1 Magn Reson Med: An International Journal

       Magnetic Resonance in Medicine is one of the leading scientific journals in its field. Its electronic, International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is 1522-2594, and it is commonly known as "MRM" with the official abbreviation Magn Reson Med. A statement of the scope of the Magn Reson Med is presented in the Authors' Guidelines, which is available on its homepage^[1]: "Magnetic Resonance in Medicine is an international journal devoted to the publication of original investigations concerned with all aspects of the development and use of nuclear magnetic resonance and electron paramagnetic resonance techniques for medical applications. Reports of original investigations in the areas of mathematics, computing, engineering, physics, biophysics, chemistry, biochemistry, and physiology directly relevant to magnetic resonance will be accepted, as well as methodology-oriented clinical studies."

       Magn Reson Med has been published continuously since 1984, and historically, many of the most important papers that have shaped the field of MR have appeared in it. Currently, the journal is published monthly by Wiley-Blackwell, and during 2012, volumes 68 and 69 comprise a total of 3853 pages. The journal receives 800-900 manuscript submissions per year, with the acceptance rate running at 50%-55%. Magn Reson Med offers a relatively rapid review time, and last year the duration from manuscript submission to initial decision letter averaged 35.6 calendar days. The time from the acceptance of a manuscript to its online publication in Early View is also quite competitive, typically about 30 days if authors return their corrected page proofs promptly.

       In its Journal Citation Reports, available through the Web of Science^[2], Thomson Reuters publishes a set of bibliometrics calculated from the number of citations that a journal receives. In 2011, Magn Reson Med's 5-year Impact Factor was 3.742, which ranks it 17^th among 116 journals in the field of Radiology, Nuclear Medicine, and Medical Imaging (14^th percentile). The 2-year Impact Factor was 2.964 (22^th percentile), the cited half-life was 8.7 years (10^th percentile), the Article Influence Score was 1.098 (15^th percentile), and the Eigenfactor Score was 0.03632 (6^th percentile). Perhaps the most revealing of these bibliometrics in the cited half-life, which indicates that during 2011 the median age of cited Magn Reson Med articles was 8.7 years. This high value attests to the fact that Magn Reson Med has published a large portfolio of articles with very long-lasting scientific value, and helps to explain why the 5-year Impact Factor is higher than the 2-year value. It also means, however, that well over half of the citations to Magn Reson Med articles did not contribute at all to its 2-year, or even its 5-year, Impact Factor in 2011.

       Along with its sister journal, the Journal of Magnetic Resonance (JMRI), which focuses more on the clinical applications of MR, Magn Reson Med is one of two scientific journals published by the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) in conjunction with Wiley-Blackwell. While its headquarters are in Berkeley, California, the ISMRM^[3]is truly an international society, actively engaging members of the MR community from all parts of the world. For example, since 2000, five cities outside of North America have hosted the ISMRM Annual Meeting.

       The international nature of our MR community is also strongly reflected at Magn Reson Med. During the 12 months spanning December 2011-November 2012, Magn Reson Med received manuscript submissions from 38 different countries and published papers from 26. Perhaps of particular interest to the readers of CJMRI, the number of manuscript submissions from the People's Republic of China has been increasing steadily, with 31 received during that one-year period, representing a strong 29% increase compared to the previous 12 months. While 31 manuscripts is still a relatively small fraction of the 840 manuscripts received during that period, it only includes papers on which the corresponding author listed their address in the PRC. So, for example, the statistics do not capture the increasingly important contribution of the many Chinese authors who are working or studying abroad. This strong growth in interest from China is viewed as a very welcome development at Magn Reson Med.

       At the 2012 ISMRM Annual Meeting, which was held in Melbourne, Australia, a very well-attended Chinese Focus Session was organized, which included talks on the topic of "Polishing Your Publication Skills". During that session, I provided advice for authors and reviewers who are interested in working with Magn Reson Med, focusing on those who are early in their careers. This article is a result of that presentation.

2 Reviewing for Magn Reson Med

       Magn Reson Med's talented and hardworking core of reviewers serves as the backbone of the journal. While reviewing is unquestionably critical for the success of the journal, it also has a number of tangible benefits for the reviewers themselves. These include: playing an essential role in improving the quality of published papers, providing an avenue to offer service to the host society (the ISMRM), helping to keep the reviewer current about the field, and improving his or her own authorship skills. Finally, Deputy Editors and Editorial Board members of the journal are frequently selected from the ranks of prolific and skilled reviewers.

