An author anxious about a competing paper contacted journals A and B (and perhaps others) about possible fast-track consideration of his study. Journal A said it would be as fast as possible; journal B actually had the competing study under consideration so agreed to look at this study very fast. The author submitted to journal B, the article was refereed in less than a week, and journal B offered to publish the article if the author would cut it from full-length to short communication format.
The author withdrew his paper formally from journal B and submitted it to journal A, where review took 3 weeks. During this 3 week period, the author’s anxiety about the competing paper increased and, fearing that journal A might not move fast enough on his paper, he re-contacted journal B, to know whether publication there (in short form) was still a possibility. The editors said it was, and there followed an exchange of emails in which journal B reiterated its acceptance in principle of the article, editors and author discussed copy editing and formatting requirements, and the author agreed to a deadline by which resubmission was required.
Journal A then completed peer review and accepted the article in principle, followed by formal acceptance when the author submitted a final version a couple of days later. The author wrote to journal B after formal acceptance by journal A, to say that the article was accepted elsewhere. The editors of journal B knew from informal conversations with the author that he had considered journal A, and therefore contacted the editors of journal A about the possibility of duplicate submission.
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Was the author guilty of duplicate submission? Could he reasonably suppose that having formally withdrawn his article from journal B, it was not “under consideration” again there until/unless he formally resubmitted it? Does the exchange of emails between author and journal (which included the journal sending a checklist for accepted manuscripts) constitute resubmission?
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Given that there are some analogies between the process of “presubmission enquiries” and discussion of resubmission, ought authors be discouraged from making presubmission enquiries to more than one journal at a time?
The Forum commented that the author had behaved badly and was in the wrong. All agreed that this was definitely a case of duplicate submission. The editor informed the Forum that an “official letter of censure” had been issued by journal B. The Forum suggested that the editors of journals A and B should write to the author’s institution jointly, informing them of the time wasting methods of the author and the general misuse of the editorial service.
Journal B considered the matter closed with its formal letter of censure. Journal A wrote to the author and requested that he inform his institution and all coauthors of the outcome.
As an aside, the work has now been published by a third journal, to which it was submitted on the day of withdrawal from Journal A.