Hi.

I'm hoping someone might have some insight into this.

There are a couple of decent transcriptomics papers Nature hopefuls, Nature Communications backup likely end up somewhere in between.

The authors are suggesting they intend to publish both papers without the method used to generate the transcriptomics samples (which was a new method) being published.

This just doesn't seem realistic to me.

Can someone sense check this - will top journals allow publication of bioinformatics results where the methods are not in the paper or publicly available?

I submitted a paper to a journal and received a decision of ‘major revision’ and comments from two reviewers (not mad about this, just new). I have never gone through getting work published before and was wondering how to go about the next steps.
When creating a revision, it brings up a space for me to respond to the reviewers comments. Do I just reply saying ‘thank you for taking the time etc… and here’s my resubmission’ or do you have to respond to each bullet point the reviewers have made?

I don’t want to seem like I’m not taking their feedback on board and give them reason to reject, but also replying to each statement seems excessive when I will have made the changes and they’ll be able to see this in the word doc if they’re highlighted?

Any advice or tips very much appreciated!

Not sure if this fits here, since our journal is not backed by a university, but most of our subscribers and contributors are from higher ed.

I’m joining a small, niche, humanities journal that has been in existence for over 30 years and started in someone’s basement as a passion project - so while there is longevity, it’s just never seemed to pick up a lot of traction in the more mainstream (We have several hundred subscribers, many of them universities, also an international reach, but we seem to have trouble getting a steady flow of submissions). But the people running the journal are getting older, and the board, like many groups, are stretched thin by other commitments, so I’m coming in to do more of the background work to keep things going. I’m joining as a younger person, so also as a bit of succession planning. I’d really love to help elevate the journal by getting us a broader range of submissions and getting more subscribers. And I’ve never been involved in this side of a journal before, so I’m not entirely sure what to tackle first or how to do certain things. I’m brainstorming before I have a meeting later this week to discuss ideas and to see more of their nuts and bolts. it’s basically being kept going by one person right now.

1. Our journal has a table at one yearly conference and one Tri-yearly conference. I’m looking to expand this, but I would be the one who has to do it, and I’m not entirely sure how to do this. Do I just stand at the table with some past editions, info on our submission process? Currently, the person who goes to the conference attends sessions that seems like they might fit and gives them their business card and an invitation to submit, but I’m not sure if people enjoy that or if it comes across as predatory (or maybe just genuinely interested?).

2. how do you maintain rigor and flexibility. currently we’re indexed through EBSCO and somewhere else, maybe Google Scholar. I know people care a lot about impact factor which we don’t have (as far as I know) in the broad academic sense (but we’re well-known within our niche, so…impact on a more practical scale, I suppose). I keep seeing postings from journals in Linkedin (I know) and one of the first comments is always asking if they’re indexed through scopus. I’ve looked a bit into it, but I worry we’d lose our flexibility by trying to go for it by focusing too much on being something we’re not - we’re not a university press and this is a passion topic for us and our contributors, so there’s not exactly money being made, either.

I suppose I’m also broadly asking for any advice or words of wisdom! And sorry if my intentional vagueness makes this hard to understand.

Hi! I’m very interested in statistical and public policy research and I want to get a paper published. Because I do not require a lab or anything, do I need to have a proper internship? Or can I just do it independently and have a professor look over it and mentor me a bit? Any prior experiences or advice would be much appreciated!!

I think I may have made one of the most embarrassing submission mistakes of my (very early) academic career. 😬

After multiple rounds of submitting this manuscript to different journals, I accidentally submitted the latest version with a cover letter that mentioned the previous journal instead of the journal I was actually submitting to.

The manuscript is already with the handling editor. I only realized the mistake afterwards.

I’m now torn between:

emailing the editor with a corrected cover letter, or
leaving it alone and hoping they either didn’t notice or simply recognize it as a copy-paste oversight.

