Publication Process Overview
The process for publishing a medical research paper in Cureus may vary in length due to article complexity, article length and the availability of reviewers with sufficient domain knowledge. Cureus strives to publish articles within 4 weeks of submission.
All articles must be submitted through our online system. Emailed submissions will be discarded without editorial review. If you encounter technical issues during the submission process, please email [email protected].Before submitting your own article, please read through the six steps to publish a research paper in Cureus below.
The submitting author enters all article information, including all co-authors with corresponding affiliations, and adds the article text along with any relevant media. The author is then required to disclose any relevant conflicts of interest and adhere to any relevant ethics statements. Lastly, the author enters contact information for at least five potential advisers. For a more detailed look at the research paper submission and publishing process, please refer to our comprehensive Author Instructions. The author submits the article for Editor Check, a preliminary review by the Cureus editorial team. Based on this review, the article is directed down one of the following paths:
Approved for Peer Review
If all Cureus editorial requirements have been met, the article will be approved for peer review with no editing fees required. (All review article submissions require the purchase of our Preferred Editing service.)
Preferred Editing Purchase Required
Review articles and submissions containing multiple formatting and/or language errors will require the purchase of our Preferred Editing service to proceed to peer review. During this step in the publishing process, the research paper cannot be edited while deferred for Preferred Editing. (Articles submitted through Academic or Commercial Channels or to a Cureus publishing competition are exempt from Preferred Editing.)
3rd Party Editing Service Required
If severe language issues are present, language editing from a third-party service will be required prior to resubmission.
Deferred for Revisions
The following issues will require correction by the author before our editorial review can proceed. If these errors are not fixed after the first article deferral or other errors are found (references, subheaders, spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.), Preferred Editing must be purchased to move forward with peer review and publication.
- Scientific/study-related revisions needed
- Too much text is duplicated from cited sources
- Tables that are incomprehensible, contain multiple values in a single cell or are submitted as figures
- Missing media items
- Videos that don’t play
- Visible identifying patient information
- Figures that are blurry, stretched, skewed, too dark or require cropping
Desk Rejected
The article is outside the scope of the journal, not applicable to the global healthcare community or is otherwise ill-suited for publication (e.g. faulty study design).
Blocked
The article is in direct violation of our submission policies (e.g. plagiarism, academic fraud, attempts to circumvent peer or editorial review). Authors attempting to publish medical articles blocked for plagiarism or fraud, or otherwise circumventing the steps to publishing a research paper through our journal, will be permanently banned from Cureus.
The article earns preliminary acceptance and is approved for peer review after the following has been confirmed:
- All Cureus editorial requirements have been addressed.
- Preferred Editing service has been purchased if required.
- Professional third-party language editing services have been utilized if required.
Upon approval for peer review, invitations are emailed to six independent peer reviewers selected by the journal. Invitations to provide advisory feedback are also sent to the Advisers suggested by the author. During peer review, the author can send reminders to peer reviewers via the author dashboard.
The article is unlocked for editing when two peer reviews have been submitted. Prior to submitting the research article for final editorial approval and publishing, the author may now choose to:
- Wait for additional reviews (all article versions are saved and available to the author and reviewers) before revising, responding to each reviewer comment, and submitting for publication approval (Editor Approval) while also providing an explanation of the revisions.
- Make revisions and request that the article be re-reviewed by one or more reviewers who completed a review.
- Make revisions, respond to each reviewer comment, and submit for publication approval while also providing an explanation of the revisions.
Authors have the option to end the peer review period for all reviewers once their article has satisfied our peer review requirements. If chosen, this option will expire all outstanding and in-progress reviews, with the exception of any reviews that were started within the prior 48 hours. These reviewers are given a maximum of 24 hours to submit their review. However, the review period may end sooner if the author revises and submits for research publication approval.
Once the article has been submitted for Editor Approval, an associate editor will conduct a final editorial review to confirm the article’s suitability for publication. This part of our research paper publishing process includes ensuring that all peer reviewer comments have been acknowledged and addressed appropriately. Adviser feedback is not considered during this editor evaluation process.
If the revised manuscript does not adequately reflect reviewer feedback, the associate editor is likely to defer publishing the research article. The author is then notified that further revision is required. If a completed peer review is determined to be illegitimate, the review will be rejected and the article returned to peer review (if the article no longer satisfies Cureus review requirements after the rejection).
After the associate editor has completed their review and approved the article for eventual publication, the article will enter the copy editing queue. Non-Preferred Editing articles may be deferred back to the submitting author for formatting and language revisions prior to the start of copy editing. The copy editor may also choose to email the submitting author directly with questions. The article is approved for publication when copy editing has been completed and the author is notified that they can now sign in, review their article one last time, and publish the research article from their dashboard.