Submission to multiple journals to reduce publication times

Editor—Torgerson et al's idea of submission to multiple journals to reduce time to publication was mostly met with reservations.¹ But some unanimously favoured it to counteract the inefficiency of journals in dealing with submissions, increase competition, and instigate more academic coordination and cooperation.

Reservations included the increased workload of journal staff and reviewers. An “acceptable” author's fee might be a way to overcome this, or even a ranked system of fees to be paid to all journals being targeted for publication. Jutta Loeffler, a postdoc in New York, was concerned that all submissions would end up on the same reviewers' desks anyway. Another concern was that if an article were submitted to many journals it might be accepted by many—so what would happen to low impact journals?

Multiple submissions might then lead to “unethical pressures” and efforts to stall lower impact journals until a higher impact journal had responded. They might kill peer review by exerting too much pressure on too few reviewers. A real example of duplicate publication showed the problems of ownership. The value of research, and hence its publication, in today's world was raised. Does it equal money and prestige, or does it serve humanity?

Correspondents suggested how waiting times might be reduced. Journals should keep authors informed about how long they would have to wait for a decision and generally keep a dialogue open. Their replies should be clear and mainly based on reviewers' comments. If an article is targeted at the wrong journal, the journal should send it back without delay. Authors might inform the journal that, unless they hear from it in four to six weeks, they will try another journal. They should also be more rigorous about which journals they submit to—and not base their decision on impact factors. Saving the finer details of a publication's required style until after acceptance would also save time.

Most of those who were lukewarm about multiple submission were not, however, sanguine like Robert Rudolph, a dermatologist in Philadelphia, who wrote of his experience: “If the article was rejected by my journal of choice, I simply sighed, accepted my fate, and resubmitted it to another one for consideration. Then I had a drink.”