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Revista americana de medicina respiratoria
versão On-line ISSN 1852-236X
Rev. am. med. respir. vol.16 no.2 CABA jun. 2016
CÓMO ESCRIBIR UN ARTÍCULO CIENTÍFICO
Common Errors Made by Authors, from the Perspective of a Publisher. Preventing “Unsubmission”
Authors: Tatsuya Okada1, Takako Kojima2, J. Patrick Barron3
1 Marketing Group, Division of Society Management Services, Sales Department, Kyorinsha Co., Ltd.
2 Department of International Medical Communications, Tokyo Medical University
3 Tokyo Medical University
Correspondence to: Takako Kojima takako97kojima@gmail.com
Series Item 5
Introduction
In preceding papers in this series, we described important aspects of manuscript preparation, such as
formatting, ethical issues, the submission process
and the roles of the editorial office. As explained
previously, most journals have Instructions to
Authors, which provide formatting instructions
and other necessary information that authors
should provide when submitting a manuscript to
that specific journal.
Authors are expected to follow the instructions
in the manuscript preparation process, and any
papers that are not prepared according to the
guidelines, or lack any necessary information, are ‘unsubmitted’ or returned to the authors before
proceeding to the peer review process. This is
frustrating not only for authors, but also for the
journal as it can waste valuable time and resources.
It is especially regrettable that this can be prevented by reasonably common-sense approaches,
which this paper attempts to describe.
We have previously pointed out matters which
require the authors’ attention when writing a
manuscript. In this study we have gathered information and analyzed the results to find out
the common errors authors make when preparing
manuscripts which lead to ‘unsubmission’ of the
manuscript, to help the authors understand what
points they should pay attention to, besides the
contents of their research, before submitting a
manuscript.
Materials and Methods
This study was conducted by the Editorial Office
Management Support Team at Kyorinsha (www.kyorin.co.jp). They provide support services to various journals published in the English language.
Through their services, when the support team
receives a manuscript, administrators inspect the
following aspects, such as title page: title, authors’ names, affiliation(s), corresponding author information; abstract: word count, structure; the
number of key words; COI disclosure declaration;
figures, tables and their legends. If a manuscript
is not properly formatted or any of the required
information is lacking, the administrators have no
option but to return the paper to the authors with
descriptions of points that must be complied with
before resubmission.
From the several journals that which Kyorinsha
provide the support services, we randomly chose
291 submitted manuscripts over a period of 6
months, and analyzed the reasons for those that
were subsequently “unsubmitted”. For each manuscript, we tracked their records to check whether
they were unsubmitted, and if so the reasons. Some
manuscripts had multiple faults that led them to
be returned to the authors.
Results
The results of the research are shown in the Table. It shows that out of 291 manuscripts, 118 were unsubmitted (40.5%), which constitutes an excessively large proportion. The errors related to the abstract accounted for a total of 38.2%, which includes excessive word count (20.9%); formatting of the abstract (13.6%); and missing abstract (3.7%). Journals normally have a maximum number of word counts for abstracts1 and most of the journals we studied had a limit of 250 words. When the author exceeded the specified word limit the manuscript was returned to the authors. Abstract formatting problems (13.6%) consisted of the abstract being incorrectly ‘structured’ or“unstructured”, contravening the instructions regarding the type of manuscript. A structured abstract is usually required for manuscript types such as original articles and requires the following headings: Objective (Background), Materials (Patients) and Methods, Results, and Conclusion. On the other hand, the unstructured abstract should be a summary of the study and its findings without any headings. It is commonly used in manuscript types such as case reports and review articles. Each journal may use different terms or subheadings for structured abstracts, and the authors must follow the instructions of the target journal.
Table. Reasons for Unsubmission
Another common mistake was the lack of author information, particularly the mismatch of
the number of authors on the title page and in the
online submission system (14.1%). In many cases,
we found that the submitting author provided information for only one author in the online system, although several authors appeared on the actual
title page. In such cases, the manuscript is unsubmitted due to insufficient author information.
The manuscript submission system that was
used in this study sends a submission confirmation
e-mail to each and every author to try to prevent
ghost authorship. Ghost authorship is an unethical
practice that uses the names of prominent authors
in the field, although those researchers did not
contribute to the study, in an attempt to gain some
advantage such as favorably influencing peer review. Providing the e-mail addresses of all authors
is important in order to allow the editorial office
to send submission confirmation e-mails to every
listed author regarding the manuscript that has
been submitted to the journal in which their name
appears. This helps eliminate ghost authorship.
Another common error found in the study was
related to the corresponding author’s information
(10.5%). A corresponding author is the individual
who is responsible for communicating with the journal throughout the submission, peer review,
and production process. Also, the corresponding
author is responsible for responding to critiques
and questions regarding the study that may arise
after publication2. The journals used in the study
stated in the instructions to authors to list one
corresponding author with contact information
(e-mail address) on the title page. The errors found
were those cases in which no information was provided, or if more than one author was indicated as
the corresponding author on the title page.
In addition to the errors described above we
have found many minor errors, such as missing
figure legends (3.1%), old revision marks (2.1%),
wrong labeling of tables or figures (1.6%), and
wrong journal name in the cover letter (1.0%).
Conclusion
Through this study, we found that the errors that
lead to unsubmission of a manuscript can occur
in various aspects of manuscript formatting, from
word count to lack of author information, although
the requirements are clearly and unequivocally
provided in the instructions to authors.
Authors should be fully aware that the requirements for manuscript instruction vary among the
journals due to the different styles each journal
employs. Thus, the author should carefully read
the instructions of their target journals and
prepare manuscripts according to their specific
instructions.
If the authors are confused about the instructions, it is strongly recommended to contact the
journal’s editorial office for clarification. Furthermore, authors should be aware that although different journals have distinct requirements, many
of them are based on the Recommendations for
the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals of the
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, known as the ICMJE Recommendations2. If
authors are uncertain about formatting styles, or
issues concerning publication ethics that is not
described in the instructions, they should consult
the ICMJE Recommendations to avoid any unnecessary and easily avoidable errors.
Avoiding unsubmission caused by errors may
consume an extensive period of time for your
manuscript to be reviewed, and in some cases,
authors may lose the opportunity for publication
at an appropriate time. Therefore, it is critical that
the authors should carefully read the instructions
to authors and prepare their papers accordingly.
Acknowledgement: The authors are indebted to Kaoru Yoshida for her help in collecting data for this study.
Conflict of Interest (COI): T. Okada is an employee of Kyorinsha.
1. Andrade, C. How to write a good abstract for a scientific paper or conference presentation. Indian J Psychiatry. 2011 Apr-Jun [cited 2015 March 15]; 53(2): 172–175. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136027/
2. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors. 2015 [cited 2016 March 22]. Available from: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html.
2. Comité Internacional de Editores de Revistas Médicas. Recomendaciones para la realización, presentación, edición y publicación de trabajos académicos en revistas médicas: cómo definir el rol de autores y contribuyentes. 2015 [citado 22 de marzo de 2016]. Disponible en: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html. [ Links ]