Shortcuts

1.Submission

2.Preliminary review/Pre-check

3.Peer-review

4.Author Revision

5.Editor Decision

6.Author Appeals

7.Production

8.Publishing Standards and Report Guidelines

9.Ethical Standards

10.Editorial Independence

A summary of the editorial process is given in the flowchart below.

Journal of Men’s Health Editorial Process

The following provides notes on each step.

1. Submission

The author will receive a tracking number (JOMH. No.) following a submission.

2. Preliminary review/Pre-check

Immediately after submission, a Preliminary review will first be carried out by the managing editor. The relevant editor (usually the Editor-in-Chief/Editorial Board Member of a journal or the Guest Editor of a Special Issue) will then be notified of the submission and invited to perform a Pre-check. The relevant editors can decide to continue with the peer-review process, reject a manuscript, or request revisions before peer-review.

Journal of Men’s Health requires that editorial staff or editors not be involved in processing their own academic work. The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board. Submissions will be assigned to at least two independent outside reviewers. The submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process. Decisions will be made by other Editorial Board Members who do not have a conflict of interest with the author.

Guest Editors should not hold conflicts of interest with authors whose work they are assessing (e.g., from the same institution or collaborate closely). In this case, the Editor-in-Chief or a suitable Editorial Board member will make the Pre-check and Final decisions for submitted papers.

3. Peer-review

Journal of Men’s Health adopts double-blind peer review. Once a manuscript passes the initial checks, it will be assigned to at least two independent experts for peer-review. JOMH editors will check to make sure there are no conflicts of interest before contacting reviewers, and will not consider those with competing interests. Reviewers are asked to declare any conflicts of interest before reviewing any submitted manuscript.

4. Author Revision

In cases Minor revisions/Major revisions are recommended, the author is usually requested to revise the paper before referring to the relevant editor (usually the Editor-in-Chief/Editorial Board Member of a journal or the Guest Editor of a Special Issue). Articles may or may not be sent to reviewers after minor revision, which depends on whether the reviewer requested to see the revised version or not. The revised manuscript after major revision will be sent back to reviewers again. We typically allow no more than two rounds of major revisions per manuscript. Any further revision needed will follow the decision of the relevant editors.

All reviewer comments should be responded point-by-point. Where the authors disagree with a reviewer, they must provide a clear response or rebuttal.

5. Editor Decision

The acceptance of the manuscript will depend on the revisions made to the manuscript. Authors need to provide a point by point response or a rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised. The Acceptance or rejection decision will be made by the relevant editor (usually the Editor-in-Chief/Editorial Board Member of a journal or the Guest Editor of a Special Issue) after peer review, and the editor can select from the following options: Accept in Present Form, Accept after Minor Revisions, Reconsider after Major Revisions, Reject.

(In some instances, the relevant editor may support a decision of manuscript acceptance despite a reviewer recommendation to reject. Journal staff will seek a second independent opinion from an Editorial Board member or the Editor-in-Chief before communicating a final decision to the authors.)

6. Author Appeals

Authors may appeal a rejection judgement by sending an e-mail to the journal’s Editorial Office. The appeal must provide a detailed justification, including point-by-point responses to the reviewers' and/or Editor's comments. The Managing Editor of the journal will forward the manuscript and related information (including the identities of the referees) to the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Editorial Board member. The Editor being consulted will subsequently be asked to provide an advisory recommendation on the manuscript and may recommend acceptance, further peer-review, or uphold the original rejection decision. A reject decision at this stage is final and cannot be reversed.

7. Production

JOMH carries out production on all manuscripts, including copy editing, layout and conversion to XML. Language editing is carried out by professional English editing editors. We recommend authors use Englishgo’s English editing service prior to publication or during revisions. If you have used an alternative service, please provide a copy certificate to the Editorial Office.

The submitted, accepted and published dates will be shown in the PDF and XML files of the published articles, a digital object identifier (DOI) number will also be assigned for each published article. The submitted date is the date on which the editors received the original (or if previously rejected, the resubmitted) manuscript. The accepted date is when the editor sends the acceptance letter. The published date is the earliest date that the final version-of-record is made available on the publisher's website.

8. Publishing Standards and Report Guidelines

JOMH follows the following guidelines and standards. Submission of a manuscript to Journal of Men’s Health implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content, and the manuscript conforms to the journal’s policies.

ICMJE: Medically related JOMH follows the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The guidelines comprehensively cover all aspects of editing, from how the journal is managed to details about peer review and handling complaints.

CONSORT statement covers reporting of randomized, controlled trials. We encourage authors to verify their work against the checklist and flow diagram and upload them with their submission.

PRISMA covers systematic reviews and meta-analyses of interventional studies and MOOSE for systematic reviews and meta-analyses of observational studies. Authors are recommended to complete the checklist and flow diagram and include them with their submission.

ARRIVE contains guidelines for reporting in vivo experiments. Authors are recommended to verify their work against the checklist and include it with their submission.

STROBE guidelines cover reporting of observational studies. Also, for diagnostic studies, authors are encouraged to use STARD guideline.

CARE guideline (for CAse REports) was developed by an international group of experts to support an increase in the accuracy, transparency, and usefulness of case reports. View and download the CARE checklist.

Other related guidelines, please visit the equator network (https://www.equator-network.org/).

9. Ethical Standards

JOMH follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

JOMH follows COPE’s procedures for dealing with potentially unethical behavior by authors, reviewers or editors. Our editorial staff are trained in how to detect and respond to potential ethical problems.

More information about our Publishing Ethics policy.

10. Editorial Independence

Editorial independence dictates that decision to accept or reject a manuscript is based on the scientific merit of the article but not to any other relations for example pressure from the publisher to the journal editor. This means that Editor is independent in his/her decision and will not be under pressure of any influential body or organization.

Our editorial policy is consistent with the principles of editorial independence presented by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).