Peer Review Process – Journal Articles
Step 1 – submit manuscript (ms) with permission of all authors
through journal website
Step 2 – ms is initially assigned to a subject editor with expertise
in the appropriate field, who decides if it is worthy of
being sent out for review
Step 3 – the subject editor chooses 2-3 reviewers, usually a
combination of individuals you suggest and ones the
editor comes up with
…the reviewers you suggest can have a major impact on the
odds of getting a paper accepted (politics & personality)
…so does the number of reviewers (2 versus 3 or 4)
Peer Review Process – Journal Articles
Step 4 – reviewers evaluate your manuscript and recommend:
- publish as-is
- publish after minor revision
- possibly acceptable after major revision;
reviewer(s) wants to see it again to check corrections
- this could involve asking for new experiments,
new analyses of data, or a major re-write to
answer questions the reviewer(s) has
- rejected, without prejudice for resubmission
(= feel free to fix and try again with us)
- rejected, no option to resubmit
Peer Review Process – Journal Articles
Step 4 – the reviewers evaluate your manuscript
Step 5 – the editor sends you the reviewers’ comments, and
any of their own, and then makes a ruling based on
what the reviewers say
- editor can decide to reject a paper even if all reviewers
liked it, usually if it is not “important enough”
- editor may also accept a paper even if one or more
reviewers says it has fatal flaws
… this is another place where politics can come into play
Peer Review Process – Journal Articles
Step 4 – the reviewers evaluate your manuscript
Step 5 – the editor sends you the reviewers’ comments, and
any of their own, and then makes a ruling based on
what the reviewers say
Step 6 – you prepare a line-by-line rebuttal to all reviewer
comments you don’t agree with, and list of all changes
you made to your manuscript
Step 7 – the editor sends it back out for re-review, if necessary
Step 8 – the editor ultimately decides if you have adequately
addressed all reviewer concerns, and if the final version
is “important” enough for that particular journal
Peer Review Process – Journal Articles
Step 9 – you upload a properly formatted version of all text,
figures, tables, references, supplementary data files
Step 10 – journal’s copy editor sends you a marked-up PDF
of your paper, now in the journal format, but with all
the corrections and questions you need to address
for clarity and formatting, not for science reasons
Step 11 – you get the page proofs to inspect, which is where
you have to catch all the mistakes and changes
that were made during the copy editting and page
setting processes
Step 12 – you get the bill for publishing your work: often over
$1,000, more if you have color figures or want your
paper to be open access so anyone can read it
How do you pick a journal?
You’ve just spent 2 years of life on your project.
What journal do you submit your manuscript to?
What criteria are important to you in choosing a journal?
How do you pick a journal?
One popular measure (among many) used to compare the
importance of different journals is impact factor
Total # of citations published in 2014 that reference papers in
Journal X from the previous 2 years, divided by the total # of
“citable” papers published in Journal X (judged by Thompson Scientific)
Idea: papers have the most “impact” on a field when they are
cited more by other papers
Journals are more prestigious if on average, their papers get
more citations
Name of Journal
Nature
Science
Trends in Ecology and Evolution
Systematic Biology
Ecology Letters
Annual Review: Ecology, Evolution & Systematics
PNAS
Current Biology
PLoS Biology
Molecular Ecology
Ecology
Evolution
PLoS ONE
Marine Ecology Progress Series
Marine Biology
Journal of Molluscan Studies
American Malacological Bulletin
journal covers all areas of science
review articles, not data-based papers
open access (free to all)
Impact factor
'14/15
41.5
33.6
16.2
14.4
10.7
10.6
9.7
9.6
9.3
6.5
4.7
4.6
3.2
2.6
2.4
1.4
0.9
Biomedical journal impact factors
Name of Journal
Nature
Annual Review of Immunology
Science
Cell
Nature Immunology
PNAS
Development
Journal of Neuroscience
Journal of Molecular Biology
Immunology
Impact factor
'14/15
41.5
39.3
33.6
32.2
20.0
9.7
6.7
6.3
4.3
3.8
Journal Impact Factor
Journal Impact Factor =
total cites to journal
# of “citable” papers
Problems with the impact factor approach:
- ethical conduct
- are all papers equally “citable” ?
