waiting for reviewer assignment agu

Notes from the JGR-Space Physics Editor-in-Chief

Postings from the journal's eic, mike liemohn.

Manuscript Status Tables

One of the slightly confusing things that GEMS does to authors is show them the Manuscript Status Table at the bottom of the page regarding a submission. It shows all status changes throughout the life of the manuscript, from the initiation of the submission process through quality control, reviewer assignment, and decision. While this is, in general, useful information for authors to have that let’s you know where your paper is along the editorial path, it can sometimes be a point of frustration and concern.

Let me go through a few example tables to explain some of the entries. For full disclosure, these are all from my own papers on which I was either first author or coauthor. Really, though, it doesn’t matter, because you cannot tell the author or paper from this table. I will go through one in this post, and then more in subsequent posts (hopefully up in the next day or two).

For the first submission of a new manuscript, the table might look something like this:

Let’s go through it chronologically, which means starting from the bottom of the table and working our way up. The first 3 entries are all at the pace of the corresponding author. As you can see, for this paper, it took about an hour to work through the submission process. While that seems onerous, the metadata and supplemental information we as editors receive from you is extremely valuable, so we appreciate your extra time to make these entries. The file conversion and approval also takes some time.

When you click the final button to submit the manuscript, then the manuscript is passed off to AGU HQ staff for the quality control. Some of this is automatically processed (like the creation of a Similarity Report), but other parts, like the Data Policy compliance check, are done by hand. It looks like for this manuscript, all of the processing was completed the same day as the initial submission.

It then goes off to me, the Editor-in-Chief, for assignment to one of the five editors (including myself). My biggest concerns there are editor expertise in the field, load balance between the editors, and avoiding institutional conflicts between authors and editors. I pay attention to your preference requests and, more often than not, grant your request and assign that editor. Interestingly, there is no status line item for this step; my timing to assign the paper to a specific editor is not recorded in this table.

The next entry is “Contacting Potential Reviewers.” This line item is added once the editor has selected potential reviewers and clicked the “Done” button on that screen. The emails will go out within a day, either by the editor clicking a button in GEMS or one of the AGU staff clicking that button. It looks like, for this manuscript, the multi-step process of me assigning this paper to an editor, the editor assigning himself as Associate Editor, and the editor selecting 6 potential reviewers took just under a day.

The next line, “Under Review,” indicates that someone has clicked the button in GEMS to agree to be a referee for this paper. You notice, however, that at the same time the next line appeared in the table, “Contacting Potential Reviewers.” This is one of those confusing parts of the system. Because the editor requested 2 reviewers for this paper (the default for JGR-Space Physics), the status of the paper reverts back to “Contacting…” because the system still desires another reviewer. So, there is a second “Under Review” line item above this, indicating the time that a second person agreed to review the manuscript. It looks like, for this paper, this process took quite a while: 6 days to secure the first reviewer and another 18 days to secure the second.

The next line is “With Editor For Decision.” This means that both reviews are in and the editor has a “red arrow” in the GEMS system indicating that the paper is ready for a decision. The last review came in early one morning and the editor apparently saw the task in GEMS and made a decision just a few hours later, shown as another line, “Decision Made.” However, here is another confusing entry; the two lines are repeated. This is because the decision email is sent to AGU staff, who add the attachments and whatever other processing the decision letter might need, and then they officially send the email on to the corresponding author. The final line item at the top, “Waiting for Revision,” is when the decision email actually went out to the author.

I hope you find this helpful. There are a few confusing entries in resubmission manuscript status tables, as well, and I’ll cover those in the very near future.

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Thanks for this entry. As a first time author to GRL, I was a bit confused why there were two “Contacting Potential Reviewers” entries. Your entry cleared this up

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Science News by AGU

Getting Your Paper Published Part 1: Don’t Annoy the Reviewers

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During my long experience as a journal editor ( Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology , Journal of Geophysical Research , Reviews of Geophysics ) for a total of 17 years and a paper reviewer for more than 40 years, I have seen more than my fair share of good papers and bad papers. I would like to share some of the lessons I have learned about communicating science clearly.

For AGU journals, there are text requirements and guidelines and a style guide for authors, which all submissions are expected to follow. My recommendations here go beyond these, with the goal of not only avoiding errors, but also helping you to have a smoother review process by making it as easy as possible for the reviewers. Here in Part 1, I address issues of formatting, titles and abstracts, and acronyms. In Part 2  , I cover grammar and figures.

Layout and visual ease of reading matter.

The layout and visual ease of reading matter to a reviewer. The following recommendations are simple guidelines to follow to make it easier for reviewers to read and assess your paper. Avoid annoying the reviewer, and you will get a better review.

Use 12 point type. Tiny text is hard to read. Double space the text. Many reviewers need space to insert their own comments as they read the paper. Use page numbers and line numbers (continuous for the entire paper). Many reviewers need to refer to the place in the text they are addressing.

