Submission to multiple journals to reduce publication times

Editor—None of the responses to the article by Torgerson et al has mentioned readers.¹,² All have assumed the prime purpose of journals is to act as the final link in the research chain. As a former editor of a peer reviewed general clinical journal, I saw things differently: what I wanted to publish were useful messages, often wrapped up in scientific papers, for my readers to take home.

This simple desire was frustrated by many things—the most blatant being its distortion by the system of impact factors and the dependence on them (at least in the United Kingdom) of the research assessment exercise. Papers that would help my readers look after their patients better were therefore instead often sent to journals with far fewer appropriately targeted readers, simply because the impact factor was higher.

Researchers were, no doubt, satisfied with this, but it performed a disservice to readers and to patients. Multiple submission would serve only to make this worse as authors hurl themselves at a waterfall of journals with ever decreasing impact factors, regardless of their readership.

It might, of course, pressure journals that take far too long to process papers to perform more efficiently, but the opposite side of this coin is that no editor takes as kindly to a paper when he knows he is the sixth on the list as when he is first or second.

One solution to authors' grievances is for journals to make as great a use as possible of instant rejection—easy with electronic submission. Reviewers mostly work without reward, so it would be unfair to use them solely to help an author rewrite his paper for another journal. Peer reviewers are there to help editors reach decisions. Editors and journals are not there to provide a rewriting service for authors.

Perhaps the best international database would give the median times for each journal to conduct each part of the submissions and publication process. Authors who rate speed above appropriate readership would then know where to aim first.