Hi Jo,

Thanks for the post. I had a look at the linked article.

Perhaps one of the most obvious things that authors can do, and can forget to do, is to look at the author guidelines published by a target journal - before getting too far into writing something.

The author guidelines often give advice that indicates whether or not a particular article style or content is going to be acceptable for the journal editors.

Writing and rewriting is itself a form of continuous editing, or creative destruction, and it helps to start with a clear goal in terms of style and content. The author guidelines can help a lot by defining the structure and style needed for a paper, and the kinds of content that a journal is looking for.

I entirely agree - and then the author has to remember to give the same style guide, whether from a journal or university faculty, depending on the type of document, to his or her editor. (Usually, though, an academic editor will prompt its appearance if the author forgets.)

I recently sent my chosen editor the author guidelines for a "report" to be published by "Science" together with the guidelines for "Science Reports", a publication of Nature. He picked up my confusion immediately.

The whole episode does not bode well for my chance of getting the report published!