How to write and publish a scientific paper - Barbara Gastel, Robert A. Day 2022

Submitting your manuscript
How to submit the manuscript
Publishing the paper

For most of the history of scientific publication, researchers submitted their papers by mail. Yes, physical mail. Yes, the postal service, not email. In fact, early editions of this book advised readers on how to package a manuscript for mailing and what class of mail to use. Today, if a journal asks you to submit a hard copy of your manuscript by post, take a clue: The journal probably still is still stuck in the last century—which presumably is not where you want the output of your new research to be.

Today, journals commonly have online submission systems through which authors must submit their manuscripts. Journals that are small or are not associated with major publishers sometimes request manuscripts simply as email attachments. Over the years, online systems for electronic submission have become relatively easy to use. And conveniently, they can allow authors to track the progress of their papers as they head toward publication. For guidance on how to submit your manuscript, consult the journal’s instructions to authors and look at the journal’s website.