Has anybody here been published in a scientifc journal ?

[Mapes]

I agree with Andy. You surely believe that at least some of the journal's readers will follow and understand your arguments, be familiar with the topics even if somewhat outside their specialty, and be interested in the conclusions. These are your potential referees. They are in a good position to judge your points. Remember this when they come back with (possibly negative) comments. Since you have written a book in the field, I'm sure you've thought carefully about how to present research conclusions clearly and to the widest possible audience.

Also, you've mentioned that your paper is a review/consolidation of existing studies that argues for a new unified theory. I think your idea that referees can or will question the validity of the original data is way off base. The published studies have been through peer review and have a high degree of believability. Your manuscript has not (yet). The referees will be focusing on your contributions.

 

[Choppy]

Roger, I think you're overshooting the point. It's NOT your responsibility to find referees for your own work. A journal may request that you provide the names of experts, but ultimately the journal (ie. associate editor) is reponsible for finding qualified referees.

If it turns out that the paper fuses together too many different fields, you will likely be asked to re-write it as mulitple papers.

 

[Cincinnatus]

I didn't read this entire thread but I can clear up one more little misconception here. I am in neuroscience (I'm a graduate student) and I can assure you Cerebral Cortex is not a high profile journal. They publish a lot of neuropsychology studies of interest mostly to very focused specialists in that area. For example, they would be an appropriate journal if you had say, developed a new test to screen patients for frontal lobe damage.

Cortex is definitely not the place to publish a paper of interest to a larger segment of the neuroscience community.

 

[Cincinnatus]

As there are seven pages concentrating on neurochemical distributions in high detail, five on EEG, three on dipole/linear quadrupole systems, four on complexity theory. Then the task appears impossible. There is no referee i know who is expert in neurochemical distributions, EEG analysis, multi-pole physics (dipoles, linear quadrupoles) and complexity theory.
.

This is nonsense. Neuroscience is full of people with expertise in all these areas.

 

[rogerharris]

This is nonsense. Neuroscience is full of people with expertise in all these areas.

Thats good news. I couldn't find any in my references and there are 166 in the paper.

If you know any let us know.

 

[rogerharris]

I think you underestimate referees. I have never gotten a manuscript or grant application where I have totally 100% understood every single thing in the text, which is impossible anyway- the paper has something new in it, right? Speaking for myself, if I feel I don't have sufficient background information to parse out what the author(s) is saying (a very common occurrence), I make it my responsibility to get educated- as do my colleagues. The authors should supply this "background reading" themselves, by way of the introduction and cited prior work.

One not need be an expert in your laundry list of topics to offer cogent analysis of your manuscript. And in any case, using more than one referee increases the scope of experience. You are neglecting your responsibility to the readers- make your paper intelligible and readable. Writing a paper is not an excersise in showing off how smart you are.

Good insight.

The readability along with rechecking data are currently the two highest priorities. One co-author is having the facts checked with experts at the university, while the other is ensuring its readable.

 

[rogerharris]

I didn't read this entire thread but I can clear up one more little misconception here. I am in neuroscience (I'm a graduate student) and I can assure you Cerebral Cortex is not a high profile journal. They publish a lot of neuropsychology studies of interest mostly to very focused specialists in that area. For example, they would be an appropriate journal if you had say, developed a new test to screen patients for frontal lobe damage.

Cortex is definitely not the place to publish a paper of interest to a larger segment of the neuroscience community.

Are you mixing up the journal "cortex" and "Cerebral cortex" ? They are different journals.

I ask because this is the scope of the journal "cerebral cortex"

"Cerebral Cortex publishes papers on the development, organization, plasticity, and function of the cerebral cortex, including the hippocampus. Studies with clear relevance to the cerebral cortex, such as the thalamocortical relationship or cortico-subcortical interactions, are also included. The journal is multidisciplinary and covers the large variety of modern neurobiological and neuropsychological techniques, including anatomy, biochemistry, molecular neurobiology, electrophysiology, behavior, artificial intelligence, and theoretical modeling. In addition to research articles, special features such as brief reviews, book reviews, and commentaries are included."

"Cerebral Cortex, like the other high impact journals, has a policy to send for peer review only those manuscripts that are likely to be competitive based on novelty and significant advances in understanding basic neural mechanisms on evolution, development, organization and physiology of cerebral cortex and are also of interest to its multidisciplinary readers."

