Hi, this is Dr. Pedro Ramirez, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer, and today I would like to share with you what is the process for a manuscript that is submitted to our journal, looking at the details of the initial submission, as well as the process of the evaluation of the manuscript to determine if the manuscript will be submitted for a formal review with our reviewers or members of the editorial board, or if the manuscript will be rejected. Certainly there is a number of steps that are incredibly important, and particularly for the author to understand as to what happens to the manuscript once it has been submitted to the journal. The first step is obviously assuring that the manuscript is completed and that the manuscript has been completed according to the instructions for authors as it pertains to that particular journal, and certainly that applies to our own journal or any other scientific journal. It is obviously a reality that there are a number of specifics as it pertains to each journal when considering the submission of that manuscript and putting together that manuscript, so it is really important for the authors to look at the instructions for authors for that particular journal, because this could be one of the first reasons why the manuscript is returned to the author before the process of submission is initiated. Once the manuscript has been submitted to the journal, our editorial team will evaluate the manuscript to assure that it has a letter, that in that letter it addresses the scope of the work that is being submitted and the reason why this work is of interest to the community of gynecologic oncologists, and particularly to the readership of that journal. In addition to that, in that submission letter, the authors should outline the fact that the manuscript is being submitted exclusively to that journal and not to multiple journals simultaneously. In addition to that, in that letter it should outline what is the scope of the work of each of the authors and that all authors agree with the submission of that manuscript to the journal. The editorial team will also make sure that the manuscript is in its proper format, that certainly there is a plagiarism evaluation in check, and this is important for us to have a confirmation that the manuscript has been written in its original form, rather than plagiarizing previous work from other manuscripts as well. In addition to that, there is a process for evaluating the word count as well as the number of tables and figures for that particular manuscript, and it is important, once again, for the authors to be very compliant with the instructions to the authors for that particular journal, because, again, failing to do so may be the reasons why the manuscript may be returned to the authors. Now, once the editorial managing team considers that the manuscript is fit and follows the instructions for authors, then that manuscript will be turned over to the editorial team, and that may be the editor-in-chief or the associate editors, particularly for the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer. We have a number of associate editors that work on specific disease sites and specific topics, so those manuscripts will go to that specific associate editor or, ultimately, to the editor-in-chief to determine if that manuscript is submitted for formal review. In our journal, we have also the decision which is called reject without review, and this is usually about 50% of the manuscripts that we received in the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer. In that reject without review, typically the most common reason is because the work is not novel. So, in other words, if the content of that manuscript has already been previously published and the findings are very similar to what has been already published in the literature, the manuscript will be returned to the authors with a decision of reject without review because the material is not considered to be novel. Reasons for rejection in this setting is because when the work is not considered to be novel, the likelihood that that work will be referenced may be very low, so, therefore, there may be a low level of interest in that particular manuscript. Other reasons for the manuscript being rejected without review include the fact that it is out of the scope of the journal. So, in other words, if a manuscript comes in with information about breast cancer surgery or colorectal cancer surgery, this is clearly out of the scope of the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer, and that will be returned to the authors as out of scope. Other reasons, although less common, is that the manuscript is very poorly written and it has not been appropriately edited by an English-speaking editor, so, therefore, it is really important to highlight to the authors to assure that the manuscript has already been reviewed by an English-speaking editor to make sure that the manuscript will be considered fit to be submitted to the reviewers. And less commonly, a reason for rejection is when there is clearly a major conflict of interest that is undeclared or a manuscript that is reflecting a very clearly biased information often written by those in pharmaceutical companies, but, again, those are very unlikely and very rare reasons for a manuscript to be rejected without review. Now, if the manuscript is considered appropriate and of interest to the journal and potentially to the readership of the journal, then the manuscript will be sent to reviewers. Typically in our journals, we send to two reviewers, potentially three, but initially to two reviewers, and those reviewers are asked, obviously, to comment on that particular manuscript, and, certainly, we encourage our reviewers to view the video for reviewers on the website of the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer, and, in fact, I encourage the authors to also look at that video because they will have a sense as to what is it that the reviewers are looking for when evaluating a particular manuscript. Proceeding from that, then the reviewers will provide their feedback to the authors, and from there, the editor-in-chief or the associate editors will get the feedback from the reviewers to make a decision as to whether that manuscript is rejected, if it undergoes major