       The primary goal of the peer review process is to improve the quality of our published papers to the greatest extent that is practical. A review for Magn Reson Med comprises several components: comments to which both the authors and editors have access, comments for the editors only, numerical scores and answers to guided questions, and a recommendation (reject, major revision, minor revision, or accept). In your review, we ask that you assess the novelty, importance, accuracy, and clarity of the manuscript, but there is no expectation that you will spend a lot of time finding and correcting grammatical or spelling errors. The confidential comments to the editors are often weighed quite heavily, but when writing them, please try to ensure that they are consistent with the scores and comments that the authors can see. In general, we expect our referees to provide thorough reviews within the allotted time period, which is currently 21 days.

       As a reviewer for Magn Reson Med, please remember that you are speaking for the journal, and as such, your comments may be edited. Please try to be constructive and offer the authors advice about how their paper can be improved. In particular, always maintain a professional tone, avoiding any personal comments, the use of inflammatory language, excessive punctuation, or the use of ALL CAPITAL letters, which can beinterpreted as shouting.

       As a reviewer, it is your duty to point out the weaknesses of a manuscript, so it is perfectly acceptable for you to disagree with the authors about a particular point. Depending on the approach you choose, you might state in your comments to the authors: "This reviewer disagrees with the authors about the point concerning …… " or "Please explain how …… " or alternatively "I don't understand the authors'point about …… " We ask, however, that you avoid confrontational statements such as "The authors are wrong about……"

       At Magn Reson Med, we employ the single-blind reviewing method. This means that the reviewers know the identity of the authors, but not vice versa. Some other journals employ a double-blind method, where the authors' identity is also concealed from the reviewers.

       Each of these two reviewing methods has its own advantages and disadvantages, but overall, I think that the single-blind method is the better fit for Magn Reson Med. There are two main reasons for this. First, the Deputy Editors and I seek reviewers with expertise in the specialty or sub-specialty topic area of the manuscript. When we are successful, the reviewer of the paper may have viewed the authors' poster, study group presentation, or talk on the manuscript topic at an Annual ISMRM or related meeting or workshop. In any case, the reviewers we actively seek are usually quite familiar with the authors' work. In such cases, attempts to the blind the reviewer to the authors' identity are ineffective. Second, and perhaps more importantly, Magn Reson Med places a high premium on the novelty of the work presented in a manuscript. Careful reviewers will often examine the authors' previously-published work, and then comment in their review about the incremental novelty of the current manuscript. These comments are extremely helpful to the editors. The use of the double-blind reviewing system tends to discourage such feedback, even when the reviewers know, or suspect, the authors'identity.

       At Magn Reson Med, we typically seek reviewers who have authored some papers previously and have at least completed a Ph.D. or M.D, or equivalent graduate degree. For a specific manuscript, we expect the reviewer to have expertise in all, or at least part, of the subject matter presented. When a paper is sent out for peer review by Magn Reson Med, we always obtain at least two reviews. So for papers dealing with the combination of two diverse topic areas (e.g., spectroscopy and compressed sens ing), a team approach by two Referees, each focusing on a specialized aspect of the paper, might be necessary.

       To serve as a referee on a specific paper, the reviewer must not have a conflict of interest (COI), such as being employed by the same institution as one of the authors. Further information about what constitutes a COI for a reviewer can be found on the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)^[4].

       At Magn Reson Med, we are always looking to add new, well-qualified reviewers. If you have interest in reviewing for Magn Reson Med and are not yet doing so, please email a request along with a copy of your CV to mrm@ismrm.org.

3 Some Basics about Publication Ethics

       Science and medicine are professions, and as professionals we all are expected to abide by codes of ethics. At Magn Reson Med, we follow the ethical guidelines outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)^[5], and the ICMJE. For example, at Magn Reson Med, all authors must satisfy the ICMJE Authorship Criteria, which state that authorship credit should be based on:

       1) Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;

       2) Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content;

       3) Final approval of the version to be published.

       All authors sign a document attesting that they satisfy criteria 1, 2, and 3. If someone satisfies criterion 1), then they should be offered the opportunity to be a co-author and participate in activities 2) and 3). Otherwise, if someone contributed to the manuscript but does not fulfill requirements 1, 2, and 3, then it is appropriate that they are mentioned in the Acknowledgement section.