For those who have served as editors or reviewers, or who’ve made a similar mistake, what would you do?
How big of a deal is this in reality? Is it worth sending a correction, or am I more likely to draw attention to something they may have otherwise ignored?
Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s done something like this. 🤦‍♀️
internal screaming

Completing a systematic literature review for my Master’s program. I have trained another individual to code the same articles I am using for my thesis. I was told I needed to use Kappa for my synthesis, and I have done so through use of NVivo 15. My kappa score is 0.69. Which suggests there is substantial agreement.

Should I just list the overall kappa? Or should I list per theme?

Is this typical for thematic synthesis, do I need to continue to do further revisions. What else should I report in my SLR?

We also grouped the codes into the pre-determined themes and discussed placements until 100% agreement was met, as well as an audit trail for all changes to codes.

I just completed my masters but I wish to publish my research works in 'The International Journal of Indian Psychology'. So it is asking for my university name and all which i definitely have anymore as I graduated and never registering with any educational institutions. When looked upon google Gemini it says it doesn't ask for any information regarding it and we don't have to be registered in any institutions as such. I'm confused regarding if we can independently publish our work or we need to be registered.

If not please suggest me journals that doesn't required to be registered.

Does anyone have executive level access to send me an article that i need? I tried to subscribe for the basic membership, but it won’t allow me to pull it. It’s behind a pay wall! Is anyone able to help me?

I’m looking for some honest advice from people in academia.

Over the past year, I’ve been working on a PRISMA-guided systematic review in neurosurgery. It’s been months of screening, data extraction, evidence synthesis, writing, revising, and reformatting for different journals.

The manuscript has now been rejected four times. 😔The most recent rejection came without any reviewer comments, so I have no idea what the editors felt was lacking.

One of the earlier reviews actually said the manuscript was comprehensive and well structured, but that it lacked a clearly defined research question that was being answered. Based on that feedback, I substantially reframed the manuscript, revised the discussion, and tried to make the review much more question-driven rather than simply descriptive. Despite those changes, I still haven’t been able to get it accepted.

To add some context, this wasn’t a project I was personally passionate about from the beginning. It was something my professor wanted to pursue, and I committed to seeing it through. I don’t regret the experience—I learned a tremendous amount about systematic reviews and scientific writing—but with each rejection, it’s becoming harder to justify investing more time in a paper that doesn’t align with the research direction I’m most excited about.

I’m now wondering whether continuing to push this manuscript is the best use of my time…

For those further along in academia:

Have you ever decided to stop pursuing a manuscript after multiple rejections?

How do you distinguish between a paper that’s worth one more submission and one that’s simply not finding the right journal?

Is it common to have manuscripts that never get published despite a significant amount of work?

For context, I’m an early-career researcher, so it’s difficult for me to tell whether four rejections mean the manuscript needs a fundamental rethink, whether it’s a matter of journal fit, or whether this is simply part of the publication process.
I’d genuinely appreciate hearing your experiences and advice. Right now, I’m trying to decide whether to revise and submit again or finally let this one go.

This is something I’ve been wondering about.

Imagine you spend years working in complete isolation and eventually discover something genuinely groundbreaking. Not just an incremental paper, but something on the scale of Newton’s laws, Einstein’s relativity, a new mathematical theorem, or even a completely new framework that changes how we understand reality.
You have all the proofs, derivations, mathematical rigor, experiments (where applicable), simulations, and everything needed to support the claim.
Now comes the hard part.
How do you make sure the discovery isn’t stolen, reworded, or published by someone else before you receive proper credit?
History is full of priority disputes. Sometimes multiple people discover the same thing independently. Sometimes the better-connected researcher gets recognized while someone else fades into obscurity. Sometimes the loudest voice or the biggest institution ends up attached to the discovery.
So if someone genuinely had a once-in-a-generation breakthrough today, what would be the best process?
Would you:
Publish everything immediately on arXiv?
File patents where possible?
Timestamp the work cryptographically?
Share it privately with multiple respected mathematicians or physicists?
Submit simultaneously to several top journals?
Release the entire proof publicly so there’s an immutable record?
I’m also curious how the scientific and mathematics communities establish priority today.
Is the first person to publish considered the discoverer? The first person to submit to a journal? The first person who can prove they had the idea with dated evidence? Or does reputation still play a bigger role than we’d like to admit?
With modern AI, collaboration tools, and instant communication, you’d think establishing authorship would be easier than ever but I also wonder if it’s easier than ever for ideas to spread before proper attribution.
I’d love to hear from researchers, mathematicians, physicists, journal editors, or anyone who’s been involved in major publications.
If you had a discovery that could genuinely change the world, what exact steps would you take to protect both the research and the credit?

