Editorial Cite This: ACS Catal. 2019, 9, 649−650
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ACS Catalysis in 2019
ACS Catal. 2019.9:649-650. Downloaded from pubs.acs.org by 178.159.97.78 on 01/05/19. For personal use only.
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We are grateful for the support from the community, in this regard. Very few submissions were previously submitted to ACS Catalysis and declined, meaning that our authors rarely resubmit papers previously rejected by ACS Catalysis and are respecting the editors’ decisions. Despite this, in rare cases, and in consultation with the handling editor, such resubmissions can sometimes be accommodated in exceptional circumstances. Finally, I will close with statistics on “flagged words.” The proliferation of descriptive word use in scientific papers was previously discussed in a 2017 editorial.6 The editors of ACS Catalysis have identified an array of such words that are flagged for review by the editor. Unfortunately, about half of all submissions to ACS Catalysis have at least one flagged word in the title or abstract, demonstrating how strongly authors rely on descriptive words like adjectives and adverbs to sell their work to the scientific community. Authors should refer to the editorial and the Author Guidelines for a list of such words, including: excellent, remarkable, extraordinary, new, novel, first, innovative, unprecedented, green, sustainable; in many cases, use of these words is viewed as inappropriate by the editors. As noted in the superlative scientific writing editorial,6 strong scientific work should be able to stand on its own, without the use of excessive descriptive words. We hope more authors will communicate their work following the principles outlined in that editorial. The statistics above offer the community a new perspective on, and somewhat unique insight into, submissions to a scientific journalin this case ACS Catalysis. We are honored to be a key target for the community’s first submissions to catalysis journals, and will continue to work with our ACS Publications partner journals to provide fast and effective publication as a service to the chemical community.
ntering the new year, we look forward to discovering the array of new catalytic insights our authors will choose to share with the community via publications in the journal. Having recapped the events that transpired in 2018 in my last editorial,1 we take this opportunity to share some statistics with the community regarding submissions to ACS Catalysis in 2018. In parallel, the analysis highlights key policies under which the journal operates. ACS Catalysis requires disclosure of prior submissions,2 both the submissions to ACS Catalysis or to any other journals, via a yes/no question. However, the amount of detail provided about the prior submission is decided by the author.3 S/he may choose to only disclose that the paper was previously submitted, or s/he may include the specific journal name to which the paper was submitted, as well as any relevant review information. For submissions to ACS journals, we can often expedite publication if the reviews were strong overall and if the authors have addressed the referees’ comments upon submission to ACS Catalysis.4 Conversely, if authors do not disclose previous submissions, and for example, a referee informs the editor this paper has been reviewed elsewhere before, then an immediate rejection is the likely outcome. Previously, we tracked the outcome of papers formerly submitted elsewhere, and we determined that it largely does not help or hurt the chances of publication in ACS Catalysis, on average.5 Since our previous submission disclosure policy has been in place for some time, our author community has had time to adapt, and we are now able to capture a rich data set regarding where papers are submitted prior to their submission to ACS Catalysis. In 2018, only a quarter of submissions were previously submitted to another journal, meaning ACS Catalysis was the first choice destination for the majority of submissions to the journal. We feel esteemed to be the community’s catalysis journal target. Though identification of the previously submitted-to journal is not required, the vast majority of authors disclose this information to the journal. Only about 10% of submissions previously submitted elsewhere do not disclose the destination of the prior submission. The papers that were previously submitted elsewhere can be further broken down as follows. About half of prior submissions were sent to the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) first. Of these, authors predominantly resubmitted the manuscript to ACS Catalysis on their own, but some fraction were offered manuscript transfer by JACS editors. Another roughly 10% of submissions were previously submitted to other journals in the ACS Publications family, demonstrating the close collaboration between ACS journals and/or an author preference for publication in ACS journals. After JACS, the journal to which the most papers were submitted prior to ACS Catalysis was Angewandte Chemie International Edition (ACIE), at just under 10%. ACS Catalysis appears to be a top choice for first submissions among catalysis journals, with approximately 2% of prior submissions going to other catalysis titles first (∼0.5% of total submissions in 2018). © 2019 American Chemical Society
Christopher W. Jones
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Georgia Institute of Technology
AUTHOR INFORMATION
ORCID
Christopher W. Jones: 0000-0003-3255-5791 Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
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REFERENCES
(1) Jones, C. W. Recapping the Year at ACS Catalysis. ACS Catal. 2018, 8, 11908−11909. (2) Jones, C. W. Submitting to ACS Catalysis and Disclosing Prior Submissions. ACS Catal. 2016, 6, 5587−5588. (3) Prior submissions to ACS Catalysis must be disclosed in all cases. (4) It is very helpful to include revision notes, including a point by point response to the prior referees’ comments in the new submission to ACS Catalysis. Published: January 4, 2019 649
DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.8b04963 ACS Catal. 2019, 9, 649−650
ACS Catalysis
Editorial
(5) Jones, C. W. Prior Submission to Alternate Journals Does Not Negatively Affect the Outcome of Submissions to ACS Catalysis. ACS Catal. 2017, 7, 3049−3049. (6) Scott, S. L.; Jones, C. W. Superlative Scientific Writing. ACS Catal. 2017, 7 (3), 2218−2219.
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DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.8b04963 ACS Catal. 2019, 9, 649−650
