7 Top Tips to Ensure your Submission Makes it to Peer Review
By Katie Willis
Sage’s ever-evolving peer review processes are adapted to be robust and reflect the latest industry standards. We are committed to ensuring that authors feel confident and well-informed when submitting their manuscripts to our journals. We’ve therefore highlighted 7 helpful tips authors should keep in mind when submitting their manuscripts.
1. Look over the Journal’s Aims and Scope
While determining which journal to submit to, evaluate each journal’s Aims and Scope section as it will outline the specific types of research the journal publishes. Ensuring your paper is within scope will reduce the potential of your paper being immediately rejected.
2. Follow the Submission Guidelines
Once you have decided on a journal, locate the journal’s submission guidelines. These guidelines were created by the editor to ensure authors are aware of the submission requirements, especially if there are specific parameters for papers. Therefore, read over them carefully. One of the main reasons a manuscript is unsubmitted or immediately rejected is because the submission did not adhere to the guidelines. If you have any questions about the submission requirements, contact the journal’s editorial office.
3. List Statements or Declarations
One of the most common journal requirements is for authors to provide a series of statements or declarations. These statements will help the journal editor and editorial board understand how the research came to be and whether ethical procedures were followed. The submission guidelines will specify which are needed, but common statements and declarations include:
Ethical Statements
Ethical statements show that appropriate ethical considerations for the study were reviewed, approved, and followed. In many journals, papers will not be considered if the ethical statement is missing. More information regarding how to write an ethical statement can be found here.
Conflict of Interest Statements
Acknowledging potential conflicts of interest at the beginning of the submission process is important because the editor needs to be aware of any factors that could have influenced the research. This transparency will reduce the potential of rejection due to not disclosing information beforehand. More information about conflict of interest statements can be found here.
Author Contributions
Editors may ask for each author’s individual contributions to the paper to ensure an ethical, transparent, and fair peer review and publication process. For example, several Sage journals have adopted CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) to easily identify each author’s role.
Funding Statements
Similar to the conflict of interest statement, the funding statement ensures transparency about how research was funded and how it could have an effect, or perceived effect, on research. More information about funding statements can be found here.
4. Check for Anonymization
Many journals practice double anonymization in their submission process. Double anonymization means the authors’ information is not shown to the reviewers to reduce conscious and unconscious biases that may occur during the review process. If the journal you would like to submit to practices double anonymization, it will be stated in the submission guidelines.
When creating your submission files, make sure to remove all author identifying information from the main document. This can include authors' names and initials, email addresses, affiliations, ORCID information, etc. In addition, remove all statements that contain author identifying information from the main document. Instead, list the statements in the separate title page. This could include the author contributions, funding, ethical, and conflict of interest statements.
For more information on how to ensure your submission is properly anonymized, please check out the Manuscript Preparation for Double-Anonymized Journals website.
5. Confirm Authorship
When submitting your paper, provide the most up-to-date author and acknowledgment information. Changing the authorship and acknowledgment sections are considered red flags in publishing since it may indicate unethical behavior. To help determine who should be considered an author, check out the guidelines below:
Authorship for Technical or Medical Journals
Those who can claim authorship should meet ALL points below:
Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work, or acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data.
Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content.
Approved the version to be published.
Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Authorship for Social Science or Humanities Journals
Those who can claim authorship should meet ALL points below:
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article.
Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Remember: Sage does not allow the addition or removal of authors after the acceptance of a paper.
For more information about authorship, please see the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines.
Acknowledgements
Anyone who assisted with the research but cannot claim authorship. For example, acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group.
Third party submissions – Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company, and level of input.
Identify any entities that paid for this assistance.
Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Remember: It is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your paper.
6. Consider Preprints
A preprint is a version of a scholarly piece of research that has not been peer reviewed or published in a peer-reviewed journal but has been posted to an open access online platform. Although some journals allow authors to submit their research if it has been uploaded on a preprint server, some do not allow it. Before submitting your manuscript, ensure that the journal accepts preprints by reviewing the submission guidelines.
Check out Sage’s preprint community Advance!
7. Review for Plagiarism
While completing the paper, double-check that all sources are properly cited. Journals will check submissions during the peer review process for any plagiarism and will immediately reject papers if there are any concerns. Therefore, ensure there are no instances of plagiarism within the submission.
Editors, editorial board members, and reviewers focus on many aspects of the submission when reviewing for plagiarism. They look for some of the following:
Continuous sections of text that is identical to another source, including author’s previous works.
Text from another source that has received minor changes, but the overall meaning and sentence structure have not changed.
Sections of text that do not have sufficient referencing.
The Results and Conclusion sections overlap with another source.
For further guidance on plagiarism, check out the following resources:
Sage also provides a service to authors that will perform a plagiarism check on a manuscript. More information can be found here.
Want more information about the peer review process? Check out the following resources:
The peer review process infographic
Sage is a proud partner and contributor to Peer Review Week. Browse more content here.
About the Author