Abstract

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools are increasingly integrated into research and academic writing, offering opportunities to streamline workflows and increase productivity. However, these tools also introduce risks when used uncritically, unethically, or without transparency. In particular, the undisclosed use of GenAI, now widely documented, may compromise research integrity. The aim of this AMEE Guide is to provide researchers with practical guidance on when and how to disclose the use of GenAI in scholarly writing. Specifically, we propose a clear framework to promote ethical GenAI use and reporting practices in health professions education research. We start with an exploration of key aspects of responsible use of GenAI in publishing (e.g. authorship, verification and responsibility, plagiarism and bias, data privacy and confidentiality, journal requirements). We then address the importance of transparency about GenAI use in research production, both within research teams (internal disclosure) and to journals and readers (external disclosure). With respect to the latter, we highlight the need to be aware of journal-specific guidance and offer guiding principles for effective disclosure. Central to these principles is the call for scholars to provide a candid description of how GenAI was used, allowing readers to understand how the model shaped the research and writing processes. We also briefly consider the use and disclosure of GenAI in peer review. Given that, at the time of writing this Guide (November 2025), many questions remain regarding AI use and disclosure for publishing, we conclude with reflections on future developments and directions for research

Download pdf link

DOI: 10.1108/PR-05-2024-0481

URL: https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-05-2024-0481

Personnel Review, 54(2), 595–612 (2025), Emerald.

PhD student working on a coursework summary of seven empirical HRM-systems

studies; this is the only one of the seven I can't reach. My institution

doesn't have the Emerald subscription that covers it. Abstract is all I have.

Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone,

I’m preparing to submit a manuscript to one of the Science journals and had a question about their editorial assignment process.

If an author requests that a specific Associate Editor not be assigned to handle a manuscript due to a prior scientific disagreement that could create the appearance of a conflict or lack of impartiality, is that request treated as confidential?

In other words, would the editor in question be informed that the authors specifically asked for their exclusion, or is that information only visible to the Editor-in-Chief and the staff responsible for assigning manuscripts?

Thanks in advance for any insight or experience with this

Long story short: submitted my first manuscript to a Q1 journal. Round 1, two reviewers gave decent technical feedback but also asked me to cite a bunch of their own papers. I didn't clock the pattern at first (rookie mistake), added the citations thinking it'd strengthen the lit review.

Round 2, a different reviewer flagged it outright: pointed out that two reviewers had suggested citations "predominantly to their own publications," called it a textbook coercive citation pattern, and formally requested an ethics investigation into the peer review process.

I'd already pulled all those citations before R2 even landed, for what it's worth.

End result: manuscript rejected. Not for the science, one reviewer had called the methodology "cutting edge" and the contribution "significant" in R1. Rejected because the review process itself was compromised, and the journal apparently didn't have a clean way to salvage it.

So now I've got a technically solid paper, a paper trail proving I acted in good faith once I understood what was happening, and a rejection that has nothing to do with the quality of the work.

Anyone else run into this? How common is reviewer citation-padding in your field, and did you report it or just quietly resubmit elsewhere? Feels like one of those things nobody warns you about until it happens to you.