Upgrading instructions for authors of scholarly journals

Publishing a scholarly article is the final and perhaps most responsible stage of research that takes time and requires enormous effort of all stakeholders of science communication. Reviewers and editors when they evaluate journal submissions and select items for publishing often ground their decisions on the novelty and originality of the topics, validity and power of statistical and other tests, quality of writing, structuring, and formatting each section of the manuscripts, originality and usefulness of graphical materials, and professionalism in analyzing scientific facts and conclusions. The evaluators also consider ethical issues and the adherence of authors to the guidance from editorial associations (1,2). The authors often receive rejection letters pointing to the mismatch between the scope of the journal and the manuscript topic, methodological errors, inappropriate discussion, unjustified conclusions, and poor writing and formatting (3,4). With the increasing flow of journal submissions it is expected that rejection rates will increase further, causing more frustration for inadequately instructed authors.