If you’re a researcher, you’re an author. Throughout your career you will write scores of primary research papers and very likely commentaries, reviews, perspectives, and many other contributions to the scholarly literature. As an author, you will deal with your co-authors, your editor, your reviewers, and in many cases publishing support, once your manuscript is accepted and goes to press. Establishing good working relationships with each of these ‘collaborators’ is important to ensure a smooth publishing process. What follows is a set of recommended considerations, from my perspective of a former researcher and a long-time editor.
Right from the start, it is essential to manage your co-author relationship. Even before you start writing, it is advisable to establish who among the would-be co-authors contributed what to the work you are about to write. Clarity about who is an author, who is a (co)corresponding author and who needs to acknowledged is key. All too often, editors receive emails from aggrieved researchers (usually at early stages of their career) who feel they have not been given sufficient credit on a paper. Talk to your collaborators to achieve a shared understanding. To guide these discussions, you may find it helpful to refer to journal guidelines (eg at ), the , or . Many publications offer valuable advice on authorship contributions; worth consulting is . But do keep in mind that authorship is not just about credit but also accountability (see ).
It is important to take your co-authors’ feedback on the manuscript on board but feedback from the wider community can be very useful to shaping the story in your paper too. A good way to ensure you get such feedback is to deposit a preprint. Benefits of sharing preprints are widely understood and all reputable journals will be happy to consider your submission in parallel with preprint deposition.
Your interaction with an editor of a journal will in most cases begin next. In some cases, you will have contacted the editor earlier to gauge their interest in your work. Some journals offer an opportunity to submit a pre-submission enquiry. In my experience, this route is most useful if you are unsure whether the work is within the scope of the journal. Editors of broad-scope, multidisciplinary journals will prefer to see the full manuscript which contains all the details of your work. Publishers offer instructions on how to prepare and submit a manuscript. Frequently, these instructions will include guidance on figure presentation, data sharing and permissible use of AI. Engage with these guidelines; in some cases they may serve you beyond a given manuscript submission. Some publishers offer further training on writing papers and conducting research with integrity (see eg , )
Take advantage of an opportunity to speak to an editor of one or more journals at a conference or when they are visiting your department or institute. This can help in at least two ways: first, you will be able to gauge to what extent an editor is interested in your work and second, any questions they may have should help you add clarity or further experimental details to your manuscript before submission. Regardless of whether the editor you are speaking with is a full-time professional editor or an academic editor who continues doing research, your editor will have a great deal of subject-area knowledge. Tap into it to ensure that you present your findings in the most relevant and clear way.
It is crucial to convey the importance of your question or problem, your approach, and your key findings in the manuscript itself. But it is worth paying special attention to the clarity and accurateness of the abstract; when time is a precious commodity for everyone, even after your paper is published the abstract may be the only part of the paper that is widely read. The cover letter is important too although its importance can be overstated; I know of editors who rarely read it at all. But it does represent an opportunity to further convey to the editor the relevance and importance of your work, the degree of advance as well – crucially – its limitations. Being transparent about what your work does and does not offer is important.
Many authors consider the interaction with the reviewers as adversarial. This is a missed opportunity. Engage with your peers and ‘use’ your editor as a mediator in this interaction. On some journals the editor may be able to help guide you through the peer review process and it may be helpful to explicitly ask your editor for guidance on how to prioritise your revisions. Many editors will provide such advice anyway. Every editor wishes to publish the best research in their journal; it is worth remembering that throughout the publication process.
It is also important to be realistic in your interaction with the editors; they will be dealing with many manuscripts at any one time. While they are unlikely to have the full details of your paper at their fingertips, they do have a good understanding of the editorial bar of their journal. Although it may be worthwhile to appeal an editorial decision, at some point it may be necessary to accept that the editor is no longer interested in considering your paper further. There may be many reasons for this but assuming that the work has not been criticised for its lack of robustness, it is important to remember that there is more than one journal in any discipline. Knowing when to stop the appeal process and submit elsewhere is important. Some editors will offer a specific recommendation for another journal in their publisher’s portfolio. Statistically, appeals after peer review have a higher chance of success than those following an editorial rejection; this is probably because in the latter case the authors have more specific points to rebut post review.
But once your paper is accepted, engage with any opportunities your publisher may offer you to further promote the work. It may be possible to connect your institutions’ press team with that of the publisher. There may be an option of a webinar, a podcast or ‘’ offered by Springer Nature. Consult advice on how to promote your paper following publication (eg from ).
Every researcher is an author as well as a reviewer. Editors and publishers love working with some reviewers while they dread encountering others. Being a reviewer is an important aspect of being part of the research ecosystem, and it helps you understand what a given journal is looking for – handy to know when you are choosing a journal for your next submission. Editors look for reviewers who constructively focus on the work and who understand the distinction between being an author and a reviewer – you may not have chosen to approach a question described in the paper the way the authors have but the choice was their prerogative. Editors also look for reviewers who will offer a timely review and will be available to re-review the paper, if relevant. It is better to say no at the start than to let the process down later. Being transparent with the editor about your time constraints is an important part of building a long-lasting professional relationship.
Many researchers also work with the publishers as editors or editorial board members. This is an important way of getting to know your publisher and often a very rewarding way of contributing to the research community. It may be a way to engage on a publisher’s policy on diversity in research or help develop discipline-specific guidelines. This type of engagement helps shape the publishing landscape and the dynamics of scholarly communication. While we often talk about a ‘research ecosystem’, rarely do we fully embrace this concept and appreciate that a robust ecosystem comprises many niches, and that these include researchers, publishers, editors as well as many other key players.
Further reading
Authorship guidelines: /journals/ethics-policies/openness/
Resources for authors looking to develop their publishing skills: /journals/authors/early-career-researchers/learn-more-about-publishing-your-manuscript/
Royal Society journals seminar collection, all seminars by authors linking to their published paper:
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