lable at ScienceDirect

Physical Therapy in Sport 11 (2010) 107–109

Contents lists avai

Physical Therapy in Sport

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/ptsp

Editorial

Top tips for getting your manuscript published

Getting your manuscript published in a peer reviewed journal isnot an easy process, especially if you are new to the game. Basically,there is an awful lot of research that is undertaken and despite theincrease in the number of journals to submit to, most have rejectionrates well in excess of 50%. So it will be almost inevitable that youwill get a manuscript rejected at some point. But what can you do totry and get your submission past the editor and sent out for review?I have been an editor now for over 10 years and there are some verycommon mistakes I see time and time again. I have compiled thislist of ‘top tips’ and whilst it is not exhaustive, it may help as anaide memoir when you are thinking of undertaking new researchor submitting your research for publication.

1. Before you start

� Seek advice from a colleague experienced in methodologydesign BEFORE you start data collection.

It is really important that you chose the right design for theresearch question that you are trying to answer. For instance, thereis no point using an observational design if you are trying to provecausality. Likewise you wouldn’t want to use a non-controlled casestudy to test the effect of a specific intervention. Doing a small pilotstudy will often throw up some methodological issues which youmay not have considered prior to doing any testing. These canthen be revised for the main data collection.

� Make sure you have approval from the relevant ethicscommittee BEFORE you start data collection.

You are very unlikely to get your manuscript published if it isa study that requires ethical approval and you have not got this.Retrospective approval will not normally be granted. Any studyconducted on human subjects should comply with the principleslaid down by the Declaration of Helsinki (World MedicalAssembly). You will find that this applies to most journals, notjust Physical Therapy in Sport.

� Do a sample size calculation to see how many subjects you willneed to show a significant difference, if one exists.

This will also inform you whether your study is feasible or not.There may be little point setting out collecting data if you need 200subjects in each group to show a significant difference. Most ethicalapproval processes require this information any way to ensure

1466-853X/$ – see front matter � 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.ptsp.2010.09.005

sufficient preparatory work has been undertaken. It demonstratesa) an understanding of what you are trying to, and b) academicrigour. I have written more about this subject and its importancein a previous editorial (Hudson, 2009).

2. Writing your article

� Agree on the authorship of the paper

This may seem an odd thing to write, but it has been the causeof many academic disputes in the past, and new authors may notbe aware of the etiquette involved in academic publishing. Asa guide to avoid any potential problems, new authors are advisedto look at the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’policy on authorship. In summary, authorship should be basedonly on;

B Substantial contributions to conception and design, or acqui-sition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data AND

B Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intel-lectual content AND

B Final approval of the version to be published

I would especially endorse this final point. Do not submitwithout showing co-authors first. Their name is on the paper andthey have a right to see what is being submitted in their name.

An additional source of information can be found on theCommittee on Publication Ethics (COPE) web site: How to handleauthorship disputes: a guide for new researchers. Check these outand try and avoid any problems rather than having to deal withthe aftermath.

� Publishing in a different language to the authors’ first language

For example, publishing in Physical Therapy in Sport if English isnot your first language. I appreciate it is hard enough trying to getpublished in the first place and this can bemade evenmore difficultif you are not writing in your first language. This is a common issueand if I look at the latest annual data for this journal, we hadsubmissions from 25 different countries and in the majority ofthese cases English was not the authors’ first language. My adviceto authors in this instance is that you liaise with a colleague whois used to publishing in English to check any manuscript prior tosubmission. Alternatively, if there is no help at hand, you mightwant to consider employing a scientific editing company to do

Editorial / Physical Therapy in Sport 11 (2010) 107–109108

this. I would also point out here that the job of the reviewer is tocomment on the ‘science’ of the study rather than correct Englishlanguage issues.

� Pick a good title

It should be eye catching and to the point. Think of all thosetitles you have to scroll through doing a literature search, manyof which turn out to be irrelevant to what you are looking for!Use the PICO system – Participants, Intervention, Comparison,Outcome. Include the design and your results for completeness.For example: ‘Orthotics improve anterior knee pain in endurancerunners: a randomised controlled trial’.

� There are conventions for reporting certain types of trials

So use them if you are reporting on randomised controlled trials(CONSORT), STROBE for observational studies, STARD for the reportingof accurate diagnostic studies, for example. Guidelines aremucheasierto follow than trying to do it yourself and reinventing the wheel.

� Acknowledge the limitations in your study

Few studies are perfect, and it is much better to acknowledgethe limitations yourself. If you don’t, the reviewers will certainlyask you to flag the obvious ones. Don’t be afraid to do this, it showsyou have a broader understanding of your study.

� Have a succinct conclusion in your abstract and manuscript

Keep to your main findings here and write about what you havefound rather thanwhat youwould like to have found! Restrict spec-ulation to the discussion section and avoid any in the conclusion.

3. Submitting your article

� Chose the most appropriate journal for your article

Look at the aims and scope of the journal to see that your studyfits this requirement. These can normally be found at the front ofthe printed version of the journal, alternatively look at the web site.

