Preparing a Paper for Publication: Help Us Help You Make It Happen

Some of the most enjoyable aspects of being an editor are meeting with prospective authors to discuss ideas for articles, working with authors and reviewers to support manuscript development, and congratulating authors when their papers are accepted for publication. One of the most unpleasant aspects is notifying authors that Critical Care Nurse is not able to consider their paper for publication. When that message is communicated in response to a query letter, the discomfort is fairly minimal because the author’s and CCN’s resource investment is minimal. If that message needs to be conveyed after 1 round of peer review, it pinches considerably more, as the author’s time and effort in preparing the paper and staff time in processing the paper through peer review (preliminary check; identifying, assigning and confirming experts to review the paper; analyzing, summarizing, and forwarding decision and review comments to the author) often represent many hours extended over months. When that message is needed after multiple rounds of peer review, the level of disappointment escalates for the author and CCN as our cumulative time, effort, and expertise are seemingly expended for no return whatsoever. To minimize the chance of a rejection coming your way, I’ll use this editorial to share some time-tested truisms for getting your paper published in CCN. Virtually all of the principles contained in these tips apply to any professional journal, but I will tailor some points so you can tell how they specifically apply to CCN. My goal is to not only encourage you to submit papers for publication, but to persist through the revision stages until your paper is ready for publication. I will organize these tips along major stages in the manuscript development continuum, from selecting an idea for an article to receiving notice of manuscript acceptance.