 

[rogerharris]

I agree with Andy. You surely believe that at least some of the journal's readers will follow and understand your arguments, be familiar with the topics even if somewhat outside their specialty, and be interested in the conclusions. These are your potential referees. They are in a good position to judge your points. Remember this when they come back with (possibly negative) comments. Since you have written a book in the field, I'm sure you've thought carefully about how to present research conclusions clearly and to the widest possible audience.

Also, you've mentioned that your paper is a review/consolidation of existing studies that argues for a new unified theory. I think your idea that referees can or will question the validity of the original data is way off base. The published studies have been through peer review and have a high degree of believability. Your manuscript has not (yet). The referees will be focusing on your contributions.

I don't think they will question the referenced data, i hope... but my meta analysis of that.

although there are six citied papers from India that look dodgy even though they are published in a decent journal. I am seriously condidering removing them from my data. Maybe i could post them here and see what people make of them.

 

[Cincinnatus]

The point is, neither of those journals would be referred to as "high impact".

The first tier journals in neuroscience are Neuron and Nature Neuroscience. After that most people tend to read the Journal of Neurophysiology. A lower status (but still respected) general journal is the Society For Neuroscience's Journal of Neuroscience (why aren't you submitting there? They even have a designated space for integrative neuroscience).

Other than that, there are various specialized journals which typically have lower status. There are also the usual very high impact general science journals e.g. Nature, Science, etc.

---

As for your inability to find references... that does not bode well... You do know that a substantial portion of the systems and theoretical neuroscience communities comes from a physics or computer science background right? Nearly everyone in computational/theoretical neuroscience is familiar with these topics you listed. Probably almost everyone in systems neuroscience would also be suitable. These are thousands of people.

 

[Monique]

I just asked the two clinicians who recommended i submit to many. The one who was published still agreed to that strategy. Maybe there is a difference in the fields. Medical fields may be different to physics, which many here are published in.

Conclusion: you are ignorant to the opinion of the people here. This has really bothered me about your attitude and led me to respond in the first place.

The papers you mention, Nature, New England Journal of Medicine and current biology are medical journals.

That is not correct, only NEJM is a medical journal.

Medicine and in particular neuroscience are the most complex fields to be in. Alzheimers alone has 40,000 papers. Sometimes scope is hard to define and some journals are flooded with submissions even when the scope is right. Presubmission may be encouraged to save editors time digging out referees and hassling them.

You copied the last two sentences from another source? They do not seem to be your own words.

You can suggest reviewers to the editor, or even ask reviewers to be excluded. You would want to suggest reviewers who each have their own strength. The editor will have the final decision on the reviewers and you will not be informed about their identity.

 

[rogerharris]

The point is, neither of those journals would be referred to as "high impact".

The first tier journals in neuroscience are Neuron and Nature Neuroscience. After that most people tend to read the Journal of Neurophysiology. A lower status (but still respected) general journal is the Society For Neuroscience's Journal of Neuroscience (why aren't you submitting there? They even have a designated space for integrative neuroscience).

Other than that, there are various specialized journals which typically have lower status. There are also the usual very high impact general science journals e.g. Nature, Science, etc.

---

As for your inability to find references... that does not bode well... You do know that a substantial portion of the systems and theoretical neuroscience communities comes from a physics or computer science background right? Nearly everyone in computational/theoretical neuroscience is familiar with these topics you listed. Probably almost everyone in systems neuroscience would also be suitable. These are thousands of people.

As part of this research i had to compile databases of about 3000 papers selected from our larger datatabses. From that 3000, 166 were finally used. Out of this data mining process i am familiar with every major neuroscientist, and many lesser known players. None of these thousands of paper brought out one neuroscientist who it could be gleaned, from their papers is familiar with the range of topics i reference.

That is good news you think that they will, even if their work does not make it apparent. Anyway i guess its not that important as the journal will probably pick their own referees.

 

[rogerharris]

Conclusion: you are ignorant to the opinion of the people here. This has really bothered me about your attitude and led me to respond in the first place.

What would you do if you were getting two lots of professional opinions that differ ? Go to each and ask why they differ, then if they still differ try to understand why they differ. Clinicians are telling me one thing, and published people on a forum, who so far appear to be mostly in physics are telling me another. I do not understand why this problem solving process of resolving contradicting information should bother anybody.

