Is there a problem with submitting a manuscript to more than one Journal at the same time and then publish in the first to respond (not to waist time waiting for the review process that sometimes takes up to 7 months)? is there any canceling penalty by the other journals?
Best Regards
I totally agree with prof. Ayman S. Al-Hussaini. It is another face of plagiarism.
Dear Sarmad,
If you submit your manuscript for publication in one periodical, you cannot submit the same to another periodical. This is the general rule and most of the periodicals state this clearly in the instructions to the contributors.
So you will have to select the journal judiciously in order to have a quality publication as well as in minimum possible time.
For example just see the link for Nordic journal of Botany:
http://www.nordicjbotany.org/authors/author-guidelines
It clearly says:
Submitting a paper Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that the work has not been published before, is not being considered for publication elsewhere.........................
Hi,
It is not recommended to submit a manuscript to more than one journal at the same time.
"Articles submitted for publication must be original and must not have been submitted to any other publication. "
This article tell us why we should not do a multiple submission.
Article Why You Should not Submit Your Work to More than One Journal at a Time
Please also refer to the Elsevier Publishing Ethics Resource:
https://www.elsevier.com/editors/perk/multiple-duplicate-concurrent-publication-simultaneous-submission
It is a crime against humanity because you are requiring unpaid referees of two journals to duplicate the work of reviewing your paper.
Thank you for your enriching answers, I know it is not allowed and ethical, but then I read an answer of a question on RG giving this as a suggestion, so I wanted to be sure of the possibility.
Best Regards
Sarmad
Submitting 2 is standard; anything beyond will not be accepted by any journal.
Hi, Sarmad
Fristly, thank you for asking an important Question.
Really this is unethical issue but you can keep submit it to one journal a while drag manuscripts from others journals.
Regards
Almaamari
No, you cannot submit the same paper to more than one journal at the same time. This is known as simultaneous or concurrent submission and is considered as an unethical practice.
Dear sir;
I think it will be waist to reviewers work and time. Good question. hope to hear more of your critical questions.
Regards
If you submit the same paper to two different journals, soon or later the editors, reviewers and editor-in-chief will know it and then, probably your name will be banned from many journals: no more papers will be considered for publication.
Thank you for your enriching answers, I know it is not allowed and ethical, but then I read an answer of a question on RG giving this as a suggestion, so I wanted to be sure of the possibility.
Best Regards
Sarmad
In many cases this is due to lack of time especially for professors who wish to graduate early
It is unethical, and unprofessional. Do not do this.
1) You submit to two journals. It takes editor's time, and reviewer time. At one journal you have wasted both. This will make editors and reviewers angry. Editors talk to one another, so you might find it more difficult to publish anything in the future.
2) There is the risk of double publication.
3) Very risky. If you submit to two journals there is the possibility that both journals will send a copy to the same reviewer. I would guess that most reviewers would tell both editors.
So what would happen if you sent the manuscript to two journals, and both journals happened to send a copy to your department head for review?
Colleagues are right. I will share one of my experiences which is relevant to the question. Once, I received an invitation to peer review a manuscript from a journal which I accepted. During the review process I discovered that the manuscript under review had already been published in another journal. I stopped the review process and informed the editor in charge that the manuscript had already been published. A really sad situation.
Regards
Dear: Dr. Sarmad
Preferably, submit your manuscript for one journal only, most of journals refused submit manuscript in other journal.
best regards
Hi, it is better to submit to one Journal and patiently wait for the editor's response. If you must submit to another Journal Journal if you think the editor is delaying too much write a reminder to wake up the editor his role and when you noticed that he is not ready to do his job , write official message for withdrawal of your manuscript and wait for his response. It will be better to write to them for withdrawal before any further step will be taking. Give them enough time and warn them if they fail to respond to your mail that you will be sending it to another Journal and they should stop processing the paper to avoid multiple publications which is not good. Your question is an interesting one that will enlighten the researchers and the consumers of research.
This is not a recommended practice. If you do so, 1. Articles submitted to standard journals are deposited in their repositories. 2. Chances of rejection is more due to plagiarized content.
Best recommended practice are 1. Confirming the time duration starting from submitting till publishing with the publisher. 2. Many journals are providing the details of publishing process and time duration for each and every process.
I understand that you may need the article published sooner. However, doing this is unethical and would influence your credence, integrity, and carrier in the future. I strongly suggest preparing the merit and the quality of your manuscript, and most importantly, the rationale and methodology, which would affect your results and discussion and conclusion as well.
You may read the history of the first submission to acceptance dates of some articles published in a journal in addition to the period of a review written in the journal's guideline and policy. Then, you can expect the time.
