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Peer Review and
editing process at
Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences
Shaukat Ali Jawaid*
There has been a gradual
increase in the number of manuscripts that we receive for publication in
Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences and this number is likely to cross
three hundred manuscripts in 2007.The contributors are from over thirty
six countries. The number of manuscripts has increased manifold ever
since we have gone on the net (www.pjms.com.pk) in 2003.1 This has not
only increased the visibility of the journal and readership but is a
great source of good quality manuscripts thereby helping us achieve our
prime objective of publishing a good quality peer reviewed journal from
this region. Almost 90% of these manuscripts are received through e mail
online while we still receive about 10% manuscripts by post.
Editors of peer reviewed medical journals particularly in the not so
developed countries where the art and science of medical writing has not
yet fully developed, face lot of problems.2,3 Editing and publishing a
quality journal is at times very frustrating and stressful job. Some of
these problems can be eliminated altogether or reduced to a great extent
if the authors read and follow instructions to the authors carefully.
Our experience shows that while previously over 90% of the authors never
read these instructions now this figures has dropped to about 80% during
the last couple of years. In case the authors are a bit more careful and
follow these instructions in letter and spirit, it will not only
minimize the trauma to their manuscripts, accelerate the review and
editing process but also relieve the agony of editorial staff and
reviewers which they have to undergo while evaluating these manuscripts.
Editing and peer review process at Pak J Med Sci goes through different
stages which are as under:
Initial Assessment
All the manuscripts whether received through e mail or by post first
undergo initial assessment. The idea is to detect if there are any major
deficiencies so that it could be pointed out to the authors at this
stage so that they can rectify and resubmit the manuscripts without
losing any time. At this initial stage an effort is made to see whether
the manuscript has all the essential components i.e. structured abstract
with key words in case of original studies, Summary with key words in
case of Reviews. The length of the manuscript is another important
issue. We do not accept or rarely entertain manuscripts which are over
2500 words in case of original article, over 3500 words in case of
reviews, hence the authors are asked to shorten it if need be. It is
also ascertained if the figures, illustrations mentioned in the
manuscript have been attached, tables are in place if any. The authors
have tried to add latest references after doing proper literature
search. The references have been written properly as per International
Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Uniform Requirement for
Manuscript Submission to Biomedical Journals. 4 If everything is OK and
the manuscript is also accompanied by Letter of Undertaking signed by
all the authors confirming exclusive submission and willingness to pay
the publication charges if approved after peer review, this is an
indication that the authors are not only familiar with the art of
medical writing but have also read, followed instructions to authors.
Such manuscripts are accepted for further processing. Almost 30-35% of
the manuscripts that we receive are rejected at this initial stage. The
manuscripts marked for further processing are then graded into A and B
category. Epidemiological, original interesting studies are categorized
as A and are processed on fast track during peer review while those
falling in category-B are processed as a routine. Efforts are also made
to get these A-category manuscripts reviewed quickly and they are also
preferred as per our publication policy.
The correspondence author of these manuscripts which have been marked
for further processing are then sent an acknowledgement and they are
also issued a Reference No. of their manuscript which they are supposed
to refer to in all future correspondence. This acknowledgement gives
detailed information about the peer review process, likely time which it
will take as well as the publication charges which the authors will have
to pay in case of its acceptance. In some cases if the manuscript is
good but is not accompanied with Letter of Undertaking or there are some
minor deficiencies like a few incomplete references etc., this is also
communicated to the authors with a request to provide this missing
information immediately. No manuscript is processed further and sent for
peer review unless we have received the Letter of Undertaking signed by
all the authors. In our experience almost 50% of the manuscripts are not
accompanied by Letter of Undertaking which is provided later on when it
is pointed out.
Peer Review
Most of the manuscripts are
reviewed by two, one internal and one external reviewer. In case of
unsatisfactory review by any of the reviewers or in case of conflict of
opinion between both the reviewers, a third reviewer may be asked to
evaluate the manuscript before taking final decision to accept or reject
the manuscript. Our experience shows that about 25% of the manuscripts
have to be reviewed by more than two reviewers. The peer review process
itself takes about four months at an average.