� Follow the instructions to authors

Failure to do this will normally result in the automatic return ofyour manuscript; this includes the appropriate formatting of thereferences in the text and in the reference list.

� Cover letter

Do send a cover letter to the editor putting your study intocontext.

� Choosing reviewers

Most journals ask for suggestions for reviewers – I wouldsuggest that you do not pick any of the following a) someonewho has not published in this area, b) someone you have collabo-rated with (where alternatives are available) and c) someonefrom the same institution.

4. If you get through to the review process

� Responding to reviewers comments

If your paper does go out for review you will get the reviewerscomments back with a recommendation from the editor to eitheraccept, reject or ‘minor’ or ‘major’ revisions. The most commondecisions are to reject or revise. If you are asked to revise thesubmission, follow the guidelines set down by the journal. Youwill normally be asked to provide a rebuttal to the reviewers’comments and indicate where these have made in the text.Reviewers generally spend a lot of time giving feedback and thereis nothing more frustrating if this has been either ignored, or com-mented on the rebuttal, but nothing has changed in themanuscript.Revisions will often go back to the original reviewers and they willnot be impressed if you have ignored their comments. Additionally,if ‘major’ changes have been recommended and only the odd line/paragraph has been changed, this is also likely to lead to a recom-mendation to reject the paper. So do take time to go through thecomments and respond accordingly.

I hope you find these top tips useful. Good to luck to all of you intrying to get your research published and remember themotto ‘If atfirst you don’t succeed....’

Articles in this issue

Shoulder injuries in athletes involved in overhead sports canprovide a particular rehabilitation challenge for clinicians. TheMas-terclass article is presented by Manske and Prohaska from theStates and covers the rehabilitation following a SLAP lesion in over-head throwing athletes. It includes a comprehensive review of theclinical diagnostic tests and a very useful summary table indicatingthe sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive valuesand likelihood ratios of these commonly used tests. Conservativeas well as post surgical rehabilitation is covered with an emphasison the recovery following a Type II lesion. Importantly, clinicalmilestones for progression are also included.

Kinesiotapinghasbecomevery fashionable in themanagementofmusculoskeletal injury in athletes over the last 5 years. If you use it, Iamsureyouhave seenpositive clinical results.However, if you look inthe literature there is little evidence at present to support its use. Inthe first piece of original research Hsiao-Yun and colleagues fromTaiwan investigate the effect of Kinesio taping on the forearmstrength in a group of healthy athletes. An enhanced force sense,but no change inmaximal grip strength, was reported in this subjectgroup. There are several methodological issues which could havecontributed to these findings, one being that symptomatic subjectsmay somehow respond differently to non-symptomatic subjects.

Validation of any of the clinical outcome measures we use isimperative for several reasons. Firstly, to make sure they aremeasuringwhat we think they aremeasuring. The second key pointis to know when any change measured represents a true change asopposed to the many different types of error that are inherent withanymeasuring system. In the next piece of original research, Munroand Herrington from the UK present a reliability study on the starexcursion balance test. The results from this study provide clearguidance to clinicians on how to interpret data collected fromthis test in healthy subjects. This data is also necessary before onecan attempt to interpret data obtained from injured subjects.

Decathlon is a gruelling and demanding discipline with athletescompeting in 10 track and field events over a 2 day period. Thereare fewer opportunities for athletes to compete at this in competi-tion compared to the individual track and field events. As such, lesshas been published about this particular discipline. Pascal andcolleagues from France present a pilot study investigating dropouts in decathlon and found a high drop out rate of 38%, with themajority occurring on the first day of competition. Acute hamstringinjury accounted for 50% of the musculoskeletal causes for dropout, but motivational issues are also considered in these athletes.

Editorial / Physical Therapy in Sport 11 (2010) 107–109 109

This study is not without limitations which are clearly acknowl-edged, however it does present an interesting insight into thisless well reported discipline.

The concept of lower limb asymmetry and its effect on perfor-mance and relationship to injury risk is an interesting one. Do wetry and correct asymmetry in the absence of symptoms to try andimprove the efficiency of movement? Does the presence of a domi-nant leg naturally influence bilateral activities such as running andcycling? In the literature review for this issue, Carpes andcolleagues from Brazil and the USA try and tackle some of theseconundrums.

As this is the last issueof the currentvolume Iwould like to sayabigthankyou to theEditorial and International AdvisoryBoard, andall ourcontributors and reviewers in 2010 and of course, to you the readers.

References

Committee on Publication Ethics. How to handle authorship disputes: A guide fornew researchers. publicationethics.org/guidelines Accessed 20.09.10.

Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT). www.consort-statement.org/ Accessed 20.09.10.

Hudson, Z. (2009). Sample size, power and effect size –what all researchers need toknow. Physical Therapy in Sport, 2009(10), 43–44.

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Authorship and Contributor-ship. www.icmje.org/ethical_1author.html Accessed 20.9.10.

Standards for the Reporting of Diagnostic accuracy studies (STARD). http://www.stard-statement.org/ Accessed 20.09.10.

World Medical Assembly. www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html Accessed 20.09.10.

Zoe HudsonEditor