Questions researchers ask
What an editor may do to a paper without touching authorship, what a journal requires before it will consider a submission, and whether English can sink one. Each page below gathers the questions a person would ask in the same sitting, and each answer says what is known, what is disputed, and what nobody can tell you in advance. Where a claim can be checked, the source is cited and linked.
Authorship and credit
- What an editor may do to a paper The four authorship criteria, why language editing does not reach them, what has to be acknowledged, and where editing stops being editing.
Preparing and submitting
- Preparing a submission Reporting guidelines, data statements, checklists, cover letters, and the conditions of consideration that cause desk rejection.
- Language editing and rejection What one journal states in writing about language standards, what editing does and does not change, what a certificate is worth, and what it costs.
Peer review and after
- Responding to reviewers What the response letter is for, who reads it, what a language editor can and cannot do with a reviewer's comment, and how the revision should be assembled.
- Corrections and retractions What happens when an error is found in a published paper, what goes in a notice, when an error becomes a retraction, and who investigates.
- Preprints and versions Whether a preprint counts as prior publication, what has to be disclosed, why a preprint cannot be removed, and keeping several versions of one paper consistent.