That is not correct, only NEJM is a medical journal.

the point from context of problem solving why medical clinicians are telling me to go for presubmission is that these journal you mentioned are related to the medical field and not physics ?


You copied the last two sentences from another source? They do not seem to be your own words.

what is it that you are trying to say here ?

 

[turbo]

As part of this research i had to compile databases of about 3000 papers selected from our larger datatabses. From that 3000, 166 were finally used. Out of this data mining process i am familiar with every major neuroscientist, and many lesser known players. None of these thousands of paper brought out one neuroscientist who it could be gleaned, from their papers is familiar with the range of topics i reference.

That is good news you think that they will, even if their work does not make it apparent.

Don't you think it a bit pretentious to assume that an editor to which you will submit your paper cannot select some reviewers, and that the reviewers cannot possibly review your paper? Just asking...

You cannot (or should not) know who critiqued your paper before it is modified and accepted for publication. The editor and his/her staff is a go-between between you and the refs.

 

[Monique]

what is it that you are trying to say here ?

You've very well demonstrated that you are clueless, need I say more.

 

[rogerharris]

You've very well demonstrated that you are clueless, need I say more.

Your tone is unwarranted. But doesn't bother me. It just makes yourself look bad.

As well as this your last comments didnt even make sense.

What does this mean ?

"You copied the last two sentences from another source? They do not seem to be your own words."

If they are copied then this says you saw them elsewhere, or something similiar. how can then "not seem" to be my own words. Even then you arent even stating you point in any case. What does this means whether they are copied are not, what does it matter. Why make the point.

You are a mentor ? I provide an answer to your points, without getting ruffled, and it looks like you cannot handle that and get ad hom, presumably because i had to make a previous complaint about one of your colleages. That is because I do not take insults unless they are justified with proper reasons. Upon analysis of that posters reasons, none of them were based on anything i had actually said, but that persons wrong interpretation. It does not matter whether somebody here has 3000 or 10 posts. If they are disrespectfull without good reason i will make a complaint.

In total it does not look good. Either you are here to provide support with academic guidance or not. Most people here have been very helpfull. That is the idea isn't it ? Not having some knowledge or trying to resolve contradicting information from different professionals is not an excuse for anybody to take the wrong tone. I notice that some people on the internet when they approach a higher forum status think they can say whatever they like and get away with it. It only makes that person with the bad tone look unprofessional, so that makes it very hard to take them seriously.

I mix with professional people. Professionals are gracious in tone as i try to be also. I recommend you also try to be like this. You will get nowhere IRL, away from you computer, if you are not. If a person cannot retain a gracious tone online then it implies a weak character which is not something people will admire in you.

SO yes, maybe it turns out that i can provide you with help and insight also :)

 

[rogerharris]

Don't you think it a bit pretentious to assume that an editor to which you will submit your paper cannot select some reviewers, and that the reviewers cannot possibly review your paper? Just asking...

.

I always thought that they selected the reviewers. It was when they asked me to select reviewers i was surprised and unsure of procedure, hence i came here, rather than bother the editors. Thankfully most people have been helpful in clearing up why this is.

 

[rogerharris]

The point is, neither of those journals would be referred to as "high impact".

The first tier journals in neuroscience are Neuron and Nature Neuroscience. After that most people tend to read the Journal of Neurophysiology. A lower status (but still respected) general journal is the Society For Neuroscience's Journal of Neuroscience (why aren't you submitting there? They even have a designated space for integrative neuroscience).

Other than that, there are various specialized journals which typically have lower status. There are also the usual very high impact general science journals e.g. Nature, Science, etc.

What I've been finding is that the high impact journals like nature neuroscience publish mainly specialized articles. Those journals which favoured integration such as journal of integrative neuroscience (which also told me to submit based on a preview) were low impact. Also the lower impact journals, such as cerebral cortex, laterality, journal of integrative neuroscience who said ok to submit, appeared to have well known neuroscientists and writers as their editors and associated board editors. It was practically a collection of who i would consider to be many of the last three decades best neuroscientists.

When i looked at nature neuroscience editors i did not recognise any of them. It may just be that integration is not popular, because the trend has been towards trying to take biosystems apart for a long time. This is what the editor of the journal i am submitting to is saying.

BTW i tried Journal of Neuroscience but..rejected, perhaps because as you say a smaller portion of their journal is for integration.

