First scenario

The short life of an unloved manuscript

Author sends a rough manuscript directly to publisher, without revision, and possibly without ever making a printed copy in order to review the work as a whole.

If the publisher has no shortage of better submissions, rejection may be immediate, without further review needed. If the publisher is desperate for submissions, reviewers (if any) may be asked to 'go easy' on their reports on the quality and potential of your manuscript. By choosing an easy publisher, the author may lose the benefit of a constructive, critical review that can improve the paper. Let's assume that good reviewers accept the job...

Reviewers notice the author's own lack of care and effort, lose patience with the manuscript, and recommend rejection without reading the whole manuscript. This is a good result, under the circumstances. A bad result would be for the reviewers to give false encouragement to an irretrievably bad manuscript. In this case, the author(s) and publisher must spend yet more time on revisions, and may need to find further reviewers if the first team do not want to see the manuscript again.

If the publisher does not care, and does not require review, the author may eventually receive boxes of reprints that no one wants to read (including the author), and which proceed to add clutter to offices for many years, before being burned and releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. Alternatively, the paper may appear briefly as a PDF for download at the publisher's website, until the journal collapses for lack of authors, readers, and income. A weak journal is unlikely to have invested in permanent archiving of the papers, since archiving adds a cost that has to be subtracted from the author page charges, or from subscription fees. The paper is published, but soon disappears from the visible digital universe.


Second scenario

The manuscript has great content, and enjoys many attentions over a long life

1. Author prepares an original and well constructed, well argued manuscript. Multiple drafts have been produced and revised by the author before anyone else sees the manuscript.

2. Author puts the manuscript in hands of:
- a volunteer reader (friend, colleague), and/or
- an experienced or professional editor.

3. Author accepts or rejects suggested changes, then
- rewrites, and uses the opportunity to reconsider all aspects of the work, including aspects not considered by the reader or editor.
- submits manuscript to publisher.
- signs a publishing contract that is conditional on the paper being accepted, and that explains how publishing costs are to be met.

4. Publisher checks that

- basic requirements are met, then

- puts manuscript in hands of one or more reviewers.

5. Reviewers check

- quality of content and presentation, and

- relevance to the publisher and expected audience, then

- send their reviews to the publisher, who then

- sends the reviews to author, with or without identifying the reviewers.

6. If the mansucript is accepted, author

- rewrites and uses the opportunity add refinements without substantially changing the manuscript (unless there are very good reasons to do so).

7. Manuscript is returned to the publisher, who then employs a copyeditor, who checks that the layout and references, etc., all follow house rules, and are consistent across an entire book or journal issue.

8. Publisher sends manuscript to printing company (or perhaps an electronic production company).

9. An electronic or printed proof is made and sent to the author, who

- may wish to employ a proofreader familiar with the publisher's house rules.

10. The proof is returned to the copy editor, who checks it and then sends it to the printing company or
electronic production company, for final printing or production.

11. After all the mental and mechanical efforts, the author experiences a rush of anticipation and pleasure when the published paper arrives in the mail box, then

- re-reads it several times, only to find some annoying minor mistakes, which hopefully most readers will overlook, then

- concludes that the paper is wonderful, despite imperfections, and hopes that many people will read it.

If the paper is wonderful, or at least good enough, then

- the paper will continue to interest readers for many years to come, and

- will become a kind of currency with which the author can navigate the world of research, make new friends, find ways to continue doing research, and produce further publications.

The author might even become happily addicted to the pains and pleasures of writing and publishing.


Notes:

(i) The author may or may not receive a second or third proof. This depends on the human and financial resources available, schedule, and the scale of the publishing operation. Often, the author has to do all the proofreading, and work closely with the publisher's copy editor.

(ii) Ideally, a copy editor works on all the articles and chapters of a particular publication, and takes responsibility for overall layout and production, while proofreaders are asked to look at the finest details of each text, to check for errors that have been overlooked by others.

(iii) The two scenarios above are extremes. There are many other ways of writing, and many other ways for researchers to survive in the research jungle. One way is to become a research technician, and let others be responsible for the writing.

(Updated 24th July 2018)