Getting your Submission Right and Avoiding Rejection.

Less than a decade ago, manuscripts were manually submitted to publishers. The cover letter, copies of the manuscript, and figures were placed in a large envelope and sent to the editorial office via snail mail. Authors submitting papers understood that failing to follow submission guidelines could result in the loss of precious time (back then, a fewweeks to amonth!) if the editorial office had to return the manuscript for any reason. As a result, authors tended to carefully adhere to journal Author Guidelines and faithfully follow them. Today, submission of a manuscript to any scientific journal takes only a few clicks on a computer. A manuscript can be submitted from anywhere the author’s office or home, a cafe,́ or even from an airline flight at 32 000 feet. The ease of online submissions, however, has contributed to several common mistakes, which can still cost time for the authors as the editorial staff work to correct mistakes. The most common mistake is incomplete or incorrect entry of author/coauthor information. A few simple checks prior to submission can help avoid such errors and resultant manuscript processing delays.