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REVIEWER RESPONSE
The due date in your decision letter is not a work estimate. What minor and major revisions cost in working days, and a backward schedule that keeps the response letter from being written the night before.
JOURNAL SELECTION
Whitelists lag and blacklists age. The order that works: check DOAJ, Scopus, and Web of Science directly, match the ISSN exactly, and treat every list as evidence rather than a verdict.
REVIEWER RESPONSE
Conflicting reviewer comments are the editor's problem as much as yours. Name the clash, choose the version you can defend, and write a response where neither reviewer feels overruled.
SUBMISSION KIT
The suggested reviewer box tests how well you know your field. Pick active researchers with no ties to your author group, and treat the opposed field with restraint.
WRITING IN ENGLISH
Editors spot translationese in the first paragraph. Seven tells that Arabic drafting leaves in English prose, and the passes that remove them in minutes.
RULE OF THE WEEK
A structured abstract is a formatting rule, not a rewrite. The heading sets The Lancet and Frontiers mandate, one abstract re-cut into sections without touching the science, and word budgets when the total stays fixed.
DESK REJECT FILES
Editors decide scope from your title and abstract, read against the journal's aims page. Often the problem is framing, and framing can be rewritten.
JOURNAL SELECTION
A quartile is a rank inside one category of one database, not a fixed property of a journal. The same title can be Q1 in SCImago and Q2 in the JCR, which is why the exact wording of your university's requirement matters.
DESK REJECT FILES
Appeals overturn a desk rejection only when the editor made a factual error about scope or content. How to tell whether you have one, and what to send if you do.
RULE OF THE WEEK
Journals now ask authors to declare generative AI use in writing, figures, and analysis. Here is what the written rules require, and a template you can adapt.
SUBMISSION KIT
Title and short title caps are enforced fields, not suggestions. A field-by-field walk through the title page, from PLOS ONE's 250-character title cap to the corresponding author line and the counts journals ask for.
SUBMISSION KIT
Journals now ask you to map every author to named CRediT roles. What each of the 14 roles covers, how two authors share one role honestly, and worked statements for teams of two, four, and six.