Submission to multiple journals to reduce publication times

Editor—Torgerson et al moot the idea of submission to multiple journals to reduce publication times, but their article raises more questions than it provides answers.¹

Firstly, to how many journals would authors be allowed to submit their article, and who will decide the number of simultaneous submissions—the authors or the journal?

Secondly, in the event of simultaneous acceptance by many journals, who would decide that the accepted article should remain with which journal—the authors (who always want their article published in the best journal) or the journals themselves (which might fight for the article if it is really high quality)?

Thirdly, what would happen to low rated journals (which may not be getting the article in first place)?

Fourthly, if the article were rejected by all the journals to which it was submitted, should the authors be allowed to resubmit it simultaneously to a couple of journals—again wasting the time of the whole scientific community apart from journal resources?

Multiple submission may not be an ideal way to deal with the problem of delay until all the issues related to are resolved. It needs further evaluation before being enforced. One of the ways to reduce the time for publication is that, if a journal is about to reject an article it should be responsible for suggesting to the authors to which journal (two or three, in order of preference) they should send their article next. The suggestion should arise from review of the article by panel of experts on the subject, who would know for which journal the submitted article is most suitable and where it is most likely to be accepted.