What happens to your manuscript after you submit it

Submission is the point at which a manuscript disappears into a process nobody describes to you. This is ours, in order.

1. Desk screen

An editor reads the manuscript against scope and basic soundness. Most desk rejections are scope: good work in the wrong place. We aim to do this quickly, because the worst outcome for an author is a rejection that could have been made in three days arriving in three months.

We also check for the things that would stop review being possible, missing ethics statements, identifiable participant data, a methods section that does not describe a method.

2. Reviewer selection

At least two independent reviewers for research articles, reviews and research notes. For mixed-methods work we deliberately recruit from both sides, and we tell them that disagreement between the strands is not necessarily a flaw.

Review is double anonymous: reviewers do not know who you are and you do not know who they are. Please make sure your manuscript file is anonymised. Reviewers are given a deadline and reminded before it, not after.

3. What we ask reviewers for

A judgement on whether the claims are supported by the evidence presented, and specific, actionable comments. We ask reviewers not to request citations to their own work, not to demand a different study from the one that was done, and to distinguish clearly between "this is wrong" and "I would have done it differently".

4. The decision

Accept, minor revisions, major revisions, or reject. The editor decides; reviewers advise. Where reviewers disagree sharply we will usually seek a third opinion rather than averaging them.

A revision request is not a formality and not a guarantee. Major revisions normally go back to the original reviewers.

5. After acceptance

Copy-editing, typesetting, proofs to you, DOI registration, and publication online ahead of issue assignment, citable from that moment. Your article's received and accepted dates are printed on it.

Timelines

We do not advertise a target time to first decision. As a new journal we have not published enough to have an honest median, and we would rather print the real figure later than an aspirational one now. The dates on each published article let you work it out yourself, which is the only version of this claim worth anything.

Appeals

If you think a decision rested on a misreading, write to the editorial office with the specific point. We will look again. We will not reopen a decision on the grounds that you disagree with the reviewers' judgement, which is a different thing.