Editorial. Dealing with peer-review : what is reasonable and what is not?

By now most of us are familiar with the mantra ‘‘publish or perish’’. Publishing in peer-reviewed journals is a key requirement for students pursuing higher degree studies and staff employed in academic and research areas. As anybody who has published knows, developing a manuscript consumes considerable time, from the initial idea to the preparation of a fully structured, formatted paper that meets the journal’s submission requirements. However, submission is usually only the first step in the publishing process as acceptance of the original paper, without further modification after peer and editorial review, is uncommon. With the large increase in the number of manuscripts being submitted to quality, peer-reviewed journals, limited journal space is available for excellent papers, even those that use high ‘‘levels’’ of evidence. Thus, achieving publication is not always possible in one’s journal of choice, especially in prestigious journals with high ‘‘impact factors’’ (a measure of journal quality based on citations to the journal). A shortage of space in eminent journals can result in a quarter or less of all submitted manuscripts being accepted for publication (Dimitroulis, 2011). Data driven papers, including original research, systematic reviews and randomized clinical trials, are often preferred by journals as it is believed they will attract high citation counts and influence the journal’s impact factor favourably. Interestingly, though, other types of paper such as literature reviews and methodology papers can also achieve quite respectable citation counts (Hunt, Watson, Jackson, & Cleary, 2012).