Peer Review Process – Journal Articles

Peer Review Process – Journal Articles

Step 1 – submit manuscript (ms) with permission of all authors through journal website

Step 2 – ms is initially assigned to a subject editor with expertise in the appropriate field, who decides if it is worthy of being sent out for review

Step 3 – the subject editor chooses 2-3 reviewers, usually a combination of individuals you suggest and ones the editor comes up with

…the reviewers you suggest can have a major impact on the odds of getting a paper accepted (politics & personality)

…so does the number of reviewers (2 versus 3 or 4)


Step 4 – reviewers evaluate your manuscript and recommend:

- publish as-is

- publish after minor revision

- possibly acceptable after major revision; reviewer(s) wants to see it again to check corrections

- this could involve asking for new experiments,new analyses of data, or a major re-write to answer questions the reviewer(s) has

- rejected, without prejudice for resubmission (= feel free to fix and try again with us)

- rejected, no option to resubmit


Step 4 – the reviewers evaluate your manuscript

Step 5 – the editor sends you the reviewers’ comments, and any of their own, and then makes a ruling based on

what the reviewers say

- editor can decide to reject a paper even if all reviewers liked it, usually if it is not “important enough”

- editor may also accept a paper even if one or more reviewers says it has fatal flaws

… this is another place where politics can come into play


Step 4 – the reviewers evaluate your manuscript

Step 5 – the editor sends you the reviewers’ comments, and any of their own, and then makes a ruling based on

what the reviewers say

Step 6 – you prepare a line-by-line rebuttal to all reviewercomments you don’t agree with, and list of all changesyou made to your manuscript

Step 7 – the editor sends it back out for re-review, if necessary

Step 8 – the editor ultimately decides if you have adequately addressed all reviewer concerns, and if the final version is “important” enough for that particular journal


Step 9 – you upload a properly formatted version of all text, figures, tables, references, supplementary data files

Step 10 – journal’s copy editor sends you a marked-up PDFof your paper, now in the journal format, but with allthe corrections and questions you need to addressfor clarity and formatting, not for science reasons

Step 11 – you get the page proofs to inspect, which is whereyou have to catch all the mistakes and changesthat were made during the copy editting and pagesetting processes

Step 12 – you get the bill for publishing your work: often over $1,000, more if you have color figures or want your

paper to be open access so anyone can read it

How do you pick a journal?

You’ve just spent 2 years of life on your project.

What journal do you submit your manuscript to?

What criteria are important to you in choosing a journal?

How do you pick a journal?

One popular measure (among many) used to compare the importance of different journals is impact factor

Total # of citations published in 2014 that reference papers in Journal X from the previous 2 years, divided by the total # of “citable” papers published in Journal X (judged by Thompson Scientific)

Idea: papers have the most “impact” on a field when they are cited more by other papers

Journals are more prestigious if on average, their papers get more citations

journal covers all areas of science

review articles, not data-based papers

open access (free to all)

Name of J ournal I mpact factor

'14/ 15Nature 41.5Science 33.6Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16.2Systematic Biology 14.4Ecology Letters 10.7Annual Review: Ecology, Evolution & Systematics 10.6PNAS 9.7Current Biology 9.6PLoS Biology 9.3Molecular Ecology 6.5Ecology 4.7Evolution 4.6PLoS ONE 3.2Marine Ecology Progress Series 2.6Marine Biology 2.4J ournal of Molluscan Studies 1.4American Malacological Bulletin 0.9

Biomedical journal impact factors

Name of J ournal I mpact factor

'14/ 15Nature 41.5Annual Review of Immunology 39.3Science 33.6Cell 32.2Nature Immunology 20.0PNAS 9.7Development 6.7J ournal of Neuroscience 6.3J ournal of Molecular Biology 4.3Immunology 3.8

Journal Impact Factor

Journal Impact Factor =

Problems with the impact factor approach:

- ethical conduct

- are all papers equally “citable” ?

During the course of discussions with Thompson Scientific, PLoS Medicine’s potential impact factor – based on the same articles published in the same year – see-sawed between 3 and 11 !!

Current Biology had an impact factor of 7.00 in 2002 but 11.91 in 2003. The denominator somehow dropped from 1032 in 2002 to 634 in 2003, although total # of papers published went up

total cites to journal# of “citable” papers

Journal Impact Factor =

Problems with the impact factor approach:

- ethical conduct

- are all papers equally “citable” ?

- what does a “mean” mean?... blockbusters vs average papers

Nature noted that 89% of their citations came from only 25% of the papers published, highly cited “blockbusters”

Thompson Sci. has been asked to provide the median, as well as the mean score, for each journal; so far, will not

total cites to journal# of “citable” papers

Journal Impact Factor

Other problems with the impact factor approach:

- evaluating journals vs scientists

- bad papers cited by rebuttals

- some fields cite older literature more, or cite less in general

- journal limits on citations

- show me the data!

- proprietary data of Thompson Sci.

- for-profit motives of this private company

My results

Krug et al. 2013. Mol Phylog Evol 69: 1101-1119

Marshall, Krug et al. 2012, Ann Rev Ecol Evol Syst

Krug 2011. Amer Malacological Bull 29: 169-186.

Handeler et al. 2009. Frontiers in Zoology 6: 28.

Krug 2009. Biol Bull 132: 483-494.

Ellingson & Krug 2006. Evolution 60: 2293-2310.

Botello and Krug. 2006. MEPS 312: 149-159.

Riffell, Krug, Zimmer, 2004. PNAS 101: 4501-4506.

Impact Citations 3.9 19

10.6 31

0.9 38 (27)

3.0 80 (21)

1.6 42 (11)

4.6 43 (8)

2.6 64 (16)

9.7 63 (15)

in 1st 2 yrs

Alternatives for Judging Impact

Other algorithms have been proposed to judge journals, papers

1) PageRank (Google): impactful journal citations count more

if you link from a more popular site, your visit counts more citations in more population journals count more

2) user-ratings (PLoS ONE) – the Yelp of science

Judging Personal Impact

Personal metrics of “impactful-ness”

a) total citations (mine: 1,061; famous 60 yr olds have ~5-6k)

b) h-index: largest # h such that h papers have at least h citations

-- "recent" version only covers the last 5 years

I have 20 papers that have been cited at least 20 times each (in 2012, my h-index was 16)

c) i10-index: # of papers with at least 10 citations

I have 29 papers that have been cited at least 10 timeshttp://scholar.google.com/citations?user=AxaPBaAAAAAJ&hl=en

Recent paper’s journey

population genetics of an invasive marine mussel – where to send it??

Initially submitted to Molecular Ecology (6.5)- accepted by 2 of 3 reviews- rejected by one reviewer because of scope of sampling

Then Proceedings of the Royal Society (5.1)- editor would not send out for review, not “important” enough

Then Marine Ecology Progress Series (2.5)- three rounds of review with 2 reviewers making numerous technically incorrect demands and comments

- 3rd editor brought in to evaluate my rebuttal to reviewers; rejected because I “didn’t properly consider” their comments

Then Biological Invasions (3.5)- accepted without change

Assignment, due 10/28

1) Identify the names and impact factors of:

(a) the top journal in your field of study

(b) a second-tier journal in your sub-discipline

2) For one journal, identify a subject editor with expertise in your specific area of study, who would be the person you’d want handling your manuscript submission

3) Find the correct citation format for this journal. This should be the citation format you follow for the references in your prospectus and thesis.

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Peer Review Process – Journal Articles