Speaker 1: I am deputy editor of two journals, the Journal of Endocrinology and the Journal of Molecular Endocrinology, which are both run and owned by the Society for Endocrinology. And although you can submit your papers and journals, your papers and reviews to all journals, we would hope you would at least think about these two journals when you think about publishing your top research. So this is the angle I'm coming from. I am a scientist, basic scientist, like many people in the audience, but I'm also a reviewer. I'm also an editor. So I see all sides and all angles of the peer review process. This talk will be primarily to the younger or the less experienced scientists who've maybe not published at all or only published one or two, because once you become an old hat like myself, who've done maybe over a hundred papers, it becomes less personal. It becomes more a machine. You sit back, you look at it, you swear a couple of times, put it in your drawer, and you go back to a couple of days later. I advise you, you do that. You don't be impulsive. But we'll get to that at the end of the talk. We've got two journals. There are two journals. We've got more journals in the stable, but we've got two. One is the Journal of Endocrinology, which is the highest ranking impact factor journal in basic endocrinology in the field. And we've got the Journal of Molecular Endocrinology, which is an impact factor of just under three. One of the gold advertising things is we've got a very quick turnaround with under 20 days. So once you submit your manuscript to either of these journals, you will get a response on average under 20 days. This is much better than most other competitive journals. From today, there is no color charges if you're a member of the Society for Endocrinology. And the preprints will be published very quickly after acceptance of your article. The two journals' remits are there, and they can be seen, and they're on the website, as you can see quite clearly. The Journal of Endocrinology is more related to endocrine physiology of the whole animal of metabolism at organism level, whereas the Journal of Molecular Endocrinology is more related to cells and cellular molecular mechanisms. So you want to, if you're thinking of submitting to any of these two journals, you want to look carefully at the remit, as you've heard in the previous speaker, and make sure you're submitting your journal to the correct one, or it will probably come back, or at least suggested that you submit it to the other one. So to the manuscript submission and response to editors, this is very generic. It does not just relate to the journals I've just been talking about. But you've done your work, you've analyzed your data, these are the fun bits. You've written your paper, and you submit your manuscript. It's very unlikely you're going to be a first and only sole author paper. You will have lots of colleagues around you. If you're starting out in your scientific career, writing your first or second paper, you'll probably have three, four, or even more co-authors, and they will help you design your studies, design how you'd lay out your manuscript, et cetera. But how do you deal with the peer review process? Now a piece of work is not finished until it's actually in print. You may have done all the experiments, but until it's actually been accepted, that work is no good to anyone, and that's why you must publish it. So once you've written your manuscript, you want to make sure it is as best as it can be before you submit that button, bang. So simple things, and I know they're rather simple, but I've seen many manuscripts and they fall down right at the start. The article format, read the format and instructions that we've just heard. Proofread it. Sometimes I see mistakes in titles. So make sure there is little or no grammatical errors. Make sure your citations are correct. These are standard things that should be done. And do not over-inflate, don't over-egg your conclusions. Make sure your conclusions are realistic and are backed up by the data you provided in your figures of your manuscript. This may be well-known to most people, but who reviews your process? This is at the basic of all academic publishing. The people who review your paper or your manuscripts are people like you, maybe a little bit more experienced. They are scientists, they are clinicians who have got expertise in the area that your manuscript has been submitted in. They do it in the right time. It is not paid. So it's often done travelling, flying at the end of the day or at weekends after the kids have gone to bed. So that's why you don't want to annoy them with a couple of mistakes in the very first line grammatical, okay? They're not directly awarded, although you get to talk at meetings like this occasionally. Reviewers volunteer their time, so you want to keep them on board. Don't hack them off, okay? I could say a worse word, but please, keep them on board. They're your friends, and without them, you will not get your paper published. Certainly in the Society of Endocrinology, we've got a reviewer code of conduct, and I'm sure this is common throughout all publications. Most reviewers are asked to provide constructive criticisms. They should not point out limitations without suggesting solutions. This does not always happen, but we try to encourage that all our referees get marked, and we will not use a referee that gives poor feedback to the authors. All feedback should be worded pleasantly, even if negative, and that's coming. You've got to get used to it. You've got to get hard-skinned. Requests for improvement should be reasonable and realistic. Sometimes reviewers get carried away and suggest you should take another couple of cell lines, another few transgenic cells and mice, but this is where the senior editor or the editor handling your manuscript should come in and guide you, and I'll come onto this later, as to what's expected to get your manuscript published, because some reviewers don't quite get it. So once you've submitted your manuscript, you'll wait for two or three weeks, less if you submit it to Joe or JME. Now, there's several conclusions. It could be rejected without peer review. It could be rejected after review, or it could have major revision, minor revision. There's often, it's very, the decision between major and minor can be very, it's not definitive. But basically, if you need a lot of work done, it might get a major revision. If it's only something that needs a few sentences of construction, it'll be a minor revision, or in