Submitting to a research journal

A topic in research methodology

Research journals are very diverse, so it is only possible to offer general guidance, but the information here is widely applicable.

This page discusses the general process of submitting to a research journal (academic journal) (which may be different from the process for a practitioner or professional journal – see below *) , and how the journal usually handles the submission. It is assumed that you have already carefully chosen the journal to submit the work to, and have prepared the submission according to the needs of that journal. (Read 'Selecting a research journal: Selecting an outlet for your research articles')

On submission

Most academic journals now have an on-line submission system. At the end of the submission process you will often be asked to download the file with the manuscript you have uploaded (sometimes along with other files) to confirm that it meets the journal requirements and is ready for submission. Once you have submitted you will normally get an email (virtually instantaneously, often) confirming submission. Usually the submission will be given a code (e.g., JOR-2020-00015C) that you should use if you later contact the journal.

Editorial screening

Usually new submissions are screened,either by an editor or an administrator. The screening may relate to three areas:

Readiness of submission

There may be checks on things like – are the figures missing/tables (where cited) included, is the paper 'blinded' for review (where that is a required), have required declarations been made (about research ethics, or funding sources, etc)?

If journals have specific requirements about such matters as forms of headings (not to use 'Introduction'; to have a section called 'Results') or subsections in an abstract and so forth, this may be checked. Some journals are very fussy about the precise wording and placement of particular information in a manuscript.

Papers with missing or non-compliant aspects may be returned for correction!

Within journal scope

Most journals accept work in a discipline or field. Some journals are very broad but most high quality journals are about 'education' or 'science education' or 'chemistry education' or some other specified domain.

Some may only invite certain types of work – only experimental studies; only case studies; only work undertaken form a sociological perspective; only work form a feminist standpoint; or whatever.

Rejection on quality grounds

Work that is judged not to be within the scope of that journal will be rejected at this stage. (This is disappointing, but saves time waiting for peer review.) Rejection on scope grounds at screening stage can usually be avoided by reading the available journal information and exploring some issues. However, that is not fool-proof as I know from experience!

Time-scale for screening

One should expect any rejection on screening, or request for changes to a submission prior to peer review to be received within a matter of days. If the manuscript passes screening it moves to peer review.

Peer review

A key concept in academic publishing is peer review. This is the notion that within a community of researchers, the work of members is evaluated by peer, other members of the same research community. If you send work on science eduction to a science education journal you can expect the editor will ask other researchers in science eduction to evaluate it. (Read more about peer review.)

The peer reviewers read the work independently and each submit a report on it. They are asked to make a recommendation on publication (as is, or after improvements), and their report sets out the basis for the recommendation in terms of strengths and limitations of the submission.

Evaluation of submission is normally undertaken in peer review by referees chosen (where possible) because they have specialised knowledge relating to the topic of the manuscript. However, when screening is carried out by the editor, it becomes clear that many submission are lacking substance to be worth sending to peer review (and asking reviewers to give up time to evaluate and report on them) and they are rejected without peer review. This should not happen to well prepared manuscripts of carefully carried-out research when submitted to a suitable journal.

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Editorial decision

The editor will read the reviews and consider the manuscript based on her/his own experience and judgement (and overview of the scope, and editorial policies of the journal) and the reviewer reports and recommendations. If she/he feels at this point that a clear decision cannot be made (especially where reviewers make very different recommendation) further reports may be sought form extra referees.

The range of decisions an editor has available usually include (with variations in terminology) :

• reject – not suitable for this journal;
• reject – but invite a re-submission (where the manuscript has major problems, but it is recognised that the work being reported might deserve publication);
• revisions (major) – that the manuscript cannot be published as submitted, but could be suitable for publication subject to major revisions (responding to specific points raised by referees) and following further peer review;
• revisions (minor) – that the manuscript will be suitable for publication once certain specified points are addressed (possibly subject to further peer review, but possibly at the editor's discretion);
• accept – the submission can be published as submitted: but this is a very rare outcome with top quality journals.

Unless you are very confident in your work, or assured of the quality of the journal, you should treat an 'accept as is' decision with some suspicion (could you have submitted to a predatory journal? See below**.)

Time-scale for an editorial decision

Time from submission to editorial decision is usually from a few weeks to several months. Whilst some good quality journals do turn around many decisions in less than a month, you should be suspicious (other than initial screening decisions – see above) of any decisions that only take a few days, as it is very unlikely that quality evaluation by qualified reviewers can be achieved so quickly. In this case one might suspect that one has submitted to a predatory journal (see below **).

Making a revision

If a decision is received of invite re-submission or revisions (major or minor), the author(s) has/have a decision to make about how to proceed, and if they decide to continue the process, how to respond to the editorial decision. (Read responding to an editorial decision.)

* Research journals and practitioner journals

On this page I am discussing research journals rather than practitioner journals (professional journals). There is no absolute distinction, but some journals are intended primarily as a means of communicating research results to the research community (and students of a discipline) and others are primarily concerned with sharing good practice within a community of practitioners, and include, inter alia, article about research with implications for practice. Research journals should not be seen as superior to practitioner journals (or vice versa), but as these have different purposes and target readerships, they will have different procedures and publication policies.

You can read more about this distinction here: Research journals and practitioner journals.

** 'Predatory journals'

The imperative for academics to publish (and be seen to publish to be offered posts, tenure, and promotion) has led to a vast increase in the range of journals looking to publish academic work to meet the need of researchers.

In recent years there has been the development of a great many new journals, often charging high fees for publication, that are more interested in the commercial transaction, and making profits from publishing your work, than in the quality of what is published. This does not mean that all commercial publishers are like this, but some journals are considered predatory, and have poor practices, and are best avoided.

This situation have become very confusing (especially for new researchers) since the advent of electronic only journals and since the open-access movement means that being asked to pay a fee is no longer a clear sign of a publishing scam. (Read 'Challenges to academic publishing from the demand for instant open access to research'.)

Predatory journals will often claim to have the same processes as high quality journals, but those processes will often be of low quality or even superficial.