Scientific Publishing:

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Scientific Publishing the Nature perspective
Dr David OConnell Research Officer UCC Research
Office
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An outline

• Nature Publishing Group (NPG) me
• Nature and NPG
• Natures publication procedures
• Submission
• Editorial decisions
• Review process
• Revisions
• Appeals
• Policies

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My Background

• BSc Biochemistry, UCD
• PhD Biochemistry, UCD and University of Calgary
• Postdoc Fellowships - TCD and Texas AM
  University

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Publishing Career
Job Number 1
Chief Editor, Trends in Microbiology
(Elsevier)Managing Editor, Trends
Journals(Sept. 1999-Dec. 2002)
Job Number 2
Chief Editor, Nature Reviews Microbiology
(NPG)(Jan. 2003-Feb. 2008)
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The first issue
Nature was launched in 1869
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Nature Publishing Group

• Privately owned
• NPG is the scientific arm of Macmillan
  Publishers (owned by the Holtzbrinck
  Verlagsgruppe)
• NPG includes Nature, the Nature Research
  Journals, Nature Reviews, Academic journals
  online resources

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The other Natures
Nature Research Journals Nature
Biotechnology Nature Cell Biology Nature Chemical
Biology Nature Genetics Nature Immunology Nature
Materials Nature Medicine Nature Methods Nature
Nanotechnology Nature Neuroscience Nature
Photonics Nature Physics Nature Structural and
Molecular Biology more to come
Nature Review Journals Nature Reviews
Cancer Nature Reviews Drug Discovery Nature
Reviews Genetics Nature Reviews Immunology Nature
Reviews Microbiology Nature Reviews Molecular
Cell Biol. Nature Reviews Neuroscience Nature
Clinical Practice 8 titles Academic
Journals Around 40 titles The ISME Journal


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NPG online www.nature.com

• News_at_Nature.com
• NatureJobs
• Columns and blogs
• Nature Networks (Boston, London, SF)
• Gateways and databases
• Asia Gateway
• Cell Migration Gateway
• Functional Glycomics Gateway
• Neuroscience Gateway
• Omics Gateway
• Pathway Interaction Database
• Signalling Gateway
• Nature Stem Cells
• Nature Climate Change

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Nature sections

• Front half (This week, Editorials, Research
  Highlights, News, News Features, Business News,
  Outlook)
• Middle Half (Correspondence, Commentary, Books
  and Arts, Concepts, Essays, Commentaries,
  Futures)
• Back Half (News and Views, News Views
  Features, Primary research papers (Articles,
  Letters), Brief Communications Arising, Reviews
  Progress, Insights, Analyses, Hypotheses,
  Technology Features)
• Naturejobs

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Nature editorial structure

Editor-in-Chief Philip Campbell
Chief Physical Sciences Editor Karl Ziemelis
Chief Biology Editor Ritu Dhand
9 Associate Senior Editors
16 Associate Senior Editors
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Biology editors
LONDON Lesley Anson Ion channels Tanguy
Chouard Theoretical biol. neuroscience
Henry Gee Anthropology evolution There
se Heemels Apoptosis, ageing, obesity TBA
Ecology evolution Claudia Lupp
Microbiology Barbara Marte Cancer cell
cycle Deepa Nath Cell biology
plants Ursula Weiss Immunology virology
Magdalena Skipper Genetics genomics SAN
FRANCISCO Natalie DeWitt Stem cells
development Alex Eccleston Molecular
biology NEW YORK John Spiro Neurosciences
I-Han Chou Neurosciences BOSTON Angela
Eggleston Molecular biology Joshua
Finkelstein Chemical biology
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Publication procedures

Editor (maybe) does something
Paper submission
Rejectionletter
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Manuscript Tracking System

• All manuscripts should be submitted online
• Emailed submission will be uploaded by staff
• All files, including correspondence, are in a
  single database, accessible to editorial staff,
  authors and reviewers via the web

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Pre-submission enquiries

• Can be useful, especially in competitive
  situations
• Very short turn-around
• Need to include all relevant information
  (abstract, extended cover letter, references)
• Never as informative as sending the complete
  manuscript
• No appeals!

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Editor assignment

• Manuscripts are allocated daily
• Authors cannot chose the editor
• No editorial board
• Independence - No scientific affiliations
• Decisions are quick
• Editorial criteria are uniform within and across
  disciplines

The judgement about which papers will interest a
broad readership is made by Nature's editors, not
its referees.
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Editorial selection criteria

• Novelty
• Conceptual advance
• Completeness
• Importance
• Impact
• Mechanistic insight
• Relevance
• Newsworthiness
• ie. of significant interest to a broad scientific
  audience
• Every paper submitted is read!

