Maximising your chances of getting published
Read the journal’s guidelines carefully
#EditorObservations 05 Read the journal’s guidelines carefully (YouTube, 1m 35s)
All journal editors are also authors. They understand just how frustrating journal submission guidelines are. They acknowledge that publishers like to manage the author guidelines to make them consistent across journals within their portfolio, making the guidelines unnecessarily long as a result. Despite all these frustrations, I would strongly recommend taking the time and formatting the manuscript in line with the target journal’s submission guidelines. There are some pretty straightforward pragmatic reasons for that but there are also more subtle benefits. The pragmatic reasons include that editors in chief are unlikely to pass on a manuscript that does not comply with their submission guidelines to reviewers or even an Associate Editor. This means that, even if the article shows promise and the editor would like to have it assessed by experts, the need to return it to the authors for revisions wastes the time of both author and editor. Additionally, it wastes the goodwill of editors.
The more subtle benefits are that the editor, the associate editor and the reviewers notice that the manuscript has been prepared with great care – signalling precision and commitment – and that it has been prepared specifically for submitting to this journal, as opposed to being “shopped around”. These perceptions immediately elicit a more positive mindset among editors and reviewers. Even if that’s all that’s achieved, it is much better than putting editors and reviewers in a negative mindset by ignoring all the submission requirements.
And if you find yourself thinking: “I can’t be bothered. I don’t have time for this time-consuming formatting exercise. I have more important things to do. I will just submit it as it is,” think about the many hours, days, weeks and months you have worked to run the study and prepare the manuscript. Why risk undermining the success of all those efforts because you are unwilling to spend an hour formatting the article?
The #editorobservations in this section deal with the many ways in which authors choose to submit non-compliant articles. Sometimes they will even contact editors and ask for exemptions. What do you think the chances are of getting an exemption from a journal editor? 0%. Why? Because researchers are clever people. If they want to operate outside of the journal guidelines (e.g., they feel their article really should be longer than 10,000 words), they will analyse all the articles ever published in this journal and find a precedent that they will then use in their argument with the editor. Editors, therefore, simply cannot offer special rules for some authors. The rules apply to everyone. Just accept it.
#editorobservation
Find myself playing “manuscript pingpong” with authors a lot: sending papers back many times before they comply with guidelines + can be sent to reviewers.
Tip
Don’t make editors play manuscript ping pong.
Not a fun game.
Wastes time.
Tarnishes your reputation.
#editorobservation
The answer is always: “No, sorry.”
No exceptions to Annals of Tourism Research word limits.
<9000 words for a Full Paper (<10000 at revision)
<2000 words for Research Notes
<1000 words for Viewpoints
This very charming author inquiry made Scott McCabe and me giggle:
#editorobservation
~30% of papers need 1-3 REVISE RESUBMIT rounds before I can ask reviewers to assess them – too long, full of acronyms.
But new submissions keep rolling in.
I process them first.
Seems unfair to prioritise resubmitted noncompliant papers over compliant new ones.
#editorobservation
Spending more + more time working w authors to get their papers ready for submission🤨
Best not submit if paper is not 100% ready.
Reflects poorly on authors.
Wastes author time as it requires multiple REVISE BEFORE REVIEW loops before review process can start.
#editorobservation
Annals of Tourism Research does not permit acronyms (except obvious ones like USA).
Recent paper had 118-word abstract including 14 acronyms (=12%).
I really struggled.
Couldn’t possibly ask 3 reviewers to read it.
Asked authors to revise.
Tip
Fewer acronyms = higher readability
#editorobservation
Hmm 🤔
Our user-friendly Annals of Tourism Research checklist for authors is not working so well.
Author ticks “no acronyms used”.
Manuscript highlights include:
-
- GEPU
- GPR
- IB
- ER.
And no:
- IB is not International Baccalaureate
- ER is not Emergency Room 😫
#editorobservation
Each time I rework a text, it gets shorter.
When I am done, my husband could still cut it by 30% without loss of content – not a man of many words😉.
I suggest crafting the text until it is at 9000 words, flows even better and is more fun to read.
#editorobservation
You would be surprised how many Annals of Tourism Research submissions do not comply with guide for authors.
Possible outcomes:
-
- desk rejection
- “revise before review” = waste of everyone’s time.
+ reputational damage to author
Tip
Ensure article compliance with guide for authors.
#editorobservation
Can’t win🙁. For years authors complained about technical checks at Annals of Tourism Research.
So Scott McCabe and I abandoned them.
Now dealing with the fallout.
Seriously?
We conduct brilliant social science… but we can’t follow a simple set of formatting instructions?
#editorobservation
Today I had to desk-reject 2 papers because of non-compliance with our guide for authors (e. g. no acronyms).
…despite offering the authors TWO opportunities to revise.
Very sad 😢
Waste of my time.
Waste of their time.
Nobody wins.
#editorobservation
🤨
🧐🤨
Tempted to😢
Healthier to😂
Having vision of unwrapping new board game and launching straight into game without reading rules.
Of course – I know – just an honest mistake by an inexperienced researcher.
But just so easy to avoid by reading author guide.
#editorobservation
Nobel Prize winning and world-changing paper on antibacterial action of penicillin <5000 words long.
Yet I get author emails daily arguing they can’t possibly write up their work in <=9000 words for Annals of Tourism Research😉.
#editorobservation
8 new submissions today.
50% non-compliant with guide for authors despite ticking all items on our checklist.
Fascinating…
A team spends months or even years conducting a study, but lacks that 1 last hour to get the paper ready for submission🤨.