In our reviewers data base we have one hundred thirty reviewers, ninety
from Pakistan and forty from overseas although the number of overseas
reviewers has now increased further ever since this presentation was
made at the conference. We are constantly looking for good reviewers to
increase our reviewer’s database. Based on the quality of manuscripts of
some of the contributors, we have selected some of them as reviewers and
this has been a very rewarding experience. Those authors whose
manuscripts get good comments from the reviewers and whose manuscripts
have been graded as A category, are then invited to join the team of
reviewers. However, still we find a great difficulty to find good
quality reviewers in some of the specialties and sub-specialties in
particular with the result that manuscripts on these topics naturally
require more time for peer review which at times is quite frustrating
for the authors.
Online Review: We welcome and prefer those reviewers who are willing to
receive online manuscripts for review which is not only quick but also
quite economical. However, so far only 20% of our reviewers have shown
interest in online review while the rest 80% still require hard copies.
It is not uncommon to find out that at times the reviewers misplace the
manuscripts and have to be supplied additional copies. We usually give
four weeks time to the reviewers. While the overseas reviewers who
mostly do online review take two to three weeks to review the manuscript
and send their comments, others have to be sent reminders time and
again. Among the local reviewers within the country, hardly 10% stick to
the timing and the rest of them have to be pursued. We expect our
reviewers to be sympathetic to the authors and their reviews should help
and guide them to further improve their manuscripts. About 20% of our
reviewers do not mind rewriting the manuscript if need be. About 50% of
the reviewers give detailed comments which are helpful for the authors.
Excellent reviewers who take care of minute details and the manuscripts
reviewed by them do not need any major work up by the editorial team
account for just 10%. Almost 90% of the manuscripts have to be looked at
in detail by the editorial team even after peer review as regards
correction, improvement of English language, references, tables etc. In
case the manuscripts need revision and rewriting, the reviewer’s
comments are communicated to the authors, almost 40% of the manuscripts
fall in this category.
Acceptance Rate: About 25% of the manuscripts are accepted after minor
editing, 35% of manuscripts get rejected due to serious flaws in the
study design, sample size, statistical analysis and no correlation
between the study objective, actual study and the conclusions drawn.
Hence, our overall acceptance rate is between 50-55%. Of these, about
25% fall into the category of primary acceptance and the remaining
30-35% manuscripts are those which are accepted after revision and
rewriting.
English Language
About 30% of the manuscripts
from within the country and from overseas particularly a few countries
from Gulf and Islamic Republic of Iran in particular, have extremely
poor English. Some of the busy reviewers do not appreciate receiving
such manuscripts for review. They feel that the editorial team should
first correct the English language and then forward them these
manuscripts for peer review. However, if the study is good and the topic
selected is interesting, efforts are made to rewrite, help rewrite and
revise these manuscripts without any change in their actual contents.
These manuscripts are then sent to the authors for approval. No
rewritten manuscript is published unless the rewritten version has been
approved by the original authors. Processing of such manuscripts take
more time and the authors are asked to be patient. In some cases
processing of such manuscripts took more than one year before they were
accepted and published but the authors were extremely grateful. It takes
about four to six months at an average for peer review and the time from
receipt of the manuscript to final publication in most of the cases is
about one year though some manuscripts do get published much early,
these are the manuscripts which are processed on fast track and fall in
category A during initial assessment.. Efforts are being made to
accelerate the peer review process and reduce the publication time.5
Another measure which we took to reduce the publication time during the
Year 2007 has been publication of additional issues. We published one
additional issue in April-June 2007(Part-II) while another additional
issue is planned in October 2007. Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences
is a quarterly publication and we cannot change the frequency of
publication because it may not be sustainable in the long run due to
economic reasons though we very much wish to make it a bi-monthly
publication. The number of manuscripts included in each issue has also
been increased from 12-15 in 2001-2002 to 40-45 in the Year 2007. All
this is meant to clear the backlog of accepted manuscripts. It is but
natural that once some one has written something, he or she is too keen
to see it in print as soon as possible but unfortunately there are no
short cuts. It is not uncommon to receive phone calls from authors
asking as to when and how much time it will take to get the manuscript
published though they may not have yet submitted the manuscript. My
answer to such callers is “you are trying to determine the sex of the
baby before proper engagement”. A vast majority of the authors are not
fully familiar with the editing and peer review process which is time
consuming otherwise they won’t be asking such questions.
