1. Professor Jack Odle, Editor-in-Chief Current Developments in Nutrition
Getting Your Manuscript Published: Practical Tips for Preparing Your Manuscript, Avoiding Common Mistakes, and Choosing the Right Journal
Professor Teresa Davis, Editor-in-Chief
The Journal of Nutrition
Professor Jack Odle, Editor-in-Chief
Current Developments in Nutrition
IUNS-ICN 21st International Congress of Nutrition
Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 2017 1

2. Part 2 Understanding the Peer Review Process and Responding to Reviewers
Jack Odle, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Current Developments in Nutrition
Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry
Open Access x Pioneering Research x Stringent Peer-Review
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA 2

3. The Journal of Nutrition Peer Review Process (13 steps)
Author submits manuscript
EIC rapidly rejects or sends to JN staff
JN staff checks format
JN staff sends to EIC
EIC assigns to AE
Asst E reviews for problems with formatting, design, and analysis
AE receives reviews and either rejects or requests review by Asst E
Asst E sends review to EIC
AE solicits reviewers (EBM and ad hoc)
EIC looks at reviews and sends to AE
Letter to Author: Acceptance or Rejection or Reject with Invitation to Resubmit or Revision
AE accepts or returns manuscript to reviewers and Asst E or rejects
AE provisionally accepts and returns manuscript to Author for revision or rejects
I thought it would be helpful to describe the peer review process as it is handled by JN. When an author submits a manuscript, the EIC first looks at the manuscript to see whether it is within the scope of the journal and whether it meets certain quality standards and either rapidly rejects it or send it forward to the JN staff to do their check for certain format requirements like whether there are line numbers. The JN staff then sends the paper back to the EIC. The EIC then assigns the paper to an AE who is an expert in that area of nutrition science. The AE then solicits reviewers – usually 1 EBM and 1 or 2 ad hoc reviewers. When the AE receives the reviews, he reads the reports and either rejects the papers or if he thinks there is merit to the paper, will request that the Ass E review the manuscript for formatting, design and analysis. The Assist E then sends the reviews to the EIC for her review and comment. The EIC then sends the paper back to the AE who will either reject the paper or provisionally accept the manuscript and return it to the author for revision. The author can then revise and resubmit. When the authors revised the paper and resubmits the paper, the paper may either go back for review by 1 or more reviewers or the AE may accept. The Decision letter may be: to accept, reject, reject with invitation to resubmit when there is value to the study, but the manuscript requires substantial revision, or the paper could go through another round of revision.
Author revises and resubmits
EIC = Editor-in-Chief
AE = Associate Editor
Asst E = Assistant Editor

4. Overview of Review Process
Submit using web-hosting program
Pre-flight check by journal staff
Assessment of ms “fit” for journal
Assignment to Guiding Editor (Assoc. Ed.)
Review by peers
Technical review (plagiarism screen)
Initial decision by Guiding Editor (AE)
Responding to reviewers
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

5. 1. Submit using web-hosting program
Stanford High-Wire Press Oxford University Press
BenchPress ScholarOne
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Moving to a new manuscript submission & mgmt webprogram. ScholarOne.
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7. Submission: Patience is a virtue!
Meta-data is tedious, but important
Authors, contact info
ORCID highly recommended
Corresponding author
Abstract for reviewing purposes (sp characters)
Key words (for review)
Conflict of Interest information
(form under development to streamline)
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

8. ORCID – Open Researcher & Contributor ID; 4M members
Free
Ask for a show of hands regarding how many have heard of ORCID? All of our journals HIGHLY ENCOURAGE it’s use.
Just google it.
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

9. American Society for Nutrition, Inc.
ORCID
CDN/2017/ Current Developments in Nutrition: A New Journal Designed for the Open-Access Era John Smith , Karen King , and Sarah McCormack id id id
Provides a UNIQUE numeric identifier for all of your work.
Scientists with same name can be distinguished
Accurately track your work if you change employer
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

10. Suggest/Exclude Editors & Reviewers
Suggesting qualified reviewers helps the editors.
Shows your desire to compete at the highest level
Don’t suggest your friends or those with few credentials.
A PubMed search of their expertise is only a mouse click away.
Your friends may not be as friendly as you think.
Excluding reviewers may influence the editors.
But editors may consider these to be precisely the opinions they want to hear for a fully-informed judgment.
From D. Bier

