Data for Editors

May 14, 2022 | Scholarly publishing

An email lands in your inbox to let you know that an editorial board meeting is on the horizon and the editors want to see a report on submissions. And guess who has the joy of putting that together? Ah… it’s you.

If the thought of doing a submissions report makes you want to start banging your head on your keyboard, then get yourself a coffee and read our top tips for putting together reports for editors.

1. Know what the data you’re putting in the report relates to.

“Well, obviously I’m going to know what the data is about, I ran the report!” we hear you say – but are you sure? Is it relating to original submissions alone, or are revised submissions included in the figures? Is the date range relating to the submission or decision dates – or both?

For example, it’s not uncommon to find that the system has given you two reports which ought to be relating to the same set of manuscripts; but one of them totals to 78 manuscripts and the other to, say, 103.

When/as/if this happens, it’s important to understand why as you need to be able to explain this difference to your editor(s) – e.g., “the one with 103 includes revised submissions and the other doesn’t”.

Top Tip #1: Wherever possible, have a look at the raw data so you can check what has and hasn’t been included and always, always check that the figures on your charts match up.

2. Present the data in a way that’s clear and easy to understand.

Again, obvious, right? Well, not always. We’re all busy (understatement) so it’s easy to just copy/paste whatever charts and tables the system spits out in whatever format they happen to be in and consider the job done. But do they actually make sense?

Is the font that the system reports use clear and easy to read? Is the chart title something that your editor(s) will understand or just the name of the report that you’ve run? If the system’s presented the data in a pie-chart, is this the best way to analyse that data or would it be clearer in a bar-graph?

Taking a bit of time to reformat may be tedious but it will mean less confusion and fewer queries heading your way once the report’s been circulated – a win/win situation.

Top Tip #2: Try to view the report through your editor(s) eyes and present the data in a way that’s going to make sense to them.

3. Include information that your editor(s) will want to see.

Some editorial boards (and/or publishers) give very clear guidelines on what information they want to see in a report, but others just ask you to send them some data. If your editor(s) has(ve) been a bit vague, then we would suggest you include the following:

• At-A-Glance Statistics – If you’re using ScholarOne, these give a great overview of the journal including the accept ratio for the last year, how many manuscripts are currently pending, and how long the oldest manuscript has gone without a decision.
• Geographical Data – In our experience, editors love to see where in the world their submissions are coming from and what the geographical spread of accepted manuscripts is. So, unless your journal is very niche and only gets submissions from a small area, always include this information.
• Submissions Received by Month – We would recommend that (unless anyone’s specified otherwise) you provide monthly submission figures for a period of at least a year, if not two. This will give a good indication of whether there’s been growth in the number of submissions, as well as showing which periods of the year tend to be quieter.
• Editor Turnaround Times – If your journal is run by a team of editors, this can be a useful one to include as it will flag up if any of them are taking considerably longer than the others to get manuscripts to a point of decision. The Editor-in-Chief will want to be aware of this if they are!

Top Tip #3: Think about what data to include for your particular journal and your particular editor(s).

The Gentle Art of Reviewer Selection

Apr 14, 2022 | Scholarly publishing

Reviewer selection is arguably the most important part of an academic editor’s job; without good reviewers, the whole peer-review process grinds to a halt. So, if you are a good reviewer, I would like to take this opportunity to say, on behalf of editors and authors everywhere: Thank You!

What makes a good reviewer?

A good reviewer is somebody who reads the paper thoroughly, with an unbiased mind, and gives an honest opinion without being unnecessarily unkind to the authors or getting upset that their own work hasn’t been referenced enough (this happens more often than it should).

But the key thing that elevates someone to the ranks of a “good reviewer” is that they return their reviews on time. And, on the odd occasion that they can’t – things come up, life happens, it’s inevitable – they let the editorial team know. When it comes to the peer-review process, there is nothing worse than a reviewer who agrees to review a manuscript then disappears off the face of the earth.

For all we know, they could be busy crafting the greatest review academia has ever seen, but if it takes so long that the authors lose patience and withdraw their manuscript then it honestly doesn’t help anybody.

How do you find a good reviewer?

If you’re a new editor, you will probably start with your colleagues, your professional acquaintances, people who you know you can rely on to do a good job. But there comes a point when you have to take the plunge and start asking people who you don’t know so well – your colleagues aren’t available, it’s slightly outside of their specialism, they’ve already reviewed eight papers for you this month – so where do you begin to look for specialists who you’ve never bumped into at a conference?

1. The Editorial Board

If you’ve taken over the editorship of an established journal, then the Editorial Board should be your first port of call. The Board will almost certainly be made up of specialists from all over the world and often it is a condition of being listed as a Board member that they review a certain number of manuscripts for the journal. They are also a fantastic resource as they will know other experts in their particular field who they can recommend to undertake the review if/when they can’t do it themselves.

2. Your Reviewer Database

Again, this applies to established journals, but if peer review is run through an online submission system, then you will have a reviewer database at your fingertips. This database should be searchable by key word so you can, in effect, ask your system to suggest suitable candidates for you at the click of a button.

3. Advertise for Volunteers

We were recently talking to an editor who has a sign-up sheet on his journal’s homepage for people who wish to be considered as reviewers. He sends out regular emails containing the abstracts of submitted manuscripts and the reviewers on the list simply reply to volunteer for any they’d like to review. An unusual and ingenious tactic.

4. Ask Jane

Jane, or the Journal/Author Name Estimator, is an online tool which uses the title of a manuscript to search for relevant journals to submit it to, relevant articles to cite in it, and authors who’ve written on similar topics who might make good reviewers. In order to find these authors-of-similar-papers-who-might-make-good-reviewers, simply enter the title or abstract of the article in question in the box and click “Find authors”. She’ll then trot off to do a PubMed search and come back with a list of names and email addresses for you. If you’re struggling to find reviewers for a paper, we suggest you give her a go!