       The importance of publication ethics cannot be overstated. In particular, plagiarism of other's published works, data falsification, and data fabrication are all very serious ethical breaches. Any one of these infractions can result not only in the immediate rejection of a manuscript, but also in the post-publication retraction of a paper, causing permanent damage to the scientific careers of its authors.

       While such serious violations thankfully are relatively rare, redundant or overlapping publication, sometimes called "self-plagiarism" is regrettably much more common. Magn Reson Med offers specific guidance about overlapping publication, which is stated in its Authors' Guidelines^[1]. Since this particular topic seems to cause considerable confusion among authors, our guidance is reproduced here:

       "Magn Reson Med manuscripts are judged on the basis of their novelty, among other factors. Duplicate or redundant publications by the author(s) are subject to immediate rejection.

       Any prior publication containing overlapping material by the author(s) must be cited in the references and should also be mentioned in the submission cover letter. In this case, novelty of the Magn Reson Med submission will be assessed based on its incremental novelty over and beyond the prior publication.

       For this purpose, a published Conference Paper (typically 4-8 pages in length) will be treated the same as other published papers. A short abstract or poster displayed at a professional meeting, however, will generally not present a problem, provided it is properly cited in the manuscript and any necessary copyright permissions are obtained by the author(s) to reuse figures or other material.

       Any material from a previously-published ISMRM abstract by the author(s) may be re-used freely in a Magn Reson Med manuscript without obtaining special permission, but again, the abstract must be cited in the references and should also be mentioned in the submission cover letter.

       Unpublished works by the author(s) with overlapping content that are under review elsewhere (or at Magn Reson Med) or have been accepted (but have not yet been published either in print or online) must be clearly identified in the cover letter. A pre-print copy must be included in the supplemental material for review, so that the Referees may assess the incremental novelty of the current Magn Reson Med submission.

       An unpublished manuscript that has been rejected by a different journal and that has not been submitted elsewhere may be submitted to Magn Reson Med, although we expect the authors first to address the comments of the previous Referees and Editors by appropriately revising their manuscript.

       Further information about redundant, duplicate and overlapping publications is available at: http://www.icmje.org/publishing_4overlap.html"

       In order to avoid inadvertent reuse of words or phrases, authors may find it useful to run their manuscripts through one of several commercially-available, plagiarism-checking software programs, such as turnitin? which is associated with iThenticate^[6]. Magn Reson Med or the ISMRM is not affiliated with these organizations. Further information about the general topic of plagiarism is available from Plagiarism.org^[7].

4 Advice for Authors

       Writing a paper for a scientific journal can be a challenging task, particularly early in one's career. If an author follows the following steps, it will be highly likely that their paper will be accepted and published in our journal:

       -Tackle an important problem

       -Know and cite the relevant literature

       -Take a novel approach

       -Acquire solid data and analyze it carefully

       -Follow Magn Reson Med's Authors' Guidelines and Style Guide

       -Submit a well-written, well-organized manuscript

       -Address the referees' critiques carefully with your revision and response.

       While this advice is certainly true, it is so general that it is almost useless. In this final section, I will try to provide some more specific, practical advice in the form of comments and do's and don'ts.

       4.1 Manuscript Organization

       Manuscripts have a specific structure, which can make the job of their preparation much easier for the authors. The standardized structure also allows reviewers, editors, and readers to access the information contained within the paper more efficiently. According to our Style Guide, the body of a Magn Reson Med paper is organized into the following sections: Introduction, Methods (not called Material and Methods at our journal), Results, Discussion, and finally, Conclusion.

       The body of the paper is supplemented by an abstract, references, and figure and (if necessary) table captions. Specifics about these are also provided in the Magn Reson Med Style Guide^[1]. Optionally, there can be an Acknowledgement section, an Appendix, and a section called Theory, which is placed after the Introduction.

       When organizing your paper, please don't inter-mix the content of the sections. A common pitfall is to describe a method in Results (or vice versa), or to place results in Discussion. At the journal, we have seen many other permutations.

       To help organize your paper, do perform the following check: Examine your Methods and Results sections. Verify that every result corresponds to a previously-described method, and every method corresponds to a result presented later in the paper. This simple check catches many common organizational errors.

       Avoid overly-broad conclusions. Don't fall into the pitfall of presenting an unsound conclusion, i.e., avoid overreaching or extrapolating the scope of the results. It is best to avoid qualitative claims that a new method is "better than", "faster than", or "more effective than" an existing one, unless supporting evidence was presented in Results.