11. 2. Pre-flight check by journal staff
Non-scientific checklist to ensure the submission is complete. General compliance with “guide to authors” To ensure manuscript is reviewable.
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

12. 3. Assessment of ms “fit” for journal
Role of EIC, with possible consult from Associate Editors.
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

13. Rapid Rejects (without external review) The Journal of Nutrition
Outside of JN scope
Nutrition not part of study design
Food composition reports
Critically ill patients
Pharmacological doses
Descriptive, premature, confirmatory, poor design, inadequate methods, etc.
Prevents delay of an external review that will likely reach the same conclusion.
Manuscript may be rapidly rejected without peer review if they are
Outside of JN scope. This would include: studies where Nutrition not part of study design, Food composition reports, studies that use Pharmacological doses may not may not be considered. Studies in Critically ill patients are more appropriate for clinical journals.,
Authors can contact the EIC in advance about the suitability of research topic for the journal. This would help to avoid some rapid rejection because the manuscript is outside of the journal scope.
I will usually answer within 1-3 days either letting you know that the paper is within the scope of JN and encouraging you to submit or suggesting you send the paper to a journal with a scope that better fits your research than JN. Remember that encouragement to submit does not guarantee the paper will get accepted or even reviewed.
Studies that are Descriptive, premature, confirmatory, have a poor design or inadequate methods may be rejected at this stage.

14. Porting of your MS Among ASN Journal
AJCN JN AN
CDN
Reviews can travel with
your ms to expedite further
consideration by receiving journal. You can respond to reviews and revise ms if you choose.
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

15. American Society for Nutrition, Inc.
Rapid Rejection, without external review
Dear Dr. XXXX: Thank you for submitting the manuscript ……Unfortunately, ……. If you would like to have your manuscript reviewed by another journal in the American Society for Nutrition’s portfolio, locate this article at in your Author Area, under the Rejected Manuscripts queue. Click on the appropriate link to send your manuscript to Current Developments in Nutrition (CDN). It may take up to 90 minutes for CDN to receive your submission. You will be e- mailed once your submission has been transferred with instructions for logging into CDN ( and completing the submission. Whether to revise your files is left to your discretion.
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

16. 4. Assignment to Guiding Editor (Associate Editor)
Subject matter considered
They chaperone the review process
Select a peer reviewer from editorial board
Solicit external ad hoc peer reviewer(s); considers your suggestions
Solicit technical (assistant) editor review
Assess reviews; recommend Accept/Revise/Reject
Evaluate revised manuscripts; recommend Accept/Reject
Wise, fair judgement
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

17. American Society for Nutrition, Inc.
5. Review by peers
An honest critic is a scientist’s best friend.
Anonymous for most but not all journals
Separate major from minor points of critique
(Common problems discussed later)
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

18. 6. Technical/Assistant Editor review (plagiarism screen)
Extensive, detailed checklist,
Spanning all dimensions of the
manuscript (grammar, stats, conclusions,
tables/figures, etc., etc.)
Detail is often frustrating to authors,
but journal must uphold quality standard.
This serves the author, the journal and the reader!
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

19. Manuscripts are scanned for plagiarism
Self-plagiarism: reusing the author’s own previously published words without citation
Common in Methods section
Breach of copyright
Plagiarism: using text, tables, or illustrations developed by someone else
Permission is needed from publisher for use of previously published material and source must be cited
All revised papers are scanned for plagiarism using software called iThenticate. Those that are disproportionately similar to published papers will be rejected or returned to authors for a rewrite before a final decision is made. Self-plagiarism is somewhat common in the Methods section in manuscripts but is still a breach of copyright. Self-plagiarism is reusing you won previously published words with citing the previous reference.
Plagiarism is using text, tables or illustrations developed by someone else. Remember that permission is needed from the publisher for the use of anything previously published. The source of the material must be cited in the manuscript.

20. 6. Initial decision by guiding editor
Letter 1: Accepted, < 0.1% of ms
Letter 2: Rejected with minor revisions, 1.4%
Letter 3: Rejected with major revisions, 25%
After revision: 88% accepted, 9% rejected, (3% not revised)
Revised version may be treated as a “new manuscript”
Letter 4: Rejected, 75%
“Low priority” – i.e. really rejected, often for “non scientific” reasons, inappropriate for journal, etc. (includes rapid rejects) y
Modified from D. Bier

21. Reviewers’ Common Manuscript Criticisms
Premature
Confirmatory
Descriptive
No hypothesis
Poor experimental design, methods, statistics
Erroneous or unsupported conclusions
Poor quality illustrations
Disorganized paper, poor English…..
If the paper makes it through the pre-review by the Editor-in-Chief and is reviewed by 2-4 reviewers, Some common criticisms that reviewers make are:
The manuscript is Premature, it is relatively descriptive, the study is most confirmatory, there is hypothesis that is being tested. The experimental design, methods, or statistics is poor. The conclusions are not supported by the data. The paper is disorganized and hard to follow. The illustrations are of poor quality.

