Factors influencing editors' decision on acceptance or rejection of manuscripts: the authors' perspective

There are few reports in the scientific literature on the factors taken into account by editors in deciding to accept or reject a scientific paper. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of different factors on the journal editors' decisions on whether to accept or reject the manuscripts submitted to their journals.

We randomly selected the participants from the authors of original articles and case reports published in six medical journals, and sent them a questionnaire by e-mail. We analyzed the scores they gave to each of the 17 items of the questionnaire.

One hundred and nineteen of the authors responded to our survey. The scores given by the respondents were analyzed comparing authors of developing and developed countries. Also, the results from authors of high-impact journals were compared with those with a low-impact factor. Multidimensional scaling was used to categorize the items based on their average scores. Highest scores were given to items addressing the quality of study performance, those addressing manuscript writing, and to the role of statistical significance of the results in the probability of studies getting published.

Authors still believe in the existence of publication bias. They estimate its role to be comparable with the role of the quality of study performance and reporting. Our study also proves the presence of developing country bias, from the authors' perspective.