Furthermore, see the acceptance rate in a journal you wish your article can be published.
***
Always stick to journals that are rigorous in their peer review processes and of high impact, although it would take much time and big efforts to reach a final decision, either rejected or accepted. I surmise you will learn a lot from the reviewers' comments and questions.
I do not think this is, or should be considered a crime. Single submission practices are largely in favor of the publisher over the researcher, and are typically anti-open science. Some fields publish (the literal meaning of the word) research on publicly available and indexed pre-print servers concurrently with submission to other journals. It is questionable what value a later second publication in a "peer reviewed" journal adds relative to the fast time and financial savings of the first publication.
Currently an enormous amount of publicly funded research time is spent and lost waiting for journal editors to desk reject papers. Many of the “ethical” arguments discussed are one sided, and primarily originated (and are supported) by publisher-initiated committees established to support the publishers financial goals. Why is the researcher’s time ignored from the ethics? (and keep in mind, that most publishers generate a significant profit, and have accumulated the copyright on a vast amount of research which they took very little part in, and many editors are given financial reward for their work).
Ian Kennedy Very few reviewers are “unpaid”; most are salaried researchers working for universities, colleges, hospitals, think tanks, or research institutions which give some consideration and acknowledgement of reviewing work. Additionally, some publishers provide incentives for reviews (journal access, publishing coupons, etc… ). Providing reviews is not mandatory (you can say no), and most reviewers understand that their comments may be ignored, overruled, and sometimes not even read. On the flip side, nothing prevents a researcher from incorporating reviews from several reviewers coming from different sources.
I think it is forbidden... In most of the journals it is required to sign special statement that you didn't do that.
Not good practice. Waiting time is an unpleasant reality (nearly as bad as different formatting guidelines for every journal) but its something we just need to live with. Nothing worth waiting for is fast.
No you cant do parallel submission. Imagine two same article from different journal reaches the same reviewer
It is usually within the submission requirement checklist that the manuscript is not being considered or processed by another journal. It is unethical to have a manuscript submitted in two journals at the same time, and if this ethical breach is detected, the journal can prevent you from submitting again in the future.
Dear Sarmad A. Jameel Altaie
Submitting a manuscript to more than one journal at the same time is considered contrary to the ethics of scientific research because it constitutes a waste of the time of reviewers. If you are worried about the accepted time of your manuscript, I suggest checking the review speed of the journal which you want to publish in, to see whether it is suitable for you or not.
I don't think it is the right way. As someone commented you can have plagiarism issues for the same work.
It is unallowed and unethical to submit the manuscript in more than one journal in the same period.
Submitting a manuscript to multiple journals at a time is considered unethical. It is required in many journals to declare at the time of submission that the manuscript is not under review in another journal. There is a possibility that the same reviewer receives your manuscript from different journal and then reports to editor during the review process. It is better to withdraw the second submission.
(1) Not suitable to do that kind of act as know as an unethical act.
(2) It is a risk if someone submits the same manuscript in two different journals that might be possible the manuscript goes to the same reviewer.
(3) If the same manuscript submitted in two journals in one journal that accepted than definitely from another journal that will be withdrawn that causes waste of time of the reviewers.
As a Journal Editor - Let me be CLEAR (yes, all caps) here:
1) Do not submit to two journals at once / in parallel - It is unethical and wastes valuable resources (e.g., peer-reviewer time, journal staff time, etc)
2) It is NOT acceptable to submit to two journals, then withdraw from one after the article is accepted to the other. Again, this means you are wasting precious resources and abusing the system. It is cheating, plain an simple.
3) Anyone who attempts to do this, if discovered, will likely be banned for a period of at least 3 years, with report to their institution (which may result in disciplinary action from their institution) and likely retraction of the article that was submitted in parallel and accepted in one of the journals. More importantly, you may be cut off from your funding sources if you are a grant-receiving scientist.
4) Journal Editors talk to each other all the time... if you think you are smarter than a bunch of Editors who communicate often... check your "grandiosity" setting. You will likely get caught eventually, but once that happens it will be too late to "take things back"... this is why most authors caught doing this end up disgraced, with multiple retractions.
My 5 cents...
It is a dishonesty, as you have to mention in the cover letter that it is not submitted in any other journal nor under consideration, one should not do it at any cost.
It also unethical when an editor takes weeks to take decision and annonce the paper is rejected.
@Isaac Dinaharan I really appreciate your response.
The question raised was also my concern because some reviews take too much time even upto a year. But I understand that it is unethical.
If editors delay, then better to withdraw from the journal and submit somewhere else.
I think most journals specify that your should not submit a manuscript already submitted for a review elsewhere. They also state that you should agree that such manuscript is not to be submitted to another Journal. It's always to read the author's guide before submitting any work.
