Some unconventional fate of the letter to the editor in response to a published article and appraisal to the journal editors.

Abstract

Dear Editor, We read an interesting editorial in the recent edition of your journal. We thank the editor for considering the readers of a journal as a pool of peers who can contribute to the progress of science through their comments on a published article. High-impact articles (e.g., original articles, review articles) in biomedical journals get priority for publication. In contrast, auxiliary manuscripts such as Letter to the Editor (LTE) may get less importance for publication.[1] Conventional treatment to the LTE is either acceptance or rejection. In this letter, we present seven cases of unconventional treatment that we encountered with LTE written in response to published articles to appraise the journal editors about authors’ agony and suggest potential solutions. Reply without Letter We read a brief report in a reputed Dermatology journal with methodological errors. We wrote an LTE and sent it to the journal for possible publication. In a subsequent issue of the journal, the reply to our LTE was published. However, our LTE was not published on that issue. How can a reader understand the “reply to a letter” without knowing the content and context of the “letter?” It is like reading the answer without knowing what the question is. We communicated with the journal editor, and the editor published our LTE in a subsequent issue with a message that the reply had already been published. It was a prompt response from the journal editor to a technical error. However, scrutiny of the articles by the journal management team before the publication of the journal issue could avoid such situations. Reply Published, Letter Rejected We faced a situation in a highly reputed psychiatry journal where the reply was published without publication of the LTE. In this case, the reply was published with a citation of our LTE as an “InPress” article. We tried to communicate with the editor for rectification of the error and publication of our LTE. However, the editor did not reply to our e-mails or messages sent through the online journal management system. Eventually, our LTE was rejected for publication. The title of our LTE remains with the published reply. Journal publishers may think deciding to only publish the reply with or after the publication of the LTE to avoid such issues. This would eliminate readers’ confusion and authors’ agony. Pay Money, Publish the Letter We found an article with major methodological and reporting errors in a journal that publishes articles on physiology, pharmacology, and pharmacy. We sent an LTE to the journal editor for publication. After waiting for a period of 9 months, we sent an inquiry e-mail. The editor promptly replied that the LTE had been “provisionally accepted” and it would be further processed after payment of the article-processing charge (APC). We replied that as per the terms and conditions of your journal, LTE in response to a published article does not require any APC. Immediately, the editor reverted that they had sent the LTE to the author of the original article but did not receive any response. All further communication to the editor failed. Journal editors may consider the comments on published articles to be free from APC as authors may not be ready to comment on a paper by paying fees. Setting an APC for LTE in response to a published article creates a hindrance to scientific criticism which would otherwise purify the science. Many Letters from a Single Author We were reading a multi-disciplinary journal regularly and wrote nine letters to the journal that were published. After a month and a couple of days of sending the tenth letter, the associate editor rejected the LTE. In the e-mail, the editor thanked us for critically evaluating the paper and informed us that they “cannot publish too many letters to Editor from a single author.” There was no mention that the issues raised do not require any attention. We wonder when another vigilant reader would raise her/his hand. Till then, the error would be dispersed among the readers. What if the study protocol is replicated by a novice researcher? Hence, we propose that the journal may think only scientific value of the letter and ignore the authors’ identity while deciding on the publication of the letter. Delayed Publication A short communication was published in November 2016 in a pharmacology journal with a major flaw in the sample size and other issues. An LTE was sent in the same month. After waiting for 554 days, the manuscript was accepted after a round of minor revision. The LTE got published 625 days after the publication of the article. This delay could be a problem when journals were published in only printed format. A reader might lose interest to collect an old journal to see the article based on which the correspondence was written. Today’s open-access online publication eliminates this problem. PubMed has the facility to show comments on any article below the abstract. Hence, it is easy to find an LTE written in response to the article despite its time gap in the publication. Hence, legitimate comments even after a long time gap may be considered for publication. Denying Comments on Old Articles While searching for the literature in PubMed, we found a paper published in a clinical research journal that had technical and reporting errors. An LTE written on the issue was desk-rejected by the journal citing that they cannot consider LTE on an old article (published 5 years back), and suggested us to directly contact the authors. We tried to communicate with the author with the hope that they can request the editor for an erratum. However, we did not receive any reply from the authors. To date, no erratum has been published for that article and the error remains! An informed reader can detect the error, but a newbie may end up consuming those errors. In this case, the editor’s decision was at par with the majority of the journals that LTE should be sent within a period (e.g., within a month of publication of the issue). However, if the journals are destined for disseminating sound scientific knowledge, the editors may think allowing comments on an old article too, relaxing the norm, if the error is a gross one. Locked Letter An article was published in a widely circulated cardiology journal that had a gross reporting error. We wrote an LTE on this and suggested a novel method for the authors on how they can avoid the errors in the future. The LTE was “under process” for 10 months, which corresponds to “editorial review”. We sent e-mails and messages to the editor with a request for an update on the manuscript. When we got no reply in the next 3 months, we decided to withdraw the manuscript and recycle its content (i.e., the novel method) to send it to another journal. We requested a withdrawal. Till the preparation of this article, 2 months passed after withdrawal request, but the journal did not response to withdrawal. Hence, some intellectual content that might be informative to other authors is locked with the uncertainty of release from the vault. These cases may appraise the editors about the situations that we faced and may think about making policies accordingly so that other enthusiastic authors do not face such situations. We encourage readers to read journals, assimilate knowledge, criticize where necessary, and keep writing LTE for a scientific progress together. To date, we have published 53 LTEs and faced unconventional treatment for only 12% of our letters. Despite having some disadvantages, there are a lot of advantages of LTEs too! Keep writing![2] Details of contribution Himel Mondal: Concept, Design, Data collection, Literature search, Drafting manuscript. Shaikat Mondal: Concept, Data collection, Editing manuscript. Sarika Mondal: Concept, Data collection, Editing manuscript. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.