Journal of Family Medicine · ISSN 2640-690X
For Editors
What handling a manuscript for this journal involves, in the order it happens. The policy behind each step is on the editorial policies page; this page is how it is carried out.
Editors are appointed to the editorial board by the journal. The role carries scholarly responsibility and no publishing advantage.
Handling a manuscript
The sequence
Each step below is a decision an editor makes. Where a step needs a judgment the journal has already recorded, the wording is quoted rather than paraphrased.
1. Check your own position first
Before reading, consider whether you can judge the manuscript impartially. Editors recuse themselves from decisions on their own submissions, which are handled independently, and the same applies to a manuscript from a close collaborator, a member of your own department, a competitor on the same question, or anyone with whom you have a personal or financial relationship. Say so at once and return the manuscript for reassignment; a recusal costs the journal a day, a late one costs it its standing.
2. Assess scope
Ask only whether the work bears on family medicine care, research, education or the discipline itself, established by its research question or contribution. That is the whole of the scope question, and it is set out in the aims and scope. Do not use scope as a proxy for anything else: a study is not out of subject because its design is modest, its findings negative, its setting unfamiliar or its topic already covered.
3. Screen before review
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal’s scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review, under the journal’s model: single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Screening covers scope, the declarations the journal requires, ethics approval or exemption, consent, trial registration where applicable, the data-availability statement, and the similarity report read in context. A manuscript may be returned for correction at this stage rather than declined.
4. Select reviewers
Choose reviewers for their competence in the question the manuscript actually asks, which for a generalist submission often means one reviewer close to the clinical subject and one close to the method or the setting. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by two to three independent subject-matter experts. Avoid reviewers with a competing interest, at the authors’ own institution, or suggested by the authors without an independent counterpart.
5. Weigh the reviews
Reviews are advice, not votes. Read them against the manuscript rather than counting them, discount a recommendation that rests on a misreading, and set aside a demand for citations to the reviewer’s own work. Where reviewers disagree materially, say so in the decision letter and explain which point decided it.
6. Decide and explain
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. Write the decision so that an author can act on it: what must change, what is optional, and what is not negotiable. A decline is more useful with one clear reason than with five hedged ones.
7. Keep it confidential
A submitted manuscript is a confidential document. Do not disclose its existence or content, discuss it outside the review process, or use unpublished material for any purpose of your own. Where double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.
8. Handle files and AI accordingly
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. The same restriction applies to editors, and to every externally hosted tool, not only public ones. Delete downloaded files once the manuscript is decided.
When something is wrong
Escalation
Raise the following with the editorial office rather than resolving them yourself, so that the response is consistent and recorded:
- suspected fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or image manipulation;
- research conducted without ethics approval, exemption or consent;
- an undisclosed competing interest discovered during review;
- a duplicate or redundant submission;
- an authorship dispute, or a change to the author list;
- a concern raised about an already published article.
Concerns are assessed on the evidence, with the authors given the opportunity to respond, and with the authors’ institution informed where the matter warrants it.
After publication
Corrections and appeals
Where a published article contains an error that affects the record, the journal issues a correction linked to and from the original. Where the findings are unreliable, or the work breaches the journal’s standards, it issues a retraction notice stating the reason and who requested it. Published articles are not removed.
An appeal against a decision is considered by an editor who was not responsible for that decision. If an appeal reaches you on a manuscript you handled, pass it on rather than answering it.
Independence
Editors and money
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal, and remain independent of fees, memberships, optional services, and editorial or reviewer roles.
You will not be told whether an author holds a membership, has been quoted a charge or has paid one, and that information plays no part in any decision you are asked to make. An editorial role confers no advantage in the review of your own work, and no expectation that you will publish in the journal.
Questions about a manuscript you are handling, and anything this page does not cover, go to the editorial office at info@openaccesspub.org.
Editorial Policies For Reviewers Aims and Scope Editorial Board