I guess it would be unethical. Preach the same to your fellow colleagues.
Dear Dr. Sarmad A. Jameel Altaie, actually, a researcher should not submit the same article to different journals at the same time. If one journal rejects it then you can send it to another journal. However, it is better to improve your manuscript before resending it to another journal. Generally, the author signs the author's declaration, in which he confirms that the article is original and is not being under consideration by another journal. Therefore, he must follow this. If this happen i.e. double publications the author and his co-authors may lose their scientific honesty.
My Regards
I totally agree with prof. Ayman S. Al-Hussaini. It is another face of plagiarism.
This approach is ethically not acceptable and highly unfair for the referees who are going to take their precious time to read carefully your paper and write their comments to their respective editors.
I completely agree with what stated by Professor Ayman S. Al-Hussaini and Associate professor Jamal Rafique regarding the mentioned question.
With respect to all
Really it is a big problem and needs a solution
I think you can send a letter to the journal editors and ask him to cancel publication
I think this is called pending publication( article still not publicated by journal for months)
Best regards
While I acknowledge the current standard in academia that forces authors to submit to one journal or publisher at a time, I believe that this needs to change. Non-academic publishing allows multiple simultaneous submissions. With academic publishing, it can take years for publications to be accepted, and at the end of the day it is a business like other types of publishing. Under these current business models, authors in academia are exploited; they are not paid for their work unlike other types of publishing, and on top of that they are expected to work for journals for free as reviewers and editors. While tenured professors may be able to comfortably conform to such models, students, academics beginning their careers, and independent researchers without guaranteed funding are disadvantaged. Academic job markets are getting increasingly competitive and if aspiring academics cannot publish within the timeframe of a PhD degree, it could substantially influence job prospects after graduation.
I recommend the following changes to current academic publishing business models:
- Pay editors and reviewers for their work
- Pay authors for their work
- Allow for multiple simultaneous submissions
With the model I recommend above, multiple simultaneous submissions would not be as much of an issue because reviewers and editors would be paid for their time regardless, and if an author is accepted to one of the journals they submit to, they would just withdraw their submission from all the others just like the way it works in other types of publishing. When we talk about academic publishing, we also need to talk about labour standards.
The system is based on the exploitation of young (and elder) researchers who are forced to publish and to offer their academic, intellectual product for free to big companies who earn a lot of money. I fully agree with Justin Patrick that this undemocratic system needs to change.
To reduce waste of time reviewing, it is better to choose one journal critically. If you confused, you can email to the editor with your abstract and ask them, is this manuscript suitable to that journal or not? Then, submit only that which replies positively. It will reduce the chance of rejection. It is unethical to submit a paper in two journals at the same time. Thank you
It is unethical to submit the same manuscript to more than one journal.
I know 99.999999% of people will think and write that it's unfair. But I think it's fair. You can submit your paper in two journals at the same time if you are sure that one of the high impact factor journals will reject your manuscript. And rejecting your manuscript may take time and you don't want to wait for a long time of 2-3 months then at the same time you can submit your paper in another journal then with the passage of time you will get good news from high impact factor journal that " your manuscript quality is not as better as our journal standard"
Kamal Asghar I differ with you here, we know that getting prompt response from journals is a point of concern for all of us, but making this a reason of unethical practice is not justifiable at all, we should not be submitting the manuscript to two journals at the same time, we should select the journal based on our work and submit it there with waiting for the favorable outcome.
I see most of the respondents said it is unethical or not allowed as simple as these word jumped to their tongue. Though it is a real big challenge to researchers, so it requires more serious consideration and should be looked into.
I guess if someone from the prestigious academic institutions comes out and say it is ok, then all mind set will change.
Ruleas are rules, Whatever the situation one have to submit the manuscript not more than one journal at the same time. In case of delay from any journal, you can withdraw it first from that journal first than able to submit in another journal. You may be ban for life time by doing so if caught by that journal.
Well! By simple rule of thumb, it is unethical. Processing of an article takes efforts and resources. Simultaneous submission in more than one journal means wasting resources in n-1 journal/s.
Yes time is an important factor and many journals often take quite significant time. But one can do some research before submission. Identify the appropriate journal. Look into recently published articles you may find date of submission, acceptance and publication. Other journals have these statistics readily available on their website. So plan rather than shooting from the hips.
@Abbas Assayed I think these are not simple wording jumping over the tongue. It is all about one's moral and ethical values. Your guess of someone from prestigious academic institution coming out and saying OK is most likely wrong as it is least likely that someone with good research profile or from prestigious institute would practice this.
Not a good idea. It will end up your reputation. Absolutely unethical.
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