Behind the Curtain: Demystifying the Path to Publication
Dear Readers:
This month, the Managing Editor for HMP Wound Care (Ms Kaustinen) has taken on the task of explaining all the steps in bringing a paper from submission to publication. If you haven’t noticed, WOUNDS takes these steps seriously. There are many possible detours along the way: not having appropriate IRB approval or exemption; in the world of AI and cut and paste, unintentional plagiarism; delays in reviewers getting back to us (they are not paid); and authors responding to editorial comments contribute the greatest to delays. I hope you gain an appreciation for the quality and practicality that we continue to strive for.
John C. Lantis II, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Wounds
The journey to publication starts with initial screening. Our editorial staff reviews each new submission for the basics: that it is within scope, all appropriate sections are present, sufficient recent sources are included, and ethical approval is noted. If each of those gets a green checkmark, then it is scanned by iThenticate to check for the presence—or ideally, the lack—of plagiarism. (For more information on that element of the process, please see last month’s editorial, “Plagiarism in Scholarly Writing: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and How to Avoid It.”)
As soon as that is cleared, the paper is blinded and moved into peer review, where it is assigned to 2 peer reviewers (and sometimes a third, if a tiebreaker is needed). Reviewers are given between 2 to 3 weeks to complete their review—because these are, after all, your peers. And that means they too are juggling clinic time, teaching classes, or working late in the OR, alongside the “regular life” duties we all face.
If a paper passes peer review, the reviewers’ comments are collected into a decision letter, and the submission goes back to the author(s) for revision. Once the revision is submitted, it is sent to the Editorial Review Board; at this point, it may go back for a final round of revision or get approved as-is.
After approval comes the production end of the process. The paper is sent into copyedit, after which it is returned to the author(s) for approval of the edits and to address any editorial queries. Once we have received the files, the author’s changes get incorporated and then the paper moves into layout. The laid-out version gets a quick proofreading, and then it’s back to the author(s) again for final approval.
At that point, once the author has signed off on their proof, we perform a final check, upload the article to our website, and at long last the work is published!
Scientific research is a joint effort from beginning to end, and that holds true both during the research and writing phases and beyond. Getting a paper published is more of a marathon than a sprint, and more of a relay race than a solo trek. It may seem like it takes forever, but any article that is submitted to WOUNDS represents the culmination of months if not years of work, and we do our best to honor that work by ensuring that your research is presented in the best format possible.
So thank you for trusting us and trusting the process. We hope this gives you a better idea of what goes on once your paper is in our hands, and we appreciate your help in keeping the process running smoothly.