Editing of
manuscripts
Once the manuscripts are
approved through the peer review process, they go though internal
editing process by the editorial team. After it is accomplished, the
authors are issued letter of acceptance. They are also communicated the
likely date of issue in which their manuscript will be included. In the
meantime they are requested to arrange for publication charges. Authors
from some of the countries like Bangladesh, Iraq, and Palestine are
exempt from publication charges. Some other deserving authors can also
request for assistance and if possible, genuine requests are entertained
with a positive outlook. If members of the editorial board or
international advisory board recommend, some the authors do get some
concession in publication charges.
Proof Reading
About 90% of the authors which
includes all the authors from overseas and a few within the country are
sent PDF files for proof reading. If the result of some of the figures
and illustrations is not good, the authors are advised to arrange them
in JPEG format. Although it is clearly mentioned in instructions to
authors that figures, illustrations should always be sent in JPEG format
while submitting the manuscript but some authors do not bother to follow
the instrucitons. Any minor deficiencies i.e. missing year or name of
the journal in References etc., are also pointed out so that these are
corrected in proof reading. Here again, some of the authors do not know
how to convey the corrections to the PDF file. Some resend the entire
manuscript with corrections without highlighting them making it almost
impossible to find out corrections. Some do not know what is meant by
JPEG and GIF format and all this is quite frustrating. It is impossible
for the editors to teach the authors how to use computers sitting at a
distance but they have no other option to live with it and face these
professional hazards.
Correspondence author: All developments concerning each manuscript from
formal acknowledgment to acceptance letter, proof reading etc., are
communicated to the correspondence author who is supposed to keep the
co-authors informed of these developments. But sometimes it does not
happen. If there are four or five authors in a manuscript, all of them
start making phone calls or sending e mails enquiring about the progress
of their manuscript. Some time they even do not know or mention the
reference number and all this is extremely frustrating, agonizing,
wasting lot of precious time. One of my Editor friends once told me that
as a policy they do not speak to the authors. Instead the authors are
requested to communicate through e mail. It does save lot of
un-necessary calls and time particularly when one is hard pressed on
timing but I personally do not agree with this approach.
Simultaneous
submission and duplicate publication
This is another menace which
needs to be tackled firmly. Despite the fact that some authors have
given written undertaking confirming exclusive submission of the
manuscript to the journal, but in fact they do submit it to some other
journals at the same time hoping that when they get a positive response
from one journal, they will withdraw the manuscript from other journals.
In some cases the authors do get their manuscript processed through peer
review and when they are helped to rewrite, revise and finalize it and
is accepted for publication, they send it somewhere else to get it
published immediately as they are very impatient due to various reasons
i.e. departments and institutional pressure, further academic promotion
etc. Some time one is lucky enough to detect such manuscripts before
publication when they are taken out of the publication schedule but
nothing can be done when such manuscripts do get published. In the
present circumstances, it is humanly impossible to timely detect such
cases of simultaneous submissions. The Editors cannot work as Policemen
and they have to trust the authors but sometime this trust is betrayed.
In Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences, we have had our share of such
unfortunate incidents. Strict action was taken against all those
involved in such unethical publication practices. These authors were not
only black listed refusing to entertain any manuscript from them in
future but the decision of this publication misconduct was also conveyed
to their respective head of the institution, provincial government in
case of government employees, Pakistan Medical and Dental Council as
well as the Higher Education Commission.6 Copies of such an action taken
against these authors were also sent to Editors of other important
journals. In some cases the authors promised to arrange for the
publication charges but once their manuscripts were published, they did
not respond. Little do they realize that they can cheat but only once?