       Reserve use of the words "significant" and "significantly" for when statistical significance (e.g., a P-value) has been established. For studies involving human or animal populations, or biological samples, reviewers will look for a sufficient sample size to demonstrate statistical significance, unless the stated purpose of the paper is to establish the feasibility of a new method.

       4.2 State The Paper's Limitations

       Every method or study has its own limitations, and reviewers are very adept at pointing them out. Consequently, it is wise to be proactive and do state the limitations in the Discussion section. But please, try to be honest with yourself: if the list of limitations seems overly long, your manuscript is probably not yet ready for submission, and more work is required.

       4.3 Do Be Concise

       For each of its various manuscript submission categories, Magn Reson Med provides very specific guidance about the maximum limits for word count and the total number of figures plus tables. Editors and reviewers greatly appreciate when you respect their time and the highly limited availability of journal pages. By being as concise as possible, or by at least adhering to the stated limits, your paper will be better received. Please keep in mind, however, that additional figures and tables can be submitted as supplemental material for peer review and online publication, which doesn't count again the total.

       4.4 English Proofreading

       Magn Reson Med is an English language journal, which we realize places non-native speaking authors at a disadvantage. Some non-native English speaking authors have established successful collaborations with accomplished proofreaders who have the skills of a native English speaker. Others have hired commercial English language proofreading services. Several such fee-based services have been suggested by our publisher Wiley-Blackwell, and are listed on a webpage, which has a link available in Magn Reson Med Authors' Guidelines^[1]. None of these services is affiliated with the Magn Reson Med or the ISMRM.

       4.5 The Response to The Referees' Critiques

       Handling this phase of the peer review process skillfully is essential to the success of your paper. In the section about reviewing for Magn Reson Med, it was stated that reviewers are speaking for the journal. We believe that authors, on the other hand, are speaking for themselves.

       Always try to keep in mind that reviewers are volunteering their expertise and valuable time, and are doing so anonymously. So please adopt a courteous and professional tone in your response to the critiques. A large majority of reviewers truly want the published paper to be of the highest quality, and they are trying to be constructive.

       Don't dismiss the reviewers' critiques as "they simply didn't understand". It may be true that a reviewer did not grasp some particular aspect of your paper, but try to exploit this as a valuable opportunity to improve its presentation. It is the authors' obligation to make the paper as accessible as possible, so use the reviewer's confusion as a chance to ask yourself how you can improve the clarity of your paper.

       Don't ever ignore a reviewer's critique point in your response, or try to "finesse" it with a partial or oblique answer. While not always successful, a thorough and direct response to each critique point generally offers authors the greatest chance for ultimate success. If a review point is erroneous, do challenge it, adopting a courteous and professional tone. If you think that a particular request is beyond the scope of the manuscript, do state so directly, and explain why.

       In general, please don't provide a detailed explanation about a critique point in your response, while leaving the manuscript unchanged. As stated earlier, the primary purpose of the peer review process is to improve the quality of the papers published, and it is not to showcase the author's debating skills or even to educate reviewers. In most cases, if a reviewer has a question or concern about a manuscript, other readers will share the same one, too.

5 Conclusion

       Magn Reson Med is an international journal, and as such, we are excited and gratified by increased participation of authors and reviewers from all countries. The rapid growth of the number of manuscript submissions and published papers from China in recent years is a particularly welcome development. This article provided a number of hints for authors and reviewers, which I hope will fuel further growth in the future.

6 Acknowledgment

       Shannon Stepanian is Magn Reson Med's Managing Editor, and provides invaluable operational support. I thank all the fellow Editors who have provided me with outstanding mentorship and stimulating ideas about these topics. I especially thank my colleagues William R. Hendee, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief, Medical Physics, and David F. Kallmes, M.D., Associate Editor, Radiology, whose presentations on closely related topics were particularly enlightening. (See, for example, Dr Hendee's abstract: Med. Phys. 36, 2794 (2009); http://dx.doi.org/10.1118/1.3182602.) Similarly, the annual Editor's Forum meeting has been an outstanding opportunity for me to learn more about the profession of scientific journal editing, and I thank Herbert Y. Kressel, M.D., Editor-in-Chief, Radiology for organizing it, as well as all its attendees. Finally I thank Professor Xiaoping Hu, Ph.D. for encouraging the submission of this article.