best through the use of pictures, charts, or graphs.
Visual aids, formerly consisting of 35 mm slides (so-called 2 × 2 in. slides, now rarely used, except for presentations in rural settings, or sometimes outside the United States) have now been almost completely replaced by plates prepared for computerized projection via PowerPoint or equivalent software. Except in specialized circumstances, where interactive presentations involving calculations or modifications are needed (such as in some workshops), you should avoid overhead transparencies. Even if they are available, overhead projectors generally give neither large nor clear-enough images for most meeting rooms. Furthermore, most meeting room arrangements do no permit simultaneous use of the podium (where notes are placed) and the overhead projector, thus making use of the projector awkward.
Veterans of scientific meetings often tell stories of presentations marred by poor visual aids. Ineffective visual aids contain one or more of the following faults:
• Clutter – Too much is included on the visual aid. This confuses the listeners who may neither decipher nor see the material.
• Poor organization – Visual aids are difficult to understand. Too many ideas are presented at once.
• Poor contrast – Visual aids are difficult to read.
• Distraction – Visual aids are prepared with unusual colors or other characteristics, or too many colors.
Bauer [184] suggested the KISS method for making visual aids – “keep it simple stupid!” This brazen charge is meant to emphasize the importance of preparing slides or other visual aids that are the antithesis of those described previously. Assuming that PowerPoint or some similar software is used to construct slides, the font for letters on the slides should be bold 18-point or larger.
Axes of graphs and other printing should similarly be prepared with 18-point (or larger) bold font. Diagrams, graphs, and not-too-expansive tables from reports or notebooks can be reproduced using a microprocessor and appropriate software (e.g., Microsoft® Excel) and imported directly into PowerPoint or equivalent software, during the production of electronic presentations.
When preparing PowerPoint or equivalent software presentations, consider color and pattern combinations that are soft on the eyes and are not so complex as to detract from the important components of the presentation. Again stick to the “KISS” adage; black letters on a white background (or concomitantly white letters on a black background) are typically the best way for the novice to produce clear presentations. With added experience in presentations, you can try more color combinations or animation, but simple is almost always better.
Also, be mindful of copyright laws relative to the possible “fair use” of borrowed material (in presentations and publication manuscripts), as described in Chapter 9.
PowerPoint slides should be previewed with a projector that is either equivalent to that available at the meeting or, as soon as it is practical to test the system, at the conference, in order to determine clarity and projected size. Many meetings now have “projection rooms,” so that one can see exactly how the presentation will look with the projection equipment available; but, certainly a complication is the myriad of hardware and software options available for projection of electronically prepared presentations. A defense against potential equipment failure or inadequacies is to describe your hardware and software needs precisely to the session organizer, so that appropriate equipment and hookups (i.e., for a laptop computer) are secured.
Once the PowerPoint slides are complete, make arrangements for practice presentations. Begin by mentally going through the talk several times. Try this during trivial tasks such as bathing, riding public transportation, or waiting for an appointment. When the talk is nearly memorized, ask your advisor and/or some friends and lab mates to listen to one or more mock presentations. During the practice presentations try to.
• speak directly to the listeners and establish eye contact;
• use any notes you have made effectively – do not read from them;
• vary your tone of voice and watch pronunciation. Do not lower your voice at the end of sentences;
• take time with thought transitions. Try to minimize verbal crutches such as “a” and “you know.” A good way to break this habit is to pause and take a breath through your mouth;
• display some animation with your body and arms, but avoid needless or repetitive gesturing and pacing; and
• show enthusiasm for your work.
After the practice presentations, solicit comments and questions. The resulting discussions will help you anticipate inquiries that may arise during the meeting presentation.
The presentation should now be ready to be given at a scientific meeting. It should now be uploaded onto a USB “memory stick” (especially for foreign meetings, we generally like to have a second copy on another “thumb drive” as well). As further backup, if the presentation is not too large, it can generally be uploaded and sent to one’s email address, where it can be accessed from a wireless Internet connection.
