For Editors
How a manuscript moves through an editor’s hands at the Journal of Proteomics and Genomics Research: what to weigh at each step, what the journal’s policies require, and where to take a question.
- ISSN 2326-0793
- Crossref DOI prefix 10.14302
- Open access · CC BY 4.0
The remit
What an editor decides
An editor decides whether a manuscript belongs in this journal and whether the work it reports stands up. The first judgment is one of fit, and it rests on the journal’s stated remit rather than on a general sense of interest.
The journal gives standing to proteomics on its own, to genomics on its own, and to work that integrates the two across biological systems. Basic and applied work fit across organisms, and established methods and focused or targeted omics fit where the proteomic or genomic contribution is substantive. The test an editor applies is whether that contribution is central to the study: work in which sequencing or mass spectrometry appears incidentally, and routine gene or protein assays, sit outside the remit. The Aims and Scope sets out the domains and the boundary in full.
This page describes practice. The rules themselves live in the Editorial Policies, and this page quotes them rather than restating them in its own words.
Handling a manuscript
Six steps, in order
Each step names the policy that governs it. The quoted passages are the journal’s approved wording and appear in the same form on the Editorial Policies page.
01
Assignment and the scope check
A manuscript reaches an editor after the editorial office has checked it against the journal’s minimum requirements.
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal’s scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.
Where the manuscript falls outside the journal’s remit, or outside the handling editor’s own field, it goes back to the editorial office for redirection. Declining an assignment early serves the authors better than holding it.
02
Competing interests and recusal
Before inviting anyone, the handling editor considers their own position.
An editor with a financial, institutional or personal interest in a manuscript stands aside, and a colleague handles it instead. Editors who submit their own work to the journal are handled by another editor, and their authorship is disclosed on the published article.
Recusal is recorded with the editorial office, which reassigns the manuscript.
03
Choosing and inviting reviewers
Reviewers are chosen for their command of the methods and the subject the manuscript actually turns on, which for an integrated study usually means covering both the proteomic and the genomic side.
Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts. Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request.
When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.
Reviewers are asked to declare any interest that would affect their assessment, and to decline the invitation where one exists. Authors may suggest reviewers and may ask that particular people be excluded; the editor decides whom to invite. What the journal asks of reviewers appears in the Reviewer Guidelines.
04
While the review runs
Submitted manuscripts are treated as confidential. Editors and reviewers keep unpublished material to the assessment itself.
After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.
Reviewer identities are held in confidence under the single-blind model. A reviewer who wishes to be identified to the authors may ask the editor to sign the report on their behalf. Timing is agreed with the editorial office for the manuscript in hand, and the office can be asked to chase an outstanding report or to find a further reviewer.
05
Reading the reviews
The editor weighs the reports rather than counting them. A review is read for the evidence it gives: whether the methods support the claims, whether the data and code are available to check them, whether the reporting is complete, and whether the interpretation stays within what the results show.
Where reports disagree, the editor identifies the substantive point at issue, and may seek a further review on that point. A report that offers a verdict without reasons carries less weight than one that shows its working, whatever it concludes.
06
The recommendation and the decision letter
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
The reviewers advise and the editor decides. A decision letter states the outcome, gives the reasons for it, and separates the revisions that are essential from the suggestions the authors may take or leave. Where revision is invited, the letter says what would have to change for the work to be publishable.
Authors read the reports along with the letter, so a clear editorial summary of what matters most is the part of the letter that does the work.
Throughout
What holds at every step
- Confidentiality
- Submitted manuscripts are treated as confidential, and unpublished material stays within the assessment.
- AI tools
- Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured. That requirement covers all unapproved externally hosted AI tools, and it applies to editors handling a manuscript in the same way.
- Double-blind handling
- When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.
- Data and code
- Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement. The handling editor confirms that the statement is present and that it names where the data and code can be found.
- Trial registration
- Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.
- Declarations
- Authors declare their funding sources, grant numbers and competing interests with the manuscript, and those declarations are published with the article.
The full text of each of these sits in the Editorial Policies, and the Instructions for Authors describe what authors supply.
Escalation
Three routes out of the ordinary case
- An integrity concern. Concerns about a submitted or published manuscript are examined by the editorial office. This includes fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, undisclosed duplicate submission or publication, image manipulation, and undeclared competing interests. Submissions are screened with Crossref Similarity Check, powered by iThenticate, and a similarity report is read in context by the editor. A concern goes to the editorial office first rather than to the authors directly.
- The published record. The published record is corrected in public, through a correction notice, a retraction, or an expression of concern while an inquiry is open. Where a published article proves to contain an error, the editorial office issues the notice.
- An appeal or a complaint. Appeals are considered by a different editor from the one who took the original decision, who may seek further review. Complaints about the conduct of the editorial process are handled the same way, by someone independent of the matter complained about. A decision under appeal therefore passes out of the original editor’s hands.
The Editorial Policies give each of these in full, in the wording the journal publishes.
Independence
What carries no weight in a decision
An author’s payment status, membership, institution, funder, seniority, editorial board position or personal relationship to an editor carries no weight in the assessment of a manuscript, and confers no priority in review.
The article processing charge of USD 2,100 is raised after a decision has been reached, by people other than the editors who reached it. Billing and fee-relief inquiries are handled by the editorial office and take no part in the editorial decision. A request to weigh any of it belongs with the editorial office.
The charge itself appears on the Article Processing Charges page, and what a Membership arrangement covers on its own.
Where to look
Taking a question further
The editorial office handles assignment, recusal, reviewer chasing, integrity concerns, corrections and appeals, and is the right first stop for a question this page leaves open.