revision, minor revisions, or accept this is. Now, it is important to highlight that the authors are able to provide suggested reviewers, and this is often very important for the associate editor or the editor-in-chief so that they will have a targeted list of reviewers for that particular manuscript. It is also important to highlight that the authors have the ability to request for any specific reviewer that they do not consider appropriate reviewer for their manuscript, and there may be many reasons for doing so, but, certainly, the authors do not have to specify the reason, particularly in our journal, and they can certainly just write the name of the reviewers that they do not wish for the manuscript to be reviewed. A common reason for this is if the potential reviewer is doing very similar work or competitive work pertaining to the same topic and, therefore, may be biased in making that review. So, it is important for the authors to understand that, that they can select reviewers that are suggested reviewers and that they can also provide the names of reviewers that do not wish for them to review their manuscript. Now, once the associate editors or the editor-in-chief evaluates the response from those reviewers, then a decision will be made for the authors, and, typically, those decisions, again, will be either a rejection, a major revision, or a minor revision. Typically, if the manuscript is rejected, that is a final decision, unless the authors have extenuating circumstances to consider that the manuscript did not undergo a fair review, and, therefore, obviously, the authors have the liberty to request that a subsequent analysis of their manuscript be performed by different reviewers, and this would be, obviously, requested very specifically outlined in a letter to the editor. Now, for the manuscripts that undergo major revision or minor revisions, and I'll focus on those two because it's exceedingly rare that a manuscript will undergo a decision by the reviewer to just accept as is. That would be very rare. So, if a manuscript receives a major revision or a minor revision, these comments are turned back to the authors, and then the authors will have an opportunity to address those comments. It is extremely important to highlight to the authors that when receiving the comments by the reviewers that the authors address each of those comments separately and that they state in the response to reviewer letter very, very clearly as to how they have answered that comment and how they have modified the manuscript to fit the requested comments by the reviewer. In other words, the authors need to specifically highlight how the manuscript has been changed or modified based on the recommendations that were made by the reviewers. It is important, again, to highlight that the authors should not just answer the reviewer without making a change in the manuscript, and if doing so, the authors run the risk that the manuscript will be rejected. In other words, the editorial team wishes to see that the author has acknowledged the comments as long as they are fair comments by the reviewer and has modified the manuscript to fit those comments that have been made by the reviewer. It is very important that if the authors differ in opinion with the comments made by the reviewer that they write to the editor-in-chief specifically why they consider that the comments may not be fair or may not be accurate, but specifically detailing their answer in that letter to the editor-in-chief. It is also recommended, of course, that the authors provide respectful feedback and responses to the reviewers, as we do require also our reviewers to provide respectful feedback to the authors, because it is obviously very important that the authors recognize that the reviewer has dedicated time and effort in order to provide feedback for their work. Now, once the manuscript has been modified, has been edited, and all the response to reviewers have been submitted back to the associate editors or the editor-in-chief, then a decision will be made on that manuscript. If the decision is for additional comments, those will be sent back to the authors to address those additional comments. If the decision is to accept the manuscript, then that manuscript will go to the editor-in-chief in our journal, and the editor-in-chief will provide medical edits, in other words, grammatical corrections or further clarifications, and those will be sent back to the authors. Once the authors address those final medical edits and additional comments, then the manuscript will be finally accepted, and then from there, it will go to the productions team, and the production team will provide the proofs for the authors to review. The proofs of the article are really important for the authors to evaluate very, very carefully. Why so? Because this is the last chance the authors will have to make any changes to that manuscript. Of course, those changes will be minor, but those corrections are the last time that the author will have to make any changes to that manuscript. Beyond that point and beyond publication, the authors could only write a letter to the editor to publish a correction in the journal in a subsequent issue addressing any particular changes that they needed to make. So therefore, once the proofs are approved by the author, that will be the final version of the manuscript. Subsequent to that, then the manuscript will be published online, and from that point, then the manuscript may be referenced, and then our journal being an electronic journal, the manuscript will then be placed in a formal issue of the journal, and for the journals that are paper journals, then the manuscript will ultimately be published in one of the paper issues for that particular journal. So certainly, this is an overview of the process for the manuscript processing in our journal, and we consider that this is reflective of most journals. So therefore, again, it is important for the authors to have an understanding of this process in order to assure a smooth transition and hopefully an acceptance of their manuscript. Thank you very much for your attention, and I hope these comments will be useful to you in your submission of your future research.

manuscript submission process

instructions for authors

manuscript evaluation

formal review

reviewer feedback