Post acceptance process

After acceptance, normally it will initiate copyediting

· The last chance for the author to make major changes to references is after acceptance before the manuscript goes to copyediting.

· Make sure all references you intended to cite are in the reference list. It is not possible to add references after copyediting has commenced, because the copyeditor extracts references into a database where they can be reviewed/corrected by the author online.

· It is possible to omit references by simply not citing them in the manuscript (delete the in-text reference [1] will lead to ref 1 being omitted from the bibliography and subsequent citations being renumbered), but adding references is virtually impossible after copyediting has started.

Copyediting process post-acceptance

After a manuscript is approved by the Editor-in-Chief, a copy editor should initiate a copyediting by check all formats: title, affiliation, author contact information, abstract, keywords, structural components of the paper, references, and conflict of interest. Acknowledgment is optional.

Making necessary change and questions to the authors. For some papers, the copy editor may consult with Associate Editor on terminology or statistical terms if a statistical reviewer has not been sought for during the review process of the paper.

It is normally consisted of three steps, in which authors will be involved

1. In Step 1, the copyeditor downloads the manuscript he/she receives from the editor and edits the manuscript according to the journal's style guide (usually using Track Changes and the Word comments function for author queries).

2. To initiate Step 2, the copyeditor sends an "Initial Copyediting Completed" email to the author. The authors need to go through the following 4 sub-steps

ü 2a: Authors reviews copyediting changes and respond to copyeditor queries in the manuscript file. Note that we do not ask authors to accept/reject changes copyeditors made. If you do not agree with a copyediting change, use the comments function. 

ü 2b: at this point, the author should review and correct the references, paying particular attention to any references with editor comments.

ü 2c: Review the METADATA - in particular all author names, affiliations, your abstract

ü 2d: Review Figures and Tables (See instruction and examples below).

3. In step 3, copyeditors take into account the responses of authors to their queries, and do a final manuscript cleanup

Tables

The text in the Table should be aligned to the left, but the number should be aligned to the right (see the following examples).

Source: Environmental Earth Sciences (2009) 59:529–536

Source: Global Clinical and Translational Research 2019; 1(1) 53:57

Figures

All figures should be annotated well, especially when there are multiple figures. The title should be under the plot.

Source: Med One