22. Concerns for Authors Whose Native Language Is Not English
The paper cannot be evaluated due to improper English
A scientifically good paper can be rejected on the basis of language
Get English writing assistance from a colleague for whom English is their first language or from an international science editing company
A problem that can occur for Non-American authors is that the reviewers say that
The paper cannot be evaluated due to improper English.
Reviewers may refuse to evaluate the paper.
A good paper scientifically can be rejected on the basis of language.
English writing assistance from a native English speaking colleague or an international science editing company can be helpful.
International Science editing
Asian Science Editing

23. Some Commercial Language Editing Services* *
* Workshop sponsors

24. 8. Responding to Reviewers
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.

25. Responding
Read review carefully and closely follow the reviewers’ advice
Distinguish major from minor critiques
What are the reviewers requesting?
Change the interpretation of the results
Modify the conclusion
Provide more explanation
Correct mistake
New analysis of data
More data
After your paper has been reviewed and if you are asked to revise the paper:
Read the review carefully and closely follow the reviewers’ advice
What are the reviewers asking for? Do they want you to:
Change in interpretation of the results
Modify the conclusion
Do they need more explanation of that you did
Did they find a mistake that needs to be corrected.
Did they request a new analysis of data
Sometimes they can ask for additional data or experiments.

26. Responding to Reviewers
Do not respond antagonistically
Respond completely to all comments
In the “Response to Reviewers,” restate each of the reviewers comments, then respond to each comment and identify by line numbers where the changes were made in the revised manuscript. Make it easy for editor to track.
In the revised manuscript, mark the changes (JN requires yellow highlight)
Respond before the deadline
After your paper has been reviewed and if you are asked to revise the paper:
Read the review carefully and closely follow the reviewers advise. Do not take offense. The reviewers are providing valuable help in improving you paper and most always improve quality of a paper.
Do not respond antagonistically to the reviewers and editor
Respond completely to all comments
In the Response to Reviewers, restate each of the reviewers comments, then respond to each comment. Be sure to identify by line numbers and page numbers where all changes have been made in the manuscript.
In the revised manuscript, mark the changes in manuscript where the changes were made. This makes it easier for the editor and the reviewers to check your revised manuscript. And that makes them happy. The JN requests changes be yellow highlighted.
Do not send a paper back with no changes.
Failure to follow a reviewers advice can damage your chance of publishing. Don’t make them angry.
Revise and return the paper within the specified deadline. JN asks for revisions to be returned within 28 days but will give up to 4 months. If you cannot, the editor.
Remember you want the reviewers to give the AE there stamp of approval.

27. Rejection Decisions
Do not despair, another journal may publish the paper
Use the peer reviewers’ comments and editor’s comments to improve your paper and try again!
The same reviewers may see the paper again so use their words of wisdom to improve your paper
Change the cover letter
Check the Instructions for Authors
If your paper is rejected:
Do not despair, another journal will publish the study.
Use the peer reviewers’ comments to improve the paper before you submit the manuscript to another journal
The same reviewers may see the paper again so use their words of wisdom to improve your paper
Change the cover letter. I have had papers submitted to Journal of Nutrition state that they are submitted their manuscript to AJCN or some other journal. That is a sure give away that it was rejected by that journal and now they are sending it to JN. So change the cover letter.
Check the Instructions for Authors before submitting a paper to any journal. I am appalled at how many papers are submitted to JN that do not conform to the Instructions for Authors.

28. Summary of Review Process
American Society for Nutrition, Inc.
Summary of Review Process
Submit using web-hosting program
Pre-flight check by journal staff
Assessment of ms “fit” for journal
Assignment to Guiding Editor (Assoc. Ed.)
Review by peers
Technical review (plagiarism screen)
Initial decision by Guiding Editor (AE)
Responding to reviewers

29. Thank You and Good Luck From the ASN Journal Family