As for your inability to find references... that does not bode well... You do know that a substantial portion of the systems and theoretical neuroscience communities comes from a physics or computer science background right? Nearly everyone in computational/theoretical neuroscience is familiar with these topics you listed. Probably almost everyone in systems neuroscience would also be suitable. These are thousands of people.

That is interesting, my background also..what happens is that computing and physics feel limited and a person wants to understand the ultimate unit of physical processing, the brain. I am mucho relieved that the journal editors will not have a hard time finding reviewers.

 

[ZapperZ]

I always thought that they selected the reviewers. It was when they asked me to select reviewers i was surprised and unsure of procedure, hence i came here, rather than bother the editors. Thankfully most people have been helpful in clearing up why this is.

I've stayed out of this one till now because the whole starting premise was very strange and confusing. However, I can definitely address this one.

Most journals, and this is certainly true in physics such as the Physical Review journals, would like you to recommend a list of referees to them. It doesn't mean that they will use them since they have their own database of referees with expertise in each area. But they at least have an initial reference point to the pool of referee candidates, especially if the people that you recommend are already in their database, and they can cross-references other referees having similar background with the ones you recommended.

I have never, in my professional career, heard of anyone "pre-submitting" (it appears that's what you did here) a paper to a journal, simply to get an editor's opinion on the suitability. Someone who is familiar with the field of study should know right away if (i) the subject matter is suitable for that journal and (ii) the level of "newness" or "impact" is suitable for that journal. Maybe it works differently in the field you're working in, I don't know. But journal editors normally simply do not have the time to hand-hold an author through the process. The editors that I know of have TONS of submission to deal with, and the last thing that they want to do is deal with "pre-submissions".

BTW, you really should learn how to properly use the QUOTE syntax.

Zz.

 

[rogerharris]

I've stayed out of this one till now because the whole starting premise was very strange and confusing.

Yes i also found the contradicting advice confusing, which is one reason i came here. I had the article formatted for one specific journal, then was told to submit abstracts to many.

I have never, in my professional career, heard of anyone "pre-submitting" (it appears that's what you did here) a paper to a journal, simply to get an editor's opinion on the suitability. Someone who is familiar with the field of study should know right away if (i) the subject matter is suitable for that journal and (ii) the level of "newness" or "impact" is suitable for that journal. Maybe it works differently in the field you're working in, I don't know. But journal editors normally simply do not have the time to hand-hold an author through the process. The editors that I know of have TONS of submission to deal with, and the last thing that they want to do is deal with "pre-submissions".

I am not sure about this pre-submission thing either. Perhaps it is a new trend in complex biosciences as there is so much room for potential crossover of areas. A ten minute preview of an abstract saves possibly hours picking referees as well as the wasting of that referees time to review.

Two medical clinicians who do not even know each other (one published) said to submit abstracts to many. Although they did not say how many journals. Also monique has since pointed out three medical field related journals ask for pre-submissions. The only way i am going to clear this up is go to the university and speak to more people to find out if this is a new trend in biosciences. But, for now what has been done has has been done, and things are onto the next stage.

 

[ZapperZ]

Unless Nature and Science have separate policies for biomedical papers, both of those journals do not have a "pre-submission" process. I am quite familiar with both journals, especially as far as the physical sciences papers are concerned. You submit a finished paper, and that's it.

Considering that they are two of the most prestigious journals in the sciences, and considering the volume of manuscripts they receive each day, it is puzzling that other lower-tiered journals have to require a pre-submission. But then again, I am clueless on how they do it in bio-medical field.

Zz.

 

[rogerharris]

Unless Nature and Science have separate policies for biomedical papers, both of those journals do not have a "pre-submission" process. I am quite familiar with both journals, especially as far as the physical sciences papers are concerned. You submit a finished paper, and that's it.

Considering that they are two of the most prestigious journals in the sciences, and considering the volume of manuscripts they receive each day, it is puzzling that other lower-tiered journals have to require a pre-submission. But then again, I am clueless on how they do it in bio-medical field.

Zz.

I saw presbmissions in a google search on the term presubmissions for

Current Biology, nature, PLoS Medicine, NEJM, Molecular Cell, RNA Biology, International Journal of Clinical Practice ..

but not any non bioscience journals, and it appears like its a recent development also.