On the day of the presentation, arrive early at the meeting room in order to survey lighting, podium placement, and other arrangements. Make sure the computer and projection equipment are operating correctly. This is ultimately the speaker’s responsibility, even if an audiovisual technician is in charge. Do not rely on having Internet access available during your presentation. Even if connectivity is provided, it may be too slow or unreliable for your needs.
There are some aspects of the actual presentation that cannot be anticipated, including the exact composition of the audience and unavoidable nervousness. These factors should not be allowed to defeat you. Never tell the audience that you are nervous or that you feel ill prepared. The listeners came to learn, not to feel sorry for someone.
Begin the talk as practiced. Try not to fidget or adjust your clothing throughout the presentation. Three or four steps can be taken on either side of the podium to break tension and refocus your concentration. If you seem to go blank during the presentation, try not to panic. Walk a couple of steps, take a deep breath through your mouth, and direct your eyes away from the audience as you concentrate mentally. Your train of thought should return quickly. A valuable trick that one of us has used is to try and memorize exactly what you are going to say on the first and last slides of your talk, and on the intervening slides speak from each slide. Alternatively, you can glance at a copy of your complete paper (or notes on the computer) with key phrases underlined or highlighted. As a last resort, a sentence or two can be read verbatim from the paper or slide itself. Remember that the audience has no idea what was going to be said. If you stumble slightly, or forget a few words, no one is going to chastise you. Everyone in the audience was in your shoes at one time, and many will recall that they did a poorer job during their early presentations.
The time should be watched carefully during a presentation. You can remove your wristwatch and place it on the podium, use the stopwatch feature on a smart phone, or monitor the timer built into more recent versions of PowerPoint to follow the time elapsed. Also, be aware of clues from the chairperson of the session. Rising motions, slightly raised hands or worried glances are signals that time has expired. Always respect timing lights or buzzers that may be used by the meeting organizers.
When the presentation is finished, thank the audience for their attention, and indicate a willingness to answer questions. If the audience member asking the question is not near a microphone (often used in large meetings for questions) or if one is not available, repeat posed questions and then answer each one, honestly and succinctly. If you don’t know the answer to a question, or a question addresses something that has not been done, answer forthrightly.
Sometimes, listeners can become emotional about points raised by talks. Remember that science requires critical appraisal, and most researchers can be critical of work without getting personal. Thus, criticism should be taken in the spirit of free inquiry. Occasionally, however, a questioner displays poor manners and may become personally abusive. This is uncalled for, and should be addressed properly by the session chairperson.
After the question and answer period, thank the audience again and return to your seat. Enjoy the exhilaration of having completed a presentation successfully.
Poster presentations. Poster sessions have been used routinely at scientific meetings in the United States since the early 1970s. They were developed as a way of accommodating greater numbers of papers at meetings. A 2-h poster session, for example, can readily include 25 or more poster presentations, whereas only 6 or 8 podium presentations would fit into the same time period.
The preparation of posters places special responsibility on the author(s). Posters must stand “on their own” – that is, the complete story must be told without your being present to provide an explanation. Actually, there is an interesting paradox between the quality of a poster and the inquiries it generates. The informative poster will stimulate questions and discussions. A poster that is poorly organized, and technically inferior, will actually repel onlookers.
Plan posters well. Begin by determining from the meeting organizers the size poster boards that will be available. Typical boards are 4 × 8 ft. The poster should contain the following:
1. Title, names of authors, and their affiliation – this is placed on a banner that spans the top of the poster
2. Abstract
3. Plates for
a. Objectives
b. Methods
c. Results
d. Discussion
e. Conclusions
Arrange the sections so that onlookers can quickly grasp an overall impression of the work.