#editorobservation
Scott McCabe and I just received the Annals of Tourism Research annual report for 2022 report.
The desk rejection rate used to be stable at 60% for many years.
Since COVID it has been steadily increasing and now stands at 75%.
No, Scott and I did not get grumpier 
.
We just receive many more manuscript submissions and, unfortunately, many more low-quality submissions: more plagiarism, more formulaic papers, more unreadable papers because they are riddled with acronyms or just generally so sloppy that we cannot send them out for review.
But on the positive side: we do not burden reviewers with papers that are unlikely to make it through the review process.
#editorobservation
Just processed a paper full of acronyms, despite the authors completing the submission checklist.
I used to allow authors to revise.
Just don’t have the time anymore.
Now desk-rejecting for non-compliance with guide for authors.
#editorobservation
I am having a bit of a frustrating journal editor evening.
Received 12 new submissions today.
I am half way through now and so far I had to desk reject 4 manuscripts because they contained between 20% and 23% text duplication, 1 manuscript because it should have been submitted to an education journal and 1 study because it was a case study relating to one specific festival.
I will try to keep going in the hope that I will find one gem among the last 6 manuscripts.
#editorobservation
The purpose of journal submission guidelines is definitely not to annoy authors. Rather, they speed up manuscript processing.
At Annals of Tourism Research, we regularly give authors the opportunity to revise their submission to comply with our guidelines. We even have a checklist to make this process really easy and unambiguous.
Yet they often end up submitting another non-compliant version.
This causes unnecessary delays in manuscript processing, which make no difference to journals, but disadvantage authors.
#editorobservation
We, too, are authors.
We know it’s frustrating to waste time preparing submission files for a paper so brilliant it should just be accepted😉
To help authors, we developed a checklist.
#editorobservation
I am afraid I have now officially hit my “journal editor midlife crisis”!
Five years ago, I spent most of my time assessing the scholarly merit of manuscripts. That’s the role I have happily volunteered for because I was hoping my service would help shape the future of tourism research.
But nowadays, I find myself dedicating the vast majority of journal editing time to checking for plagiarism, duplication, salami slicing, guideline compliance and – fascinatingly – whether submitted studies even remotely relate to tourism.
#editorobservation
Many authors think to themselves: “The journal should just assess my paper on it’s scholarly merit. I can deal with all those annoying formatting requirements later.”
- Reviewers get really upset about non-compliant manuscripts
- If non-compliant manuscripts make it though to publication, they need to then be retracted post-publication and re-published to have them fixed (big delay, huge pain for the authors who should be celebrating their publication instead of dealing with formatting issues).
Everybody hates getting manuscripts ready for submission, which necessarily implies reformatting the paper for the target journal.
But it is a simple way to avoid falling at the first hurdle, so well worth the time and effort.
#editorobservation
The 9000 word limit is only a rough guideline.
Just a conversation starter, really.
From there, Scott McCabe and I carefully negotiate with the authors of all ~1400 papers submitted annually to Annals of Tourism Research what a suitable word limit might be given their personal circumstances and the research they are presenting in the paper.
Just kidding.
Not negotiable.
Ever.
#editorobservation
Well, it is a beautiful sunny Saturday in Brisbane, Australia.
I’ve worked hard all week to create meaningful new knowledge through my research, doing the job I love at The University of Queensland.
So today I am processing 12 new submissions to Annals of Tourism Research.
I am very happy to assess manuscripts on their scholarly merit, but I really don’t feel obliged to donate my family time to teach authors how to submit a manuscript.
#editorobservation
Scott McCabe and I regularly receive requests from authors asking if they can please go over the Annals of Tourism Research word limit for initial submission.
If you think this through, there really is no fair way we could possibly do that. If we were to give one single author permission to go over the word limit, all other authors would rightfully demand the same. And then one precedent effectively means the end of our submission guidelines. So unfortunately the answer always has to be “no, sorry”.
But the up-side is that it’s actually well worth spending a few extra days refining a manuscript. It would be a terrible shame to conduct a brilliant piece of research & then fail to present it in the most compelling way. That’s where language comes in.
When I finalise my own manuscripts, I go through them multiple times – takes me many days – to improve the language. This process always improves readability. And typically I can cut the length of the paper by a good 20% without losing content. That’s because, when I first write the paper, I use long sentences & many unnecessary filler words. That’s OK for a first draft, but then as I chisel the paper to perfection all of that needs to be cut out. Like a hedge that’s grown out of control and needs to be pruned back into a neat and tidy shape.
The likelihood of a paper being accepted depends not only on the study, it also depends on the quality of presentation. So it’s well worth spending time on chiselling manuscripts to perfection.
#editorobservation
Scott McCabe and I see more and more really sloppy applications being submitted to Annals of Tourism Research.
It’s not a good look.
Such papers will never be published.
But the authors are risking their reputation.
Like any other author, I also hate submission guidelines and online submission systems, but if it takes months/years to run a study, investing one or two hours to get the manuscript ready for submission to a desirable target journal is not a terribly huge effort really.
Why risk falling at the 1st hurdle?
#editorobservation
When I first started publishing, I had to fit everything into 5,000 or 10,000 words. The skill I needed to learn was to write efficiently to fit everything in.
Today there’s effectively no word limit…because of online supplementary materials. The skill authors need to learn now is to extract the most important information and present it in the manuscript in a way that is easily accessible and conveys the importance of the study. The rest goes in the online supplementary materials.
