Acceptance rates for manuscripts submitted to veterinary peer-reviewed journals in 2012.

C R Lamb,C A Adams

doi:10.1111/evj.12376

Abstract

Relatively few journals publish their annual acceptance rate, although this figure is of scientific and academic interest. To determine the acceptance rate for manuscripts submitted to veterinary peer-reviewed journals during 2012 and to determine the proportions of submitted manuscripts that were accepted without revision, accepted after revision or rejected. Self-reporting email questionnaire Editors of 118 peer-reviewed journals listed in the Web of Science in the subject category veterinary sciences were invited by email to submit data pertinent to manuscripts submitted to their journal in 2012. Data were received from 30 (26%) journals. Mean ± s.d. acceptance rate was 47 ± 15%. On average 3 ± 5% submitted manuscripts were accepted without revision, 44% ± 15% manuscripts were accepted after revision, 4 ± 4% manuscripts were withdrawn by authors, 46 ± 17% manuscripts were rejected and 3 ± 5% manuscripts were still pending at the end of the study period. With so few manuscripts accepted without revision, prospective authors must expect to expend time and effort revising and resubmitting their manuscripts for publication. Although authors are frequently able to correct manuscript flaws identified by reviewers, the knowledge that less than half submitted manuscripts are accepted might help stimulate prospective authors to try to submit better quality manuscripts.

Highlights

Publication in a peer-reviewed journal requires a submitted manuscript to pass scrutiny by one or more reviewers chosen by the journal Editor on the basis of their experience and asked to judge its quality [1,2]
With so few manuscripts accepted without revision, prospective authors must expect to expend time and effort revising and resubmitting their manuscripts for publication
Authors are frequently able to correct manuscript flaws identified by reviewers, the knowledge that less than half submitted manuscripts are accepted might help stimulate prospective authors to try to submit better quality manuscripts

Summary

Introduction

Publication in a peer-reviewed journal requires a submitted manuscript to pass scrutiny by one or more reviewers chosen by the journal Editor on the basis of their experience and asked to judge its quality [1,2]. On the basis of peer-review, manuscripts may be accepted for publication, returned for revision and resubmission, or rejected. Many manuscripts requiring revision and resubmission are accepted for publication [3] and many rejected manuscripts are accepted subsequently by other journals [4,5,6]. The proportion of submitted manuscripts that are subsequently accepted for publication by a journal (the acceptance rate) will depend on various factors, including the quality of manuscripts submitted, the rate at which new manuscripts are received by the journal, the number of papers already accepted into the publication process and the page capacity of the journal. Journals may include acceptance rate in their web site The average acceptance rate for 17 radiology journals surveyed in 2006 was 52% [7].

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