Can Authors Editors Help

Expedite Peer Review of the

Manuscripts They Edit?

Presented by:
Donald Samulack, PhD
President, U.S. Operations
Cactus Communications / Editage
The World Is so Flat
Its Starting to Curl!
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Survival of the Fittest
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Territory size shows the proportion of all scientific papers published in 2001 written by authors living there.
The number of scientific papers published by researchers in the United States was more than three times as
many as were published by the second highest-publishing population, Japan.
Source: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=205 (April 15, 2013)
Science Research
Survival of the Fittest
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Science Growth
This map shows the growth in scientific research of territories between 1990 and 2001. If there was no increase in scientific
publications that territory has no area on the map.
In 1990, 80 scientific papers were published per million people living in the world, this increased to 106 per million by 2001.
This increase was experienced primarily in territories with strong existing scientific research. However, the United States,
with the highest total publications in 2001, experienced a smaller increase since 1990 than that in Japan, China, Germany and
the Republic of Korea. Singapore had the greatest per person increase in scientific publications.
Source: http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=206 (April 15, 2013)
There Is a Tsunami Coming
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Current and projected publication trends
Source: Royal Society of London, Knowledge, Networks, and Nations, 2011
There is a Tsunami Coming

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Source: http://sciencewatch.com/grr/building-bricks (April 15, 2013)
Unfortunately, neither the researchers fascination with their
work, nor their desire for a clear-cut recipe for success in
publishing is of much help in actually getting published.

Benson and Silver, 2013 (What Editors Want)

The Research Dilemma
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Anything you do that makes the job of the Journal Editor or
the Peer Reviewer easier, makes the manuscript more
attractive!
Success = Pleasing the Gatekeepers
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By-line bias
Institutional bias
Geographic bias
Language bias
Research integrity and ethics bias
Methodology bias


By the time the journal editor and/or the reviewer has read the
title and the abstract, bias has set in!
Bias is unfortunately a by-product of scientific scrutiny.
Journal Editor and Reviewer Bias
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Q: How do East-Asian submissions compare with those
from other non-English speaking countries?
In terms of compliance with ethical guidelines
Bias Surrounding Research Integrity

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1.9%
44.4%
35.2%
18.5%
East Asian submissions better
East Asian submissions worse
Submissions from all non-English-speaking countries similar
I don't know
A survey of 54 journal editors of
English-language US and European journals
Quirks of the English Language
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You dont have to be really smart to read this. In the
English language it doesn't matter in what order the
letters are in a word. The only important thing is that
the first and last letters are positioned in the right
place. The rest of the letters can be jumbled and you
can still read it without problem. This is because the
human brain does not read every letter by itself, but
looks for sentence and language patterns.

You dnot have to be raelly smrat to raed tihs. In the
Elgnsih lugnagae it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the
ltteers are in a wrod. The olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht
the frist and lsat ltteers are pneiostiod in the rghit
pclae. The rset of the lrtetes can be jmulebd and you
can sitll raed it wiuthot porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the
huamn barin deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but
lokos for sncetnene and luganage petatnrs.

Common Reviewers Criticisms
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Importance of the Topic
Rehash of established facts
Insignificant research question
Irrelevant or unimportant topic
Low reader interest
Little clinical relevance
Not generalizable

Study Design
Poor experimental design
Vague/inadequate method description
Methods lack sufficient rigor
Failure to account for confounders
No control or improper control
No hypothesis
Biased protocol
Small sample size
Inappropriate statistical methods,
or statistics not applied properly
Adapted from: Byrne DW. Publishing your medical research paper. What they dont teach in medical
school. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 1998.
Common Reviewers Criticisms
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Overall Presentation of
Study and Findings
Poor organization
Too long and verbose
Failure to communicate clearly
Poor grammar, syntax, or spelling
Excessively self-promotional
Poorly written abstract
Interpretation of the Findings
Erroneous or unsupported conclusions
Conclusions disproportionate to results
Study design does not support inferences
made
Inadequate link of findings to practice
Uncritical acceptance of statistical results
Failure to consider alternative
explanations
Unexplained inconsistencies
Inflation of the importance of the findings
Interpretation not concordant with the
data
Inadequate discussion
Adapted from: Byrne DW. Publishing your medical research paper. What they dont teach in medical
school. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 1998.
The pending impact of the publication tsunami,
administrative challenges of manuscript triage, growing
burden of peer review, and inefficiencies in journal
production processes necessitate studies on how to make
the process more efficient.

While we cant fix the tsunami and we are probably
only experiencing the first swell we can look up-stream
to build efficiencies in pre-submission and pre-peer review
processes.
Looking for Solutions

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What is the role of professional editing services (authors
editors) in helping non-native English-speaking (NNES)
authors get their work published?

Is there a place for manuscript screening services?

Is there a rationale for commercialization of peer review?

Where should efforts be placed?
Looking for Solutions

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First, we looked for weaknesses in how journals structure their
Instructions for Authors in an attempt to identify how journals
should communicate these instructions more effectively.
Best Poster at the Council for Science Editors meeting in Montreal, Canada
in May, 2013 (a copy of the poster can be found at our booth)

More recently, we asked whether there were any specific errors peer
reviewers most frequently point out in manuscripts of non-native
English-speaking (NNES) authors that an authors editor could/should
fix before manuscript submission; the premise being that if these
could be fixed before submission, then the burden on the peer
reviewer would be lessened, and the process expedited.

Research by Editage
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Study Design

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Study design and execution by Shazia Khanam and Clarinda Cerejo at Editage; accepted for publication in
Learned Publishing (ALPSP).
Awarded Best Poster at the ISMTE/EASE conference in Brussels, Belgium in September, 2013.
Study Results (Slide 1 of 3)
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Study design and execution by Shazia Khanam and Clarinda Cerejo at Editage; accepted for publication in
Learned Publishing (ALPSP).
Awarded Best Poster at the ISMTE/EASE conference in Brussels, Belgium in September, 2013.
Study Results (Slide 2 of 3)
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Study design and execution by Shazia Khanam and Clarinda Cerejo at Editage; accepted for publication in
Learned Publishing (ALPSP).
Awarded Best Poster at the ISMTE/EASE conference in Brussels, Belgium in September, 2013.
Study Results (Slide 3 of 3)
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Study design and execution by Shazia Khanam and Clarinda Cerejo at Editage; accepted for publication in
Learned Publishing (ALPSP).
Awarded Best Poster at the ISMTE/EASE conference in Brussels, Belgium in September, 2013.
An authors editor, in addition to checking the grammar, writing
quality, and style of manuscripts they edit, should point out
instances of incomplete and unclear reporting, especially in the
Methods and Results sections. This is crucial for the study to be
able to be replicated by other research groups.

Special attention should also be paid to ensure that figures and
tables are consistent with (but not redundant to) the
information presented in the text.

Study Conclusions (1 of 2)

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Further, an authors editor should provide the author tips to
improve the overall structural organization of the Results and
Discussions sections.

A qualified authors editor helping an author address these
aspects before submission will allow the peer reviewer to focus
on the validity of the science and novelty of the study.

Thus, an authors editor can indirectly help expedite the peer
review process.

Study Conclusions (2 of 2)
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