Rebounding from Rejection: Journal Submission Algorithms for Plastic Surgery and Curated Lists of Relevant Journals

BACKGROUND: Junior trainee participation in plastic surgery research is increasing. However, junior researchers may not have prior experience or sufficient involvement in the manuscript submission process, and may not be familiar with journals and their respective scope. This may make journal selection difficult. In addition, manuscript rejections cost authors additional effort and prolong time to publication. Selecting a subsequent journal for submission may be challenging for junior researchers, who are already unfamiliar with the plastic surgery journal landscape. No curated list of plastic surgery journals exist, nor is there any resource to guide new researchers through selecting journals for submission or after rejection. This study aims to curate a list of journals relevant to plastic surgery, and to offer guidelines for submission pathways. METHODS: The master journal lists for PubMed and Web of Science were used to identify plastic surgery journals and journals in subspecialties proximate to plastic surgery. Journals were classified as “plastic surgery journals” if they were associated with a plastic surgery organization or if their primary audience were plastic surgeons. Journals associated with other specialty organizations, or with a mixed audience, were grouped separately. Additional surgical journals accepting case reports were identified, as were medical education journals. Journals were excluded if they were both unaffiliated with a medical or educational organization, and if they had article-processing charges (APCs). Open-access journals were excluded if they were not listed on the Directory of Open Access Journals. Additional journal information, such as impact factors and specific article-processing charges (APCs), and manuscript formatting and submission data were gathered. Plastic surgery faculty, trainees, and research fellows from American training programs were asked their processes for targeting journals for submission, and were also asked how they identified subsequent journals if an article were rejected. The authors of the present study also reviewed historic practices during their own submissions. Algorithms were developed using this information. RESULTS: There were 94 journals identified, including 24 plastic surgery journals, 52 subspecialty journals, 13 medical education journals, and 5 case-report journals. Within plastic surgery journals, 66% (16/24) accepted case reports and 42% (10/24) were fully open-access. There were 8 journals with APCs, all of which were fully open-access; there were 2 fully open-access journals with no APCs, and 2 journals with submission fees but no APCs. Faculty and trainees identified four clear categories of manuscript which were amenable to algorithm development: “high-impact studies”, “general studies”, “subspecialty studies”, and case reports. These categories did not necessarily match Levels of Evidence. Factors were identified which would lead to slight changes in target journals. Algorithms are proposed as follows. CONCLUSIONS: Identifying a target journal for a manuscript, and subsequent journals in case of rejection, can be intimidating for a new researcher. We therefore present a curated list of journals in plastic surgery and other relevant fields, and a general algorithm for determining journals for submission.