PLOS Mental Health Author Tips Part 1/3: The Efficiency of Peer Review

In this limited series of blogs, which will be published over the next few weeks, PLOS Mental Health offers some tips to authors, which we hope will improve their overall experience with submitting a manuscript for peer review. In the first blog, we share some tips which may help to make the peer review process more efficient. Future blogs will cover advice on how to write a compelling manuscript for ECRs and independent authors, as well as how to effectively revise manuscripts in response to reviewer comments.

We all know that, among many other aspects, a robust peer review process should be detailed, fair and efficient. For various reasons authors will sometimes need a relatively timely decision (for instance if they need to time a publication for a position or grant application). But we also know that making sure the manuscript has had a detailed enough review process can come at the cost of speed. Editors are responsible for ensuring that the reviewer reports cover all of the aspects needed to thoroughly assess the manuscript. However, there are some things that authors can do when submitting an article to give their manuscripts the best chance of receiving a decision in a timely manner.

1. Classifications:

When you submit a paper to any of the PLOS journals, in order to complete the submission you will not only need to assign it to one of the journal sections, but you will also be required to add at least 10 classification terms. The accuracy of this step is actually very important for a few reasons so we encourage authors to keep the below in mind when submitting to us.

What do the classifications look like upon submission?

The first level of classification will be equivalent to our 16 sections:

Within each parent classification, you will then be able to expand to a wide range of specific subjects within those categories and in some cases, you can expand further and be more specific. For instance, you may select ‘Mental Health Psychology’ > Lived Experience > Childhood trauma. 

Why?

It is important to select the most relevant classifications and it is also important to ensure that they have been selected by expanding the most accurate ‘parent’ category. But why is this? Are the classifications menus not just a tick box to complete the submission? The fact is, the classifications that authors allocate to their paper actually play a role in determining a few of the future steps that the paper goes through. If the classifications do not accurately reflect the most relevant aspects of the paper, a few things can happen that could delay the manuscript’s journey. 

Handling Editor Invitations

The classifications that you assign to your manuscript will play a role, along with keywords within the manuscript itself, in determining which Academic Editors are initially invited to handle your submission (unless specific Editors have been requested). Selecting classifications that do not best reflect the expertise needed to most effectively handle the manuscript means that it may take longer to secure an Editor (as the Editors invited as a result may not feel comfortable handling a paper that is outside of their expertise). Or, it may slow down the way in which the Editor handles the paper (if they are handling something outside of their comfort zone, they may take longer to identify and secure reviewers). 

Reviewer Invitations

Likewise, depending on which team or editorial member of staff is handling the paper at PLOS, the way in which they secure reviewers may also depend partly on the classifications. 

In an ideal world, every single paper will be handled by an Editor with the precise expertise that matches that of the paper, and we do strive to ensure this as much as possible. But, given the breadth of topics received by any given journal, the number of submissions, and the number of Editors available, there will always be an occasion in which the Editor handling your submission has expertise that is highly relevant, but not exactly matching your paper. Whilst all Editors are trained and have ongoing support from PLOS, and measures are in place to ensure that the quality of the peer review is never compromised, the process can be slower and the person handling your manuscript may use a reviewer locator tool that is partially influenced by the classification terms.

So, ensuring that your classifications are accurate helps to give your paper the best chance of being handled by one of the most suitable Editors in terms of expertise, which could increase the speed of the process. 

2. Reviewer Suggestions:

Some authors routinely suggest potential reviewers for their papers when they submit. Others don’t or may inadvertently suggest reviewers that cannot be invited due to them having what are considered to be conflicts of interest. A conflict of interest would be someone who:

– Collaborates with any of the authors on the author list or has done so in the last 5 years (or very extensively prior to that).

– Is based at the same institute as any of the authors or any of the other reviewers

So, making it a routine to suggest suitable reviewers and checking that they do not have conflicts of interest, is another way to help speed up the process.

It is always the responsibility of the Editor to find suitable reviewers in the most efficient way possible and they will indeed check any suggestions made by the authors for expertise and potential conflicts. But Editors are regularly handling papers outside of their direct field of expertise and although they will be able to identify a suitable reviewer, the authors may be able to recognize candidates who would be interested in reviewing their paper using more nuanced criteria. For instance, perhaps an author attended a conference recently and noticed an oral or poster presentation, which signified a researcher’s shift in interests, which is not yet effectively reflected in their publications.

3. A compelling and precise abstract:

Of course, reviewers are always required to read the whole paper and editors will always ensure this. However when reviewer invites are sent out, they will usually only receive information such as the title, author list (if not double blind) and the abstract. We all know that the merit of papers should never be based on an assessment of the abstract. But, this is the only information, beyond the author list, that a potential reviewer will have when deciding whether or not to accept the invitation. Ensuring that your abstract is compelling without the use of vague or overinflated statements will do a better job at interesting reviewers, which could speed up the process. 

Although this will be covered in more detail in a future blog, for the purpose of attracting reviewers, an ideal abstract should:

• Provide an introduction and a very clear statement of the objective/purpose
• Communicate how the study was carried out
• Explain the key findings of the work
• Clearly and realistically describe exactly how the article adds to the field and what the potential implications are
  

The ultimate responsibility of ensuring that the peer review process is both high quality and efficient is always that of the Editors. But there are some things (such as those listed above) that authors can consider doing to facilitate the peer review process. We also recommend reading all of the guidance provided on our submission information page.