Poster plates are generally prepared to meet guidelines discussed under podium presentations. More detail can be added for individual poster plates, but it is normally best to keep them as simple as possible. Each part of the finished poster can be generated on your computer in Microsoft Word or some other word processing program. Once all the poster plates are made, prepare large type versions with a laser printer. The resultant lettering should be no less than 4–5 mm in height. Lines for graphs and tables should be no less than 2 mm wide. The prescribed enlargements should be readable from 8 ft. The title banner can also be made through use of a word processor or through photographic enlargements, but individual letters should be 3–4 in. in height to be readable at 16 ft. Any photographic work should be done with high-contrast film. Printing can be on glossy paper, although MacGregor [185] recommended a matte or pearl-surfaced finish to minimize glare. The pearl-surfaced photographs are also less prone to curling. Photographs can also be imported into a PowerPoint presentation that can be printed to provide plates for the poster.
After all of the poster materials have been prepared, the presentation components can be laid out on the floor to aid organization and arrangement. Have your advisor and some friends view the poster and make comments. Then, you can reformat the finally organized poster elements into a single PowerPoint slide (by cutting and pasting). After uploading this “master slide” onto a USB “thumb drive,” it can be printed out on a single piece of photographic poster paper, using a specially configured printer/plotter (e.g., Hewlett-Packard Designjet 4020ps). Take care in planning the printing stage with all corrections done beforehand, as the ink and poster paper are expensive. As you are preparing for the meeting, collect items that will be needed for the poster presentation. These include a reasonably priced plastic or cardboard poster tube to transport the poster and 5/8-in. steel pushpins, a black magic marker, and cellophane tape. Photocopies of an abstract, the entire poster, or other relevant materials, may be taken to hand out to interested viewers.
On the day of the poster presentation, arrive at least 30 min before the scheduled presentation time to set up the poster. Be sure to be present at the poster during the appointed times. If there is an option of staying for the entire time the poster is displayed, take it! The more personal contact with onlookers, the better. Indeed, this is probably one of the greatest advantages of poster presentations over podium presentations.
Encourage questions from serious onlookers by offering to give additional information. Display enthusiasm during the discussions of your work with visitors. Don’t be afraid to greet and visit with friends who drop by, but try not to monopolize significant blocks of time with chitchat. Also, try to keep discussions at a reasonable sound level.
During the poster session, observe difficulties that some onlookers may have had with the presentation of the work. Take notes on how the next poster presentation might be improved. Remove the poster on time, and save the poster’s digital elements for use in preparing additional PowerPoint presentations or figures for publication.
Publication of papers
Publication customs vary among both disciplines, and individual researcher labs. In some disciplines, graduate students seek publication on their own, either before, or after graduation (e.g., mainly publication of dissertations in vertebrate paleontology). For most fields, however, joint publications with advisors and other workers is the rule. Regardless of the practices in your lab/discipline, it is important to understand the publication process, which includes the following:
1. Selection of an appropriate journal and publisher
2. Preparation of manuscript for publication
3. Submission of manuscript
4. Response to reviews
5. Handling galley and page proofs
6. Ordering reprints and handling page charges (becoming rarer with electronic media)
7. Referring to unpublished work
8. Responding to reprint requests
Selecting journals and publishers
There are many journals in most fields of science. A survey of Journal Citation Reports will lead to many titles. The journals found will vary in relative quality (often reflected in different so-called impact factors); the most respected are generally those that are published by major societies and associations. Nevertheless, there are also some very good journals published by universities, museums, and independent publishers.
Researchers’ careers get their greatest boosts from publishing in the best possible, appropriate journals. The better journals (e.g., Nature, Science) however, have rejection rates as high as 90% that may cause scientists to shy away from them, unless they are reporting about a study that they believe will make a “major splash.” This is unfortunate because 1 or 2 solid publications in a prestigious journal may be worth as many as 5–10 papers in lower-rate journals. The lesson for choosing a journal for a manuscript is clear. Select the most prestigious journals, and narrow the choice by considering comparative circulations. Data on circulation are found on the last few pages of the November and December issues of journals, listed in the “Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation.” Another factor to consider is the cost of publication. Some journals charge $100 or more per page to publish papers; page charges for color photographs will be much more expensive (up to $500 per page or more). Also, a processing fee of $25 or more may be assessed when the paper is submitted. Acceptance of a paper for publication is not contingent on payment of page charges, but this payment may be expected, except under unusual circumstances. Unless an advisor has budgeted for this cost, it is important to consider whether publication in a journal with page charges is worth the cost.