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The cover letter

• What justifies the publication of
• your study in Nature?
• Context and relevance of your study
• Advance over previously published work
• Appeal to broad audience
• Suggest and exclude referees
• Identify related manuscripts in press or
  submitted
• Alert us to potential competition

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The cover letter
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General recommendations

• Read guide to authors
• Try and get as close as possible to Nature
• format and length requirements
• Avoid hype
• Be concise

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Some numbers

• 130-150 Biology manuscripts per week (Letters
  and Articles)
• 80 are returned without review (average 4
  days)
• 20 go out to referees for review (average
  20-30 days)
• 10-12 papers are published a week (i.e. 8 of
  submitted papers)

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History of peer review

• Introduced by Science and New England Journal of
  Medicine in the 1940s
• Introduced at Nature in 1966
• Became routine in the early 70s

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Selecting referees

• 2-4 reviewers per manuscript
• Database of reviewers, Authors suggestions,
  literature and web searches
• Criteria
• Independence
• Expertise
• Broad knowledge of the field
• Efficiency
• Fair and constructive
• Availability
• Exclusions are honoured whenever possible

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Reviewer assessment

• Technical assessment
• General quality of the data
• Controls
• Standards in the field
• Experimental support for conclusions
• Editorial assessment
• Extent of (conceptual) advance
• Impact on the field

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Decisions after review

• Peer review is not a democracy
• Reviewers often disagree with each other
• Editors may overrule reviewers
• Editors, not the reviewers, decide ultimately
  what is published in Nature

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The decision letter

• Rejection, suggesting publication elsewhere
• Rejection with an open door
• Defer decision until the authors have had a
  chance to respond to the reviewers comments
• Accept in principle
• Accept

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Revisions

• Most papers endure at least two rounds of
  review
• Essentially all revisions are seen again by
• the referees

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The P.S. system
P.S. Although we very much regret that we cannot
offer to publish your paper in Nature, it seems
well suited to our sister journal, Nature
Genetics, which publishes top-quality research
papers of immediate interest to a genetically
oriented audience. Should you wish to have your
paper considered by the editors of Nature
Genetics, you should
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Transferring manuscripts

• Manuscript can be easily transferred from any
  NPG journal to another
• NPG journals are editorially independent
• Editors can recommend transfers but cannot
  promise consideration
• Confidentiality Manuscripts are passed on only
  at request of authors

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Famous hits

• Einstein (1921) Theory of relativity
• Dart (1925) Discovery of Australopithecus
• Chadwick (1932) Existence of the neutron
• Watson Crick (1953) Structure of DNA
• Baltimore Temin (1971) Discovery of reverse
  transcriptase
• Nüsslein-Volhard Wieschaus (1980)
  Developmental control genes in Drosophila
• Brunet et al (2002) The earliest known hominid

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and some misses

• Krebs cycle - rejected without review
• Beta decay (Fermi) - rejected without review
• Paper describing PCR - rejected without review
• Ivan Pavlovs obituary - published while he was
  still alive

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The appeal process

• Nature editors carefully consider appeals
• New submission have higher priority
• All appeals are seen by the handling editor and
  at least one other senior editor
• Only few appeals ultimately succeed
• Successful appeals generally involve new facts
  or information not available at the time of the
  original decision

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Appeals

• Appeals before review
• Very unlikely to succeed
• Reasons for rejection may not be clear
• Appeals after review
• Rate of success is generally higher
• Need specific reasons

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Appeals What helps?

• Scientific arguments
• New data became available
• Referee or editor made factual errors or missed
  important considerations
• Specific evidence of referee bias
• Comprehensive rebuttal

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and what doesnt help

• Celebrity endorsement
• Authors status or reputation
• Threats and abuse
• Cosmetics
• Hype
• Re-phrasing the cover letter

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The habits of effective authors(post-submission)

• Keep in mind Peer review will help you make
  the paper better. Persevere!
• Address the major issues with substantial
  revisions before re-submitting.
• Write a logical point-by-point rebuttal.
• Know when and how to argue if referees and
  editors ask for certain experiments they usually
  require them.
• Appeals generally very slow as new submissions
  are prioritized, low percentage successful
• Know when to stop!
• Remember theres a next time, and there are
  other excellent journals with different criteria.
  

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Publication policies

• All list authors must have agreed its content
• Competing financial interests must be declared
• Dual publication discouraged
• All materials and methods used must be made
  available to academic researchers for their own
  use
• DNA sequence, microarray and proteomic datasets
  and others must be deposited in a public database
  preferably before submission
• Research on humans and other animals must follow
  agreed ethical guidelines
• For full details of these and other policies,
  please see our website

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Embargo policy

• No discussion with the media until the
  publication date
• Presentations at scientific meetings is
  acceptable, indeed encouraged
• Natures press office will work closely with
  authors and their institutions and funding
  agencies to maximize media coverage

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Open access Why not?
Costs NPG encourages the self-archiving of the
accepted version of your manuscript in PubMed
Central or your institution's repository, six
months after publication. This policy complements
the policies of a range of research funding
bodies around the world, and specifically, is
compliant with those of the US National
Institutes of Health, the UK Medical Research
Council and the Wellcome Trust. NPG recognizes
the efforts of funding bodies to increase access
to the research they fund, and we strongly
encourage authors to participate in such efforts.