This is an informal thread for people who would like to ask Tildy questions about publishing in a peer-reviewed journal. To read his previous posts on this topic, see Tildy's thread on manuscript submission (http://74.202.11.228/showthread.php?t=512553). Suggestions for additional topics to be covered are welcome as well.

To ask Tildy questions about academic medicine, visit his Academic Medicine thread (http://74.202.11.228/showthread.php?t=392633) in the Mentor forum.

Q - thanks for formatting and posting that for me. I'm glad to discuss the process of journal submission and review, or at least what I know of it, here. Of course, others should join in.

Great post!

Tidly

One question here.

Point #10 says, "As a last resort, the editor may offer the reviewer the option of writing an editorial commentary or a letter to the editor in rebuttal of a paper."

I did not know this mechanism existed. Would you therefore say, that "most" letters to the editor regarding specific studies are usually written by the referees themselves? In all these cases, the authors also get a reply. So would you say that in many/most cases, this exchange can be viewed as sort of a review, that has gone public?

Tidly

One question here.

Point #10 says, "As a last resort, the editor may offer the reviewer the option of writing an editorial commentary or a letter to the editor in rebuttal of a paper."

I did not know this mechanism existed. Would you therefore say, that "most" letters to the editor regarding specific studies are usually written by the referees themselves? In all these cases, the authors also get a reply. So would you say that in many/most cases, this exchange can be viewed as sort of a review, that has gone public?

I think this is actually fairly uncommon. Most SUBMITTED letters to the editor are from folks who either really hate a paper or who want to say "I did research on this too!" Most PUBLISHED letters to the editor are those in which a specific detail of the paper is called into question, often the statistics or experimental techniques. This usually happens after publication.