a very uncommon situation, it'll be accepted straight away. Now, that rarely ever happens. So decisions for reject, it'll get rejected without peer review if the subject area does not fit with the remit of the journal, so carefully pick your journal. If it's a weak study design, weak research motive, incomplete data, insufficient sample size, poor analysis, any of these things will be scanned right at the start by the senior editor, and if it falls down in any of these, it will be sent back without review. But in most cases, papers go out to review. So often the best case scenario is, obviously the best case scenario is acceptance straight away, but again, that is very unlikely, and it doesn't usually happen. In fact, I'm never aware of any of my papers happening. So it's often usually a major or minor revision. So what you want to do is view the reviewer's comments as a positive opportunity to improve your paper. Most of the time, reviewers do not have something to get to. They want to help you and not criticise. Don't take their comments personally. You've got to get over it. That's why it's sometimes good to read it, put it away, and then come back to it. Don't act impulsively. Reviewer's reports are vital in enabling you to improve your paper. They ensure your published data is the best it can be. If you want, this is Aristotle, if you want to avoid criticism, you do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing, but you'll never get a paper published. So you've got to put your neck on the line, submit your data, submit your script, and wait for the feedback. When you respond to reviewers, you want to sit down, be calm, and not get angry. Thank the reviewers for good suggestions. You want to be courteous. That's the overlying thing. You want to be courteous. Again, the reviewers will get your comments back, and they will see how you've dealt with each of these points. If it's an angry tone, a combative tone, they'll not take to it kindly, because they're giving up their time to review your work. Control your anger. Do not use aggressive tone. Pick your battles. You want to get your stuff published. You do not want to fight a battle and then find it's been rejected. Acknowledge what can be improved, and if there's other work needs done, you do the work, or if you can't do the work, say why you can't do the work. Provide a detailed point-by-point response, and that is very important. Make sure your manuscript has got page numbers. I see so many manuscripts without page numbers, so when a referee says, see point thing, and they don't know which page, they can't guide you. So when you do your rebuttal, make sure it's clear to which point of the reviewer's comments you're addressing, and when you change your manuscript, make sure that maybe you pick it in red or in blue, so the referee can go to that page and see the text changes you have done. They don't want to be scrabbling around trying to find how you've modified it. Make it easy for them. And the bottom point there is very important. Some reviewers' comments are slightly wide off the mark. They're actually too ambitious for the journal that you're reviewing for. It's not nature. It's not science. They're asking for maybe study two or other three transgenic cell lines, et cetera. So the senior editor may guide you to say what points should be addressed and suggesting that other points are not necessarily need to be addressed at all. So responding to viewers' more comments, it's okay to ask for clarification if you need to. It's okay to disagree with the reviewers, but be polite again, provide you are polite and provide evidence why you disagree with these comments. Not all referees get it right. And if you've got a strong case or you disagree vehemently, you just say so. Be prepared to do more studies. This is usually in the major revision. They'll ask you to do more studies. And you just have to bite the bullet and do them, even though it's a pain in the backside. And do not ignore comments. Every comment will be expected to be addressed either positively or negatively or rebutted. So here's some examples of what often you want to say and what you should say. So this one is about the referee doesn't basically understand it. So what you usually say is the reviewer has already clearly understood the key elements of the paper. That's rather brash. And what you should say is in green there. Be much more polite and courteous to the reviewers' comments. I know it takes some stick, but this is what you need to do. This one is about further work. Some reviewers ask for more work to do, and you're tempted to say the reviewer suggests a wide range of additional experiments and data collection. This would take several years and require additional funding. It is neither feasible or realistic. Again, tone that down. And what is written in green there, I won't read it out to you, is what the more tone of your response should be if you're not planning to do the extra work. If the extra work is easy, quick, and doable, and important for your study, you should do that work. You should not try and rebut all requests for further work. And the last one is about pickiness, and this is something that gets me. If you're being too picky, no, we're not being too picky. The last thing we want to see is mistake in grammar and type and spelling. There should be no excuse for that at all. So just to summarize and sum up, first thing is get over it. As I say, once you've published 10, 20, 30, 40 papers, you get used to it. Don't take it personally. Have a quick read of them, share it with your colleagues, think about it, don't rush straight into print and start belting out an angry response. Seek first to understand their comments, because sometimes they're written not in the best of English themselves. These people are doing it fast. No excuse for that, but sometimes they hash down their comments and you have to say, what is this person actually asking me to do? So once you've understood it, it's easier to respond. Either modify it, rebut it, or do the extra work. Avoid conflict. Look for compromise. Don't be angry. Don't escalate any issues. If someone's asking you to do something you think it's a stupid, stupid request to do, don't go back and say it's stupid. Point out courteously why they think you're wrong, you think they are wrong. Respond completely, politely, and give evidence. Remember what you want. You want to publish it. You do not want to get conflict, escalate fighting between you and the reviewer or the senior editor. And good luck. Thank you very much.