In recent years, the move toward “open access” has become another important consideration, when choosing where and how to publish. Open access (OA) removes many of the traditional barriers to the sharing of scholarly work. Authors can retain more rights to their work and exercise more control in how this content can be reused subsequently. Most importantly, instead of just being available to journal subscribers, or to those who pay a download fee, articles that are made OA can be viewed by anyone. Thus, OA expands access to new research, especially to a global audience. Some grant-funding agencies have now begun incorporating OA mandates, requiring that the results of research be made available in this manner. Certain journals now publish materials in an OA format exclusively, while many others have adopted a hybrid approach, where an individual article may be published as OA, once a predetermined, one-time fee is paid. Such fees can often be substantial, but libraries and academic institutions may have programs in place to assist with these fees, and/or have memberships that can reduce the costs to authors. At times, charges for OA articles can also be covered directly through a grant, particularly when a mandate is involved. Unfortunately, some unscrupulous companies have arisen to take advantage of the growth in OA publishing, so the careful selection of the best journals remains paramount. To help researchers in making these determinations about which OA publishers are most trustworthy, Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado Denver, regularly updates lists of “potential, possible, or probable predatory” OA publishers and journals on his website [186]. He also shares the criteria on which these evaluations are based.
In some fields (e.g., English literature, history), dissertations are commonly published as books, but finding a publisher that will be willing to publish an entire scientific dissertation can be more difficult. Many commercial publishing firms avoid dissertation manuscripts because their narrow scope can lead to poor sales of resulting books, and subsequently little profit. For this reason, university presses should be considered for such publications. Their purpose is the advancement of knowledge, rather than profit, and one is more likely to find publishers of dissertations topics from among their ranks. A directory of university presses (Association of American University Presses or AAUP) has a link to a pdf file with grids showing preferences for manuscripts in particular fields [187], and should be consulted to make a list of possible choices. A priority order can be developed based on the prestige of representative universities (or museums) and their respective presses.
Preparation of manuscripts
The purpose, scope, and format of papers for journals are detailed in notices to authors that are published at least once a year. Use guidelines in the notice to authors, as well as those in Chapter 8, in order to prepare the final draft. If a book-length manuscript is planned, obtain the publisher’s handbook (or equivalent) for authors that will give details on format. If a paper is being prepared for camera-ready copying, the format guidelines will be extensive, and must be reviewed carefully before processing the paper.
The question of authorship should be discussed long before a final draft of the paper is written; in some situations, it is better to resolve the relative position of authorship matter before the research is even done (e.g., comparative genomics papers, where large numbers of contributors and authors are involved). As noted previously, in some fields, it is common for graduate students to publish their thesis or dissertation research alone. Graduate students in most scientific disciplines, however, publish jointly with their advisor and other faculty or students, who are significant contributors to the work. The involvement of multiple authors does, however, raise the question of whose name will appear first on the manuscript’s author line. This is an important question because modern citation, retrieval, and literature-scanning services can attribute disproportionate credit to the first author. In many research groups, first authorship is based on who is credited with the major ideas in the paper and the write-up. Thus, beginning graduate students will usually assume a second or third author status. Advanced graduate students often earn first authorship. And, in an increasing number of scientific disciplines, the major professor, and/or principal investigator of the grant or funding source that has paid for the research, takes the final position on the author line.
Sometimes, conflicts arise about authorship, or the ordering of authors on papers – particularly how these matters reflect proper acknowledgment of genuine contributors to a publication. The graduate student researcher with concerns can bring them to her or his mentor. If the concerns continue to prevail, the departmental graduate coordinator, department chair, and graduate dean’s office may be accessed for advice and help.