During the course of discussions with Thompson Scientific,
PLoS Medicine’s potential impact factor – based on the same
articles published in the same year – see-sawed between
3 and 11 !!
Current Biology had an impact factor of 7.00 in 2002 but 11.91
in 2003. The denominator somehow dropped from 1032 in 2002
to 634 in 2003, although total # of papers published went up
Journal Impact Factor =
total cites to journal
# of “citable” papers
Problems with the impact factor approach:
- ethical conduct
- are all papers equally “citable” ?
- what does a “mean” mean?... blockbusters vs average papers
Nature noted that 89% of their citations came from only 25%
of the papers published, highly cited “blockbusters”
Thompson Sci. has been asked to provide the median, as well
as the mean score, for each journal; so far, will not
Journal Impact Factor
Other problems with the impact factor approach:
- evaluating journals vs scientists
- bad papers cited by rebuttals
- some fields cite older literature more, or cite less in general
- journal limits on citations
- show me the data!
- proprietary data of Thompson Sci.
- for-profit motives of this private company
My results
Krug et al. 2013. Mol Phylog Evol 69: 1101-1119
Impact
3.9
Marshall, Krug et al. 2012, Ann Rev Ecol Evol Syst
10.6
Citations
19
31
Krug 2011. Amer Malacological Bull 29: 169-186.
0.9
38 (27)
Handeler et al. 2009. Frontiers in Zoology 6: 28.
3.0
80 (21)
Krug 2009. Biol Bull 132: 483-494.
1.6
42 (11)
Ellingson & Krug 2006. Evolution 60: 2293-2310.
4.6
43
Botello and Krug. 2006. MEPS 312: 149-159.
2.6
64 (16)
Riffell, Krug, Zimmer, 2004. PNAS 101: 4501-4506.
9.7
63 (15)
(8)
in 1st
2 yrs
Alternatives for Judging Impact
Other algorithms have been proposed to judge journals, papers
1) PageRank (Google): impactful journal citations count more
 if you link from a more popular site, your visit counts more
 citations in more population journals count more
2) user-ratings (PLoS ONE) – the Yelp of science
Judging Personal Impact
Personal metrics of “impactful-ness”
a) total citations (mine: 1,061; famous 60 yr olds have ~5-6k)
b) h-index: largest # h such that h papers have at least h
citations
-- "recent" version only covers the last 5 years
I have 20 papers that have been cited at least 20 times each
(in 2012, my h-index was 16)
c) i10-index: # of papers with at least 10 citations
I have 29 papers that have been cited at least 10 times
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=AxaPBaAAAAAJ&hl=en
Recent paper’s journey
population genetics of an invasive marine mussel – where to send it??
Initially submitted to Molecular Ecology (6.5)
- accepted by 2 of 3 reviews
- rejected by one reviewer because of scope of sampling
Then Proceedings of the Royal Society (5.1)
- editor would not send out for review, not “important” enough
Then Marine Ecology Progress Series (2.5)
- three rounds of review with 2 reviewers making numerous
technically incorrect demands and comments
- 3rd editor brought in to evaluate my rebuttal to reviewers;
rejected because I “didn’t properly consider” their comments
Then Biological Invasions (3.5)
- accepted without change
Assignment, due 10/28
1) Identify the names and impact factors of:
(a) the top journal in your field of study
(b) a second-tier journal in your sub-discipline
2) For one journal, identify a subject editor with expertise in
your specific area of study, who would be the person you’d
want handling your manuscript submission
3) Find the correct citation format for this journal. This should
be the citation format you follow for the references in your
prospectus and thesis.