How to publish a research paper: every step from draft to acceptance

What are the steps to publish a research paper in a Scopus journal?

There are eleven steps, and keep them in this order. If you format first and choose the journal later, you will format two times.

1. 1

   Confirm what your university counts

   Which databases, how many papers, and is an accepted paper enough.

2. 2

   Decide the article type

   Original research, review or short communication. The type decides the word limit.

3. 3

   Choose the journal and verify its indexing

   Keep three in the shortlist. Check each one live on Scopus Sources or the Master Journal List.

4. 4

   Prepare the manuscript to the author guidelines

   Format, references, declarations, similarity check and ORCID iDs.

5. 5

   Agree authorship in writing

   Fix author list, order and corresponding author before submitting.

6. 6

   Write the cover letter and submit

   Use the journal’s own submission system, and send to one journal only.

7. 7

   Editorial screening

   After a technical check, the editor sends it for review or gives a desk reject.

8. 8

   Peer review and revision

   Reviewers report, you revise point by point. One or two rounds are normal.

9. 9

   Acceptance, licence and proofs

   You sign the agreement or licence and send back the proofs in time.

10. 10

    Online publication, DOI and the final issue

    Online first with a DOI, volume and issue numbers later.

11. 11

    After publication

    Update ORCID, check the Scopus profile and file the evidence.

The times in the table are only typical ranges. To know why they change so much, read How long journal publication takes.

The review row may come more than once. After a rejection you go back to journal choice, and for that reason we keep three journals in the shortlist.

What should you check before you submit?

Begin with your university’s rule, and look at journals after that. The UGC 2022 PhD regulations do not put any national requirement to publish before thesis submission. Many universities have their own rule though, and its details decide if your paper counts. Which database do they accept? Accepted or published? Do proceedings count? Ask the research cell to give you the clause in writing. Our guide on the publication requirement for a PhD shows how.

Next comes the article type. Mostly a thesis chapter cannot go to a journal as it is. It is too long, with background the journal’s readers know already. See which of the types of research articles your material really fits. For a review, see how to write a review article.

Everything after depends on which journal you pick, and that has its own guide. I will add one point only. On the day you submit, check the indexing yourself in Scopus Sources or the Master Journal List. Lists going around on WhatsApp become old fast. A journal can get discontinued, and some fake websites use a real journal’s name.

Preparing the paper is mostly reading the author guidelines line by line. Do a similarity check and open the full report, not only the score. Many publishers are screening submissions with iThenticate. If a big part matches your own synopsis, or a colleague’s thesis copy on Shodhganga, the editor will notice it.

Go through this list one time before you press submit:

• The journal is on your university’s list, checked this week, and its ISSN is matching the database record.
• You checked the guide for authors for your article type, and your word count is under its limit.
• All co-authors have approved the final version and the author order by email.
• You read the similarity report itself, and did not stop at the percentage.
• Declarations are ready for funding, conflicts of interest, ethics approval and data availability.
• No other journal is considering the paper right now.

A worked example

This case is made up. A third-year nursing scholar has a chapter on a nurse-led discharge education programme for heart-failure patients at one district hospital. She needs one Scopus paper before her pre-submission seminar, which is fourteen months away. She cuts the chapter down a lot and finds three journals where similar studies came out recently, checking each in Scopus Sources. The ethics committee approval she writes in the manuscript itself. She agrees the author order by email and submits in November. If the journal rejects it after review in April, the second journal is ready. Fourteen months looks like a lot of time. Keep room for one rejection and it is quite tight.

What do “With Editor”, “Under Review” and “Required Reviews Completed” mean?

After you submit, you will keep looking at a one-line status for many weeks. Elsevier has a support page that defines the Editorial Manager statuses. ScholarOne journals have their own labels, but they read almost the same.

No status here will tell you the decision. If nothing has moved for well past the journal’s usual review time, one polite email to the editorial office with your manuscript number is fine.

What happens if the paper is desk rejected or sent back for revision?

Desk rejection means the editor rejected the paper before any reviewer saw it. Usually the reason is scope, an unclear contribution or failed basic checks. It hurts, but among all rejections it wastes the least of your time. Don’t send the same file to the next journal that same evening. First read why papers get desk rejected.

When the decision says revision, be happy, even if it says “major revision”. Every comment needs a reply in your point-by-point letter, also the ones you disagree with, and send it before the deadline. For writing the letter, see Responding to reviewer comments. If it gets rejected after review, do the corrections from those reports before the next submission.

What happens after acceptance: licence, proofs, DOI and the issue?

Accepted is still not published. After the acceptance mail four more things are there, and for two of them the journal is waiting on you.

The publishing agreement. In a subscription article you usually transfer the copyright to the publisher. In an open access article the copyright stays with you, and you give the publisher a licence. Mostly that is a Creative Commons licence. As per Elsevier’s copyright policy, the options are CC BY, CC BY-NC and CC BY-NC-ND. Check if your funder wants a particular licence. If there is an article processing charge, the publisher sends the invoice. Waivers are covered in the open access and APC guide.

Proofs. Elsevier’s proofing page says the proof deadline at most journals is between 48 hours and one week. The same page says that once the proofs go back, corrections are usually not possible. At proof stage look only for typesetting errors, or a name or affiliation that came out wrong. Adding a new paragraph at proof stage is not allowed.

Online publication and DOI. Your article comes online with a Digital Object Identifier. Depending on the publisher, it is shown under a label like “Articles in Press” or “Online First”.

The final issue. Volume, issue and page numbers come later, sometimes months later. Only your research cell can tell if the online version with a DOI is enough or they want the issue details also.

Which mistakes do scholars make between the steps?

These mistakes are not about writing. They happen while moving from one step to the next.

Submitting to two journals at once. Elsevier’s publishing ethics policy calls concurrent submission “unethical behaviour” and “unacceptable”. Also, while submitting, you yourself declare that the paper is not under consideration anywhere else. Editors can come to know, for example when the same specialist gets a review invite from both journals. If a journal is taking too long, withdraw the paper formally in writing. Wait till they confirm it, and only then submit elsewhere.

Paying a “publication fee” to an agent. Many scholars lose money this way. Some of them lose the paper also.

Changing the author list after submission. Putting the HOD’s name in after acceptance, or dropping a co-author quietly, lands you in serious trouble. Elsevier permits a change after submission only in exceptional circumstances, and that also only if the editor agrees. After acceptance, the policy doesn’t allow any change. So settle the author list before you submit. Our authorship guide has a checklist you can use when you discuss about it with your co-authors.

Letting the similarity check surprise you. Your thesis on Shodhganga, a conference paper or a preprint can all show up as matches. Elsevier’s policy does not treat an earlier academic thesis or preprint the same way as prior publication. Still the editor must be told. Mention it in the cover letter, and our journal cover letter guide shows the right place for it.

Missing a deadline you never saw. Many times the revision and proof deadlines are sent to corresponding author only. If that is your supervisor, decide who will watch the inbox.

What should you do once the paper is published?

Scholars skip these jobs and regret it in the next DC meeting.

• Import the paper into your ORCID record using its DOI.
• Once Scopus indexes the paper, look at your Scopus author profile. Mostly Scopus picks it up some weeks after it comes online. If your name is split, or merged with another person’s profile, use the Scopus Author Feedback Wizard, and the ORCID and Scopus ID guide explains the steps.
• Keep the acceptance email, the published article’s first page and a screenshot of the journal’s entry in Scopus Sources. The research cell will ask for these proofs, and the journal coverage can change later.