Found a thread on nature forums about it also

http://network.nature.com/groups/goodpaper/forum/topics/1655

and another description of it on a publishing site by NetworkPharma

http://www.thepublicationplan.com/basics/003.html

It appears this might just be a newer trend in biosciences. From the nature thread it seems like it may be pushed for by medical researchers trying to decide whether to do research in the first place.

So at last... this explains the contradiction. Why clinicians are pushing this to me and why the concept was so foreign to those not in biosciences

Well i am tired...:zzz: it has certainly been quite a heated debate here, to try and thrash out this mystery..

 

[Mapes]

Found a thread on nature forums about it also... It appears this might just be a newer trend in biosciences.

In fact, the Nature editor herself says "we allow presubs because authors want to send us them, but the editors always prefer to read the whole paper than a presubmission enquiry. [T]he presub...does not need to be actually submitted to the journal." Looks like pretty much what everyone in this thread has been telling you.

 

[ZapperZ]

In fact, the Nature editor herself says "we allow presubs because authors want to send us them, but the editors always prefer to read the whole paper than a presubmission enquiry. [T]he presub...does not need to be actually submitted to the journal." Looks like pretty much what everyone in this thread has been telling you.

Wow. Then Nature certainly has a separate policy for bio-medical papers. We certainly don't have (or at least I'm not aware of) pre-submission for physical sciences papers.

Zz.

 

[rogerharris]

In fact, the Nature editor herself says "we allow presubs because authors want to send us them, but the editors always prefer to read the whole paper than a presubmission enquiry. [T]he presub...does not need to be actually submitted to the journal." Looks like pretty much what everyone in this thread has been telling you.

Yes it appears the contradiction in advice has been cleared up.

That pharma companies are wasting resources on research that never gets published or has the impact they desire. Hence the advice site linked above, which discusses go for presubmission if possible is pharma funded. One clinician who recommended presubmission to me was published in regards to a pharma product. Perhaps the advice to peruse first, publish later and the increasing uptake to facilitate this in medical journals is coming from the research and funding side.

Well for sure, then to conclude and concede, presubmission does not apply to my aims, and the advice to do so looks to have been steered by business strategies. Although I'm not going to grumble too much, considering that's the business which is keeping many bioscientists in employment.

Looks like i have inadvertently got caught up in another manifestation of the pharma/publishing ethics battle that you see in the press a lot these days. As my aim is pure science i will be more careful about any advice given to me by clinicians. Not that i think those people are being deliberately malevolent to the scientific process, but that business itself could be influencing them to be so, without them knowing it.

..

 

[hill-michelle]

Dont know if this should be posted here..

I'm in the process of trying to get a neuroscience paper published, it would be my first, and sent a copy round about 35 journals editors asking if they could look at the paper and give me a rough estimate of suitability for publication as well as some feedback.

about 10 said not suitable, with no feedback
another 12 said interesting to very good work but not suitable.
8 were wrong email adresses or did not reply

About five said submit in a kind of standard tone, so it was hard to tell, if they had any enthusiasm for my paper. It was kind of difficult to get them to commit to a comment on the paper. Four editors who said submit did not make any comments on the paper. One of those journals is cerebral cortex which is quite high profile. It appeared like he had looked at the paper as the suitability criteria he gave me was similar to what is in my paper, but it is hard to tell.

One of the five publications who said submit is edited by an eminent systems biologist he used far less business like language. such as "we need to do this" , and specifically discussed things to do, like find referees etc. When i looked at his track record, it appeared like my paper is the kind of thing he has been into in his career.

Well maybe somebody could tell me if this is standard. When an editor looks at a papers and says submit, do they tend to refrain from giving feedback, and are pretty businesslike ?

Also has anybody here been published, could maybe answer a few questions on procedure, rather than me hassle the editors ?

yes, ihad a paper published by the university of bergen on the effect of overfishing for porbeagle shark on the eastern seaboard of the United States years ago but it was done automatically by the university after i had submitted my report and research findings. i did,nt even know it had been published until i came across it years later, thanks gil

 

[LydiaAC]

Interesting all the comments in this thread.

I remember some people I know that have never published in international journals. The first time they tried, they received the referees comments and as they were not "oh, it is the more wonderful paper that I read in my life!", they started crying and cursing those mean people, and never submitted a paper again!

It is not that you need to be in academic circles to deserve to be published. However, if you do not have that kind of training it is not probable that you are doing significant research.