======= Date Modified 04 54 2009 20:54:11 =======
Hi,

Ok I know those of you who have been reading my posts in the past may now be pretty tired by my never ending questions regarding publication in journals, but please bear with me as I have absolutely no support from my MSc supervisor :-s and no prior experience in publishing.

I have three main queries:

1. The journal editor had contacted me a month ago after the peer review process was complete and asked me to edit and submit my manuscript as a revision within a few days which I did as the revisions only included correcting some minor typos. I am not sure whether this means that my manuscript has been accepted? Anyway, during this period I began editing my manuscript in terms of modifying the structure of most of the sentences and including another column in a table. Now my question is: should I contact the editor now (though they haven’t gotten back to me since I submitted the revision ) and request them to permit me to submit this edited manuscript or should I wait until they contact me again and if they do accept my article, then submit this modified version as edited off-prints? Is it ok to request the editor to permit me to submit my edited version of the paper before they contact me? Hope I am making sense and not confusing you all :$!


2. My MSc supervisor has either left the university or has been fired, not sure about this. Does that automatically nullify him from claiming co-authorship (as he has provided absolutely no input for my article) or do I still have to retain him? If so, I have no information of his current contact details so what do I do in this case?


3. I provided the journal with his contact details while he was working at the university where I studied, so am I supposed to contact them now and inform them that he is no longer there and hence, no idea what his current contact details are? This may sound pretty naive and silly :$, but I am so concerned about this and I want everything to be in order!


Guess these are the queries for now but I may turn up with more later! Would greatly appreciate your input on these issues :-).

Many thanks!

I dunno about the first question but about the other two...

If you submitted it with his name on originally and he agreed with that then leave it on. It's unfortunate he's went off the radar but the work reflects what has happened in the past (when he supervised you) rather than the current situation. As the corrections are minor then I don't see that he'd have problems with it; and if you agreed to name him as co-author originally then you should honour that. Contact the journal and tell them you are now the corresponding author for the article.

That's my advice, but before you do any of that I think you should speak to whoever is in charge of postgraduate affairs at your uni. You need to know at least some of the details about why your supervisor has left and what they're doing about it (i.e. new supervisor who could guide you with this kind of thing).

Good luck!

Thanks for your response Melsie...

Firstly, I am the primary and corresponding author for this article and the only reason he is on it is because it is the university polity to include supervisors as co-authors when publishing any part of the dissertation. Hence he took the co-authorship as granted and we never had any discussions on that issue.

Secondly, I have already completed my MSc so I am not worried that he's left, only concerned about his current contact details (because this journal wants the contact details of all the co-authors in addition to the corresponding author).

Hi Starlight,

just reacting to your first question. You indicated that the editor only wanted a few minor corrections and you have made these changes and resubmitted. This means that the editor seems happy with this version and most likely will publish your resubmitted paper. In my opinion it would be best to stick to that and just have that published.

If you really want your third version to be published, then I would contact the editor as quickly as possible. Yet be aware that if you have made major changes it could be that the new version is not acceptable for the editor.:-)

Hi!

About question 1 -- I resubmitted a paper once and also made a few more changes than requested (structure of sentences, typos etc.). In the attached letter where I explained how I addressed the reviewers' main points, I added a paragraph stating that I also rephrased some sentences which seemed too convoluted, but that the meaning and content were not altered. (So I did not list all these modifications but just summarized them like this). Anyway, the editors didn't seem to be bothered by these additional changes.

Good luck with the paper!

1) There's no harm in asking the editor, but be prepared for the piece to be resubmitted for peer review if you've made substantial amendments. I would allow piece to be published as it is, and then submit the updated version elsewhere later.

2) This depends on your University's rules on this kind of thing. If you can't contact him, I would suggest removing his name as an author, and simply adding an acknowledgment of his contribution (if any) at the beginning of the piece in a footnote.

3) You can mention to the editor that your supervisor can no longer be reached when you withdraw his authorship. If they wish to contact him, it's up to them to track him down.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Rick, Apple and Parallax for your helpful comments - greatly appreciate your assistance in this matter :-). I think I'll contact the editor and let them know that I've edited the manuscript in terms of rephrasing it and that no new information has been added as Apple and Rick have suggested.

Parallax, good idea regarding the supervisor issue, I'll keep that in mind.

Honestly, your responses have sure made this easier for me to deal with this issue with a clearer perspective 8-)!

Cheers! (up)