As a policy we have black listed a number of such authors as well.
Online Edition (www.pjms.com.pk)
After carrying out the
corrections as conveyed by the authors, the manuscripts are finalized,
page numbering is done and the issue is uploaded on the net. The authors
whose manuscripts are included in this issue are sent email informing
them that the issue is now accessible on the net. We offer open access,
so they are encouraged to have another look at their manuscript and if
they find that some correction has been left out or there is some other
mistake, convey it immediately so that the corrections are carried out
before the issue is sent for printing. It is quite useful and sometime
one can avoid some serious mistakes. It is not difficult to carry out
corrections in the online edition and that particular manuscript can be
uploaded again within no time but it is impossible to do anything once
the issue has been published except to publish errata in the next issue.
Before final order for printing, an ammonia proof is arranged to have a
final check to see if the page numbering is in order, figures,
illustrations are visible and of good quality. A signed copy of ammonia
proof is then passed on to the press for final printing. Usually the
printed issue is ready three to four weeks after the issue has been
uploaded on the net.
Table-I gives the details of the number of manuscripts received and
published by Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences from the Year
2003-2006:
Self Publication
Audit
Annual self audit is a regular
feature with us and its details are published regularly.7-9 It not only
gives information about the number of manuscripts being received but
also countries, details about accepted and rejected manuscripts. It
helps to make further improvement through appropriate interventions as
the weak areas are also identified through this process. We have already
published a study regarding Characteristics of our Reviewers and the
quality of their reviews10 which had some interesting findings. Two more
studies are now planned using the information gathered through such self
publication audit.
Rejection of
manuscripts
It is not uncommon to receive
some uncharitable and unpalatable comments and remarks from those
authors whose manuscripts are rejected. However, in order to maintain
standard, peer review is a must and short cuts are not advisable. During
this process, one can lose many good friends as well. But remember, “ in
general the only people who love Editors are their wives, husbands,
children and parents.11
References
1. Jafary MH, Jawaid SA. Online
edition of a journal: a great source of manuscript and potential
regional cooperation. Pak J Med Sci 2006;22(2):107-9.
2. Jawaid SA. Problems faced by Editors of Peer Reviewed medical
journals. Saudi Med J 2004; 25, Suppl 1: 447-511.
3. Jawaid SA. What Medicine and Medical Editing Means To Me: In: What
Medicine Means To Me (Ajai R. Singh, Shakuntala A. Singh Eds.) MSM Men
Sana Monographs 2006; III, IV, p62-77.
4. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Uniform
requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. (Updated
2006). Available at: http://www.icmje.org
(Accessed July 15, 2007).
5. Jawaid SA, Jafary MH. Speedy peer review and reducing publication
time. Pak J Med Sci 2007;23(2):155-6.
6. Jawaid SA. Simultaneous submission and duplicate publication: Curse
and a menace which needs to be checked. Pak J Med Sci 2005; 21(3);
245-48.
7. Jawaid SA. Self audit (PJMS) for the Year 2000-2001. Pak J Med Sci
2002;18(1):5-10.
8. Jawaid SA. Publication audit 2003. Pak J Med Sci 2004; 20(1):1-3.
9. Jawaid SA and Jawaid M. Publication audit and the importance of
Online Medical Journals. Pak J Med Sci 2005; 21(1):6-9.
10. Jawaid SA, Jawaid M, Jafary MH. Characteristics of reviewers and
quality of reviews: A retrospective study of reviewers at Pakistan
Journal of Medical Sciences. Pak J Med Sci 2006; 22(2):101-6.
11. Harvey M. What Medical Journal Editing Means To Me. In: Mens Sana
Monographs (Ajai R. Singh, Shakuntala A.Singh Eds.) 2007;(In Press).
* Managing Editor
Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences,
Karachi. Pakistan.
E mail: pjms@pjms.com.pk,
pulse@pulsepakistan.com |
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