Whether the manuscript is a book-length submission, or a two-page communication, care should be taken to make sure that it is neat, and free from misspellings and typographical errors. This requires careful reading and rereading by all authors; additional feedback can be gleaned from colleagues who are not authors, or other graduate students willing to read the manuscript critically. Remember that you should reciprocate, when asked for similar help. Editors and reviewers are invariably impressed by neatness and correctness. Attention to these details indicates a feeling for aesthetics, and an appreciation of good work, and suggests, at least indirectly, that the research was conducted in a comparable manner.
Submitting manuscripts to publishers
Prepare a cover letter to accompany the submittal of a manuscript to a publisher. Address the letter to an editor indicated in a notice to authors, and include the following:
1. A statement identifying the contents of the correspondence
2. How the paper should be considered, that is, as an article, note, or communication
3. A statement indicating that the content of the paper has neither been published, nor submitted, or accepted for publication by another journal
4. Name and address of the recipient of future correspondence, if they are different from those of the author of the letter
5. Suggested names (with addresses) of potential reviewers, if the paper covers work in a specialized area
6. A simple note of thanks for considering the manuscript
It should be emphasized how critical it is, with manuscript submittals, that it must be “one journal at a time.” Violation of this rule will cause embarrassment, or worse, for budding authors, and new researchers need all the good graces they can develop with journal editors.
Book-length works should never be sent to publishers without prior approval. If possible, publishers should be visited to discuss projects.
For some journals, papers or book-length manuscripts should be bound carefully in manila envelopes, and sent through first-class mail to editors. Enclose the prescribed number of copies, and include a self-addressed stamped envelope for notice of receipt, if this is customary with the publisher. Also, include a voucher for payment of review charges, if necessary.
As an alternative to first-class mail, most journals permit electronic transmission of manuscripts. In such cases, author instructions are available, and conditions for transmission should be followed carefully. More and more of the highest impact factor (>20) journals have gone to at least a partial electronic publishing format (e.g., Cell, Nature, Science); in addition, there are entire families of high impact factor (9–20) peer-reviewed journals that are primarily published electronically, such as PLoS One, PLoS Genetics, PLoS Medicine, and PLoS Pathogens. The ability to publish electronically is especially important in disciplines such as molecular biology or genomics, where relative rate of publication can be critical.
Be sure to retain both electronic and hardcopy versions (when relevant) of all materials sent to the publisher. For multiauthor papers, it is proper to supply each author with an electronic copy of all mailed material.
Manuscript reviews
Word should be obtained that a manuscript has been received and sent out for review by the publisher, within days (in the case of electronically transmitted manuscripts), to 2–3 weeks of submittal. If no word is received within 3 weeks, call or write to the editorial office to confirm receipt. A report on the review(s) of manuscripts submitted to journals should be received within 6–8 weeks. Book-length manuscripts may take 4–12 months. Very few submitted scientific papers are accepted outright, but a paper might be deemed acceptable with minor changes. Alternatively, the reviewer(s) may raise significant questions about the work that will have to be addressed effectively to prompt reevaluation by the editor(s). This may require considerable revision and reprocessing.
All criticisms of reviewers should be considered constructive, and be seriously addressed, if possible, during the revision process. The reviews of two or more referees may have notations (e.g., A, B, …) that should be referred to in the cover letter. If no notation is given, assign numbers or letters appropriately. Changes should be clearly described in a response by page-paragraph-sentence number citations that are given to help the editor or reviewer locate the revised material. This is effectively done by using different-colored ink for underlining, or different typefaces developed through word processing for new and revised sections of the resubmitted paper. The underlining can be correlated to colors assigned to different reviewers.
Sometimes, footnotes can be used beneficially in order to respond to reviewer criticism. One of us has used footnotes such as, “One referee suggested that …” to describe a reviewer’s concern, and to lead into a response.
The revised manuscript, and a letter outlining revisions, should be returned to the editors. Be sure to include in the letter the manuscript’s number, as assigned by the editor. If the requests for changes are minor, and the objections have been satisfactorily addressed, the editor may exercise her or his prerogative to approve publication. Reviewer requests for major revision, however, may prompt the editor to send the revised manuscript to the referee(s) for a second review. The editor will consider the reviewer’s advice in making the final decision. The time from resubmittal to receipt of word on the manuscript’s fate varies, but should be within 4 weeks. Take delight in an acceptance. Alternatively, the manuscript may actually be rejected at this stage, or even after the first review and subsequent revision.
