Acceptance with major revisions

The author of a manuscript which has received an accept with major revisions decision is to be congratulated, as the editors have concluded that the paper contains a publishable contribution when a list of specified revisions is successfully executed.

This category — which is called revise and resubmit at some other journals — means that a paper contains results which are clearly of a quality necessary for publication in JME, but that there remains substantial work to be done before the paper can be  published in JME.

A manuscript can receive the accept with major revisions decisions multiple times if the associate editor and supervisory editor feel that the list of necessary revisions has not been fully executed. It is therefore critical for the authors to communicate exactly what they have done on the revision in a cover letter to the editor.  The manuscript will likely not go back to the referee for additional comment but, as the associate editor may choose to share the revision with the referee, the author should provide a secondary document that contains a “response to referee comments”.  The EES mechanics for  the including the editor letter and the referee letter in an EES submission are discussed under our general resubmission instructions and will not be repeated here.

We now turn to the elements of a revision at the accept with major revisions stage and also describe the overall process by which a manuscript moves to final publication.

Key substantive components of the revision

One key to a successful revision after an accept with major revision decision is careful execution of the specific revisions requested by the editors (which may include suggested revisions provided by the referee).

Another key is communication: the author should provide the editor with a clear road map of the revisions executed, which includes copies of the requests and a description of how each request was fulfilled.

If the editors are not satisfied with the revision, then a manuscript can be given the accept with major revisions decision repeatedly until the substance of the manuscript is brought to the desired level.

In an extreme situation where the author repeatedly does not incorporate requested revisions, a manuscript can be rejected.  That is, the accept with major revisions is a conditional acceptance.

Format of the revision

JME requires that all resubmissions be prepared in 12 point type with double spacing and line numbering: this makes it easy for the reviewer and editor to give you detailed feedback on your work.  If you are working in the Scientific Word version of TeX, then an easy way to do this is to use the DRAFT mode in the JME manuscript shell. Please report any difficulties with implementing this style to rgk4jme@gmail.com.

The improvement of figures and tables is frequently an important part of a revision at this stage.

(1)    Figures and tables should be designed so that the reader can understand the table/figure without reference back to the main text for the definitions of variables, etc. Axes should be clearly marked; legends should be employed to identify individual series in a plot with multiple series

(2)    All figures and tables should include an explanatory footnote to aid the reader’s interpretation.

(3)    Each figure and table should appear at the back of the submitted manuscript, each on a separate page, after references and before appendices.

(4)    All figures should be understandable when printed in black and white.  To this end, no colored backgrounds are permitted.  No text references to figure elements by color should be used: for example, replace “the red line in Figure 2” with “the dashed line in Figure 2”.

As discussed above, JME asks that the author prepare a detailed response to the prior round comments of the referee and editor, which you include with your submission after any appendices, figures, etc.  Within the EES system, this makes your comments readily available to both the editor and referee.  Please read our general resubmission instructions carefully and make sure that all the required elements are included with the resubmission.

Authors are encouraged minimize the length of the resubmission: the revised manuscript should not exceed 30 pages of text, references, and footnotes in JME draft format and should not include more than 10 tables and figures (F+T<=10) unless explicitly permitted by the associate editor and ok’d by the supervisory editor.  As a journal, we are working to produce maximum new research output per page: we ask authors to help us obtain that goal.

All appendices are supplemental materials in Science Direct: please review our appendices and supplemental materials page for a description of such materials and related JME policies. Please also consider adding supplemental materials, such as data and computer programs, which a very interested reader would like to see.

The reader should be alerted to the existence of appendices with an early footnote in the manuscript and subsequent references to appendix material should be done in footnotes.

Resubmission Timeliness

After an “accept with major revisions” decision is made, the JME editors ask authors to a revised version  within four months.  If the manuscript is resubmitted after six months, we can no longer hold to our assessment that there is publishable manuscript, since new research developments may have reduced the impact of your research.

Resubmission mechanics for ultimately published manuscripts

Accept with major revisions is the first of several acceptance categories at JME, which is used as long as either the associate editor or the supervisory editor has substantive concerns about the manuscript. A manuscript can be placed in this category multiple times and a submission fee must be included with each resubmission.

If the substantive revisions are acceptable, then a manuscript is given an accept with minor revisions decision, which is applied when the associate editor and supervisory editor no longer have substantive concerns but the supervisory editor has remaining concerns about the quality of the manuscript’s exposition or its consistency with JME style.  A manuscript can also be placed in this category multiple times and a submission fee is due with each resubmission. On the last submission, when the manuscript is accepted, the submission fee will be returned to you.

Implementation of JME style and Manuscript Evaluation

The journal requires full consistency with JME style only when an accept with minor revisions decision is reached, but some authors opt to implement these elements after receiving an accept with major revisions decision.  Should you wish to do so, then please review our style checklist.   Among other elements, note that JME style mandates that “I” and “we” cannot be used as a regular construction, but only for emphasis, which translates to an occurrence of about once every other page.

Please also note that a very highly effective revision at the accept with major revisions point could, in principle, move directly to final acceptance if it is sufficiently polished.

Prior to publication in JME, all manuscripts are reviewed for expositional quality and consistency with JME style by a third-party manuscript evaluator and some authors are required to use an external editorial service (you are advised to read about our final manuscript evaluation process)

Final acceptance and uploading of manuscript source files

After a manuscript is acceptable in terms of substance and style, the author will be asked to upload source files for text (Word, LaTeX,etc.) and figures.  Supplemental materials will be submitted in terms of pdf or zip files.