Submitting a paper—especially your first one—is a big milestone. Even though it isn’t published yet, years of research and writing have culminated in a manuscript that your supervisors and co-authors are willing to put their names on. That’s worth celebrating!
What to prepare for submission
Now, before you submit, there are a couple of things you need to prepare. What exactly you need, depends on the journal, but in general you can expect to prepare the following:
- A cover letter
- Running title
- Keywords
- Funding information
- A data availability statement
- Reviewer recommendations
- Author roles and affiliations (and ORCID ID’s)
- Ethics statements
- Conflicts of interest
- Additional abstracts: graphical abstract; highlights
Make an account before you submit
I recommend making an account with the journal submission system a couple of weeks before you plan to submit. Go through each step of the submission process so you know exactly what information is required.
The cover letter
The cover letter is a letter to the journal editors that outlines why they should consider publishing your work. It usually consists of three short sections:
- Why your work is important for the field of research – e.g., the broad issue addressed in your paper; sometimes called “Statement of significance.”
- A highly succinct summary of your research questions/methods and findings
- The relevance of your work – e.g., how the study conclusions and/or implications align with the journal aims and scope, sometimes called “Statement of scientific contribution.”
Don’t forget to proofread your cover letter.
For a template see Templates
Running title
A shortened version of your paper title, usually limited to 50 characters. Focuses on the main topic of the paper. For example:
- Full title: Designing a camera trap monitoring program to measure efficacy of invasive predator management
- Running title: Designing a camera trap fox-monitoring program
Keywords
Keywords are essential for finding your work. Good keywords complement your title, capturing topics, methods, or concepts of your study that do not appear in the title. A few tips:
- Be specific – key phrases may be better than single keywords
- Search your keywords – see if similar papers come up
- Use synonyms – if multiple terms exist for the same concept, list them as a keyword
- Use standardised terms – rather than inviting new phrases
Funding information
Ask your co-authors for their funding information.
Data availability
Many journals now require authors to make their data and/or code publicly available alongside the manuscript. Data can be stored in trusted online repositories such as Zenodo, Dryad, or Figshare. Ask your institution’s librarian or research support team for guidance on selecting a repository and preparing your data for sharing.
Reviewer recommendations
Journals often ask you to suggest potential reviewers. Choose experts who are knowledgeable in your field that have no conflicts of interest with you or any of the co-authors (e.g., collaborators, close colleagues, or supervisors). Providing qualified reviewers can help speed up the review process and ensure constructive feedback. Some journals also allow you to indicate individuals you prefer not to review your paper, but use this option wisely – it can raise questions.
Author roles and affiliations
You will need to specify each author and their affiliations. You probably also need to provide their role in the research and writing process. Common roles include conceptualization, methodology, data collection, analysis, writing, and supervision. For more information, see https://credit.niso.org/.
First and corresponding author
The first author is typically the primary contributor to the paper – the person who carried out most of the research and writing. The corresponding author is responsible for the manuscript during the publication process – submission, revisions, and publication. The first and corresponding author can be (and often are) the same person. It is possible to have shared first authorship, and shared corresponding authorship.
Submitting the manuscript
Manuscript formatting
When you submit, the journal submission system usually generates a pdf document of all the files you uploaded. Check it thoroughly, especially if the original document is not a pdf (e.g. if you submitted a word version). I’ve had figure numbers disappear, which will confuse the reviewers.
If this is a first submission, generally your figures don’t have to adhere to the resolution requirements yet (unless of course high-resolution images are key to your story) — that’s for the final submission, when your manuscript has been accepted.
Remember which document you submitted
Make sure you remember which document you submitted, because the editor doesn’t always send it back to you. With my first paper, I spent several hours frantically figuring out which version I submitted. Version10-2; version10-1-final; version10-1-submitted??? It was a small nightmare.
Co-author verification
Some submission systems (e.g., ScholarOne, Editorial Manager) require all authors to click an email confirmation link before the submission enters the editorial queue.
For what happens after submission, see Review status & workflow