Editors and publishers are receptive to appeals for reconsideration, but rejection of a revised manuscript is invariably final. A rejection notice received after the initial review may contain words of hope such as, “Because the criticisms raised by the reviewer are of a fundamental nature, we regret to inform you that we are unable to accept this paper for publication in the Journal of Scientific Research. If it is possible to revise the paper to overcome the reviewer’s criticisms, we may reconsider it.” Other rejections may offer no hope for reconsideration.
Sometimes, rejections are based on factors other than just scientific soundness. Consider this one: “Your paper, which you kindly submitted for publication has been reviewed by an outside referee and a member of our Editorial Board. They believe that it is likely to be of interest primarily to a narrower range of specialists and it is therefore unsuitable for publication in the Journal. I regret that we cannot consider it further. Good luck in getting it published in a more appropriate, discipline-specific journal.”
Understand that rejection letters are received by the best of scientists.
Rejection rates in the most prestigious journals may be as high as 70–90%. Appropriate responses to rejection notices are to evaluate the scientific basis for criticisms, revise the work accordingly, and seek another journal or publisher. Veteran writers will confess to receiving numerous rejection notices, but for many of the manuscripts that were initially reviewed unfavorably, ultimate publication resulted in rave reviews, or scores of reprint requests. Occasionally, reviews reveal fatal flaws in work that makes it unsuitable for publication. The previously mentioned situations characterize the publishing world, and it is important for researchers to develop the sense of tenacity that is necessary to survive in it.
Handling proofs
Manuscripts that are typeset go through a proofing stage. The process involves review and revision of the typeset material, sometimes on legal-sized sheets known as galley proofs. It is the author’s responsibility to peruse galley proofs in a timely manner for errors introduced during typesetting, and to make changes using proofreaders’ marks [188]. Galley proofs may also contain questions from editors. These author queries should be answered succinctly in the margins.
The production of proofs of papers may be close to the time for printing; thus, proofreading should be completed within 48 h. Avoid making revisions in the copy, unless they are absolutely necessary (such as editorially directed changes or misspellings). Author-initiated changes at the galley proof stage can delay publication, and may result in a charge for services.
The corrected proofs should be returned by first-class mail to the printer. Be careful to note the printer’s address. It is frequently different from that of the editor or publisher.
The proofing of book-length manuscripts cannot normally be completed within 48 h. The printer, however, is likely to have a deadline, and may ask that you expedite the proofing step. A typical allotment for this task would be 1 or 2 weeks.
Requests for purchase orders for reprints and page charges will often accompany the galley proofs. An advisor will have to approve these purchases from a university account, and it will take some prognosticating to anticipate reprint needs. Until publication, an accepted paper may be referred to as “in press” or “accepted for publication,” in interim papers and reports. Before acceptance, papers are referred to as “unpublished results” (in footnotes or parentheses) or “in revision” if comments have actually been received and are usually excluded from bibliographies.
Acceptance and publication of the first paper are important milestones in the career of a scientist. Seeing one’s name in print provides the thrill experienced by performers who see their “name in lights.” Assuming that it is in a peer-reviewed publication, it also provides vindication of one’s work and efforts; literally, a group of your colleagues have determined objectively that you and your research efforts have “made the grade.” The experience with reprints of a researcher’s first paper has been aptly described by Slobodkin [189]: “Reprints of his first published paper are sent to parents and grandparents; and the first reprint requests from strangers in Iowa or, better still, agricultural stations in India and Brazil produce a tremendous elation.”
Presentation and publication are terminating points in virtually all scientific research projects. Many of these projects, however, require attention to special populations (e.g., animals, human subjects) or unusual handling procedures (e.g., biohazards). These topics are covered in Chapter 11.