After the reference list, use one page for each table and one for each figure. On the page with each table, include a caption above the table. On the page with each figure include a caption below the figure on the same page. Some journals request a separate list of figure captions and that you submit the figures as separate files. That’s fine, but in addition, include the figures as pages at the end of the manuscript, with a caption on the same page as the figure. It is really burdensome to have to switch back and forth between the page with the caption and the page with the figure, and this just annoys the reviewers. It may even be a subconscious effect, which will result in a harsher review of your paper.

Some submission systems, such as AGU’s GEMS system, build a manuscript by adding together all the separate figure files to the end of the text pdf. However, it is easy to tell the system not to merge those figure files with the final file that goes out for review. Even if the manuscript has figures with captions, it is annoying to have a second set of figures at the end, some of which are very large.

Just before submission, review the final file that will be sent to the reviewers. Think of reading it as if you were the reviewer, and make sure it is something that is easy to read.

Titles and Abstracts

Title and abstract are the first things a reviewer will see.

First impressions count. The title and abstract are the first things that a reviewer will see. They are more likely to decide to review a paper that starts off with a clear scientific message. Here are some simple things to avoid.

Titles need to be about the science and findings, and not about how you did the science. For example, avoid titles with “Disentangling Impacts of …” or “Analysis of …” or “Revisiting …” or “Study of …” or “On the …” or “Insights into …” or “Toward the …” or “Assessing …”.

Abstracts should not have sentences such as, “The results of the analysis are discussed” or “the impacts are studied quantitatively.” Give the actual new science, and not a description of what you will discuss in the paper. You have to explain your methods, but then tell what you found.

Many scientists are immersed in a community where terms such as SST are used so much they need not be defined. But SST can mean sea surface temperature or supersonic transport.

If I cannot understand the acronyms I usually just go on to the next paper.

I often start with the title of a paper to see whether I want to read it, and then look at the key points, but if I cannot understand the acronyms I usually just go on to the next paper. You should want to entrain the maximum number of readers, even from related fields.

So here are some simple guidelines:

• Acronyms must be defined the first time they are used and they should not be defined more than once.
• They should not be used in paper titles, abstracts, or key points (without definition).
• Acronyms should only be used if they are repeated at least twice. Never define an acronym if it will not be used later in the abstract or in the paper.
• It is a burden for readers to learn and remember the acronyms in your paper. Use as few as you can.
• Acronyms used as names for projects and models need to be defined the first time they are used, too. But if the model name is only used once or twice, then do not use the acronym at all.
• Even if you define acronyms in your abstract, they have to be defined again in the main text, as some will read the paper without reading the abstract.

On a related issue, if you are making up names and codes to refer to different data sets or different computer model runs, make up ones that are easy to understand or make sense physically, rather than arbitrary numbers or letters. For example, use Control run and 4xCO 2 run, rather than run A and run B. Similarly, all variables need to be defined the first time they are used. Variables need to be in italics and units cannot be in italics. For example, T (K) is correct and T ( K ) is not.

Read more recommendations in Part 2  about good grammar and written style, and presenting clear figures.

—Alan Robock, Editor, Reviews of Geophysics , and Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University; email: [email protected]

Robock, A. (2018), Getting your paper published part 1: don’t annoy the reviewers, Eos, 99 , https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EO105561 . Published on 18 September 2018.

Text © 2018. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

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After submitting

In this section:

• NEW! Featured Author Support
• Tracking your submission
• My paper has been accepted – what next?
• Appeals and rebuttals
• BMJ Article Transfer Service
• Abstracting and indexing
• Archiving, permissions and copyright
• Article metrics and alerts
• Correction and retraction policies
• Publication embargo
• Rapid responses

The review process

1. Awaiting Editorial Production Assistant Processing

The Editorial Production Assistant will carry out quality checks on your article at which point you may need to provide further information before your article is sent for Peer Review.

2. Awaiting Editor Assignment: 

Your article has passed initial quality checks by the Editorial Production Assistant and is in the process of being assigned to an appropriate Editor who will evaluate your article for scope, quality, and fit for the journal. Papers that do not meet these criteria will be rejected.

3. Awaiting Reviewer Selection

Your article meets the Journal’s scope and has been approved for peer review. The Editorial Team are in the process of finding suitable external expert reviewers that are available to review your article. Your article may also be sent to relevant Associate Editor’s for internal review. For most articles, a minimum of two reviews are required. Articles can be sent to multiple prospective reviewers before the required number are secured.

4. Peer Review in Progress

Your article has secured the minimum number of required reviewers. Peer reviewers are given 2 weeks to submit their review of your article. On the occasion that a reviewer withdraws from the process, the Editorial Team will begin the reviewer selection process again.

 5. Awaiting Editor Decision

Your article has now received the minimum number of reviews required to make a decision. The Editor will take into account the expert reviewers’ opinions to make an informed decision of accept, reject or revise.

6. In Production

Your article has been accepted and you will receive an email to confirm. Your article will move through the final quality checks and in to Production where it will be processed for publication. You will be emailed by the Production Editor with a timeline and be provided with a link to a platform called Publishing at Work where you can continue to track your article’s progress. More information about the Production process can be found here .

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