The Journal of General Physiology
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last updated June 17, 2009

EDITORIAL POLICIES OF
THE JOURNAL OF GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY

The Journal of General Physiology is published by The Rockefeller University Press and is edited in cooperation with the Society of General Physiologists. The Editor is appointed by the President of The Rockefeller University after consultation with the Council of the Society of General Physiologists. The Associate Editors and the Editorial Advisory Board members are appointed by the Editor. The Editor and the Associate Editors meet weekly to consider manuscript decisions. The policies and practices of the Journal are established by the Editor with the advice of the Associate Editors and the Editorial Advisory Board. There is one annual Editorial Advisory Board meeting, held in close proximity to the Spring Council meeting of the Society of General Physiologists.

[UP] Scope of Publication

The Journal strives to publish original work of the highest quality that elucidates basic biological, chemical, or physical mechanisms of broad physiological significance. Apart from general importance, scientific quality, and rigor, the major criteria for acceptance are: originality; definitive mechanistic information; and interest to a broad readership. The Journal publishes articles that strive to understand integrative function through innovative model simulations; conventional theoretical articles will be published only if they deal with subjects about which the Journal often has published experimental studies—or if they are submitted as a companion to an experimental article that depends upon the theoretical article in some significant way. Methodological articles will be published only if they provide a significant advance in areas where the Journal regularly publishes experimental studies. Articles that are scientifically sound may be rejected because they are felt to lack novelty or breadth of appeal.

Types of Articles. Apart from solicited Commentaries, Perspectives, Editorials, Brief Reviews, and Milestones in Physiology, the Journal publishes Regular Articles, Tutorial Research Articles, Communications, and Letters to the Editor. There are no upper or lower page limits for Regular Articles, but it is expected that they are written in a concise style to conserve space in the Journal. Tutorial Research Articles are regular articles that address problems about which the Journal often has published experimental studies, using methods that are likely to be new or unfamiliar to the Journal’s readers, and therefore are presented in a more pedagogical (lengthy) manner than usual. Communications are short articles, no longer than six printed pages.  Discoveries that open up new areas of research, or provide unexpected insights into important problems, often can be reported succinctly.  Communications should be organized and prepared like Regular Articles, except that they cannot include online supplemental material. Letters to the Editor are short communications, no more than two printed pages, that comment upon, criticize, or interpret findings published in the Journal. The acceptability of Tutorials, Communications, and Letters to the Editor are subject to the same reviewing and editorial procedures that apply to Regular articles, as described under Review Process and Editorial Decision Making.

[UP] Review Process and Editorial Decision Making

Solicited Commentaries, Milestones in Physiology, and Editorials usually will be reviewed only by the Editor and the Associate Editors; Perspectives and Brief Reviews will also have one or more outside reviewers. All other manuscripts are subject to a uniform and rigorous review. After a manuscript is received, it is first evaluated by the editors. Manuscripts that are deemed to be inappropriate for the Journal, and manuscripts of poor quality or with serious deficiencies, will be returned to the author(s) after this initial review by the editors. For manuscripts that pass this initial review, a list of possible expert reviewers is drawn up; it may include reviewers suggested by the authors. (Requests to exempt certain potential reviewers may be honored if the grounds appear reasonable.)

In the case of Letters to the Editor, the letter will be sent to the authors of the work that is commented upon, with a request that they provide a written response. The letter plus the response then will be subject to review — usually by the reviewers of the original article(s). Based on this review, the Journal may publish the Letter to the Editor with or without a response.

The Editor, the Associate Editors, or Editorial Advisory Board members may from time to time suggest to a scientist that he/she should submit a manuscript on a specific topic to the Journal. Such suggestions do not imply that the manuscript will receive a favorable review.

Possible reviewers are generally contacted by email to ascertain their availability as reviewers of the manuscript. Two (sometimes three) expert reviewers are selected, and PDF copies of the manuscript are sent to them electronically. The reviewers may be requested to send the editors a preliminary evaluation of the manuscript's importance and originality, of the quality of its presentation, and of the time required to review it. If both reviewers give a manuscript a low score, and the editors affirm that evaluation, the manuscript will not be reviewed further, but will be returned to the author(s) with an explanatory letter. Otherwise, the manuscript will be reviewed according to the standards of the Journal. This procedure is intended to expedite decisions on manuscripts that are deemed unlikely to compete successfully for space in the Journal, and to provide guidance to the authors of these manuscripts.

Manuscripts that receive a complete review are carefully evaluated by the editors at the editorial meetings. Decisions are made at the discretion of the Editor and Associate Editors, who are guided not only by their own judgment of, and the reviewers' advice on, the manuscript's scientific merit, novelty, and mechanistic insights, but also by its appropriateness to the Journal and by the number of articles currently under consideration or in press. If reviewers disagree strongly about the scientific merit of a manuscript, the editors may request the advice of an additional reviewer or an Advisory Editor.

Except in special circumstances, manuscripts that fall within the following categories are unlikely to be accepted:

Manuscripts that rely on quantitative modeling and simulations to interpret the experimental results will be judged by whether the underlying chemical or physical model is appropriate for the biological system at hand (see Editorial in the October 1999 issue of the Journal).

Authors are informed of editorial decisions by email. While manuscripts are not assigned to specific editors, decision letters are signed by the person who drafted them--based on the group discussion. All correspondence should be addressed to the Editor.

Reviewers' comments are usually, but not always, sent to the author. Correspondence concerning a manuscript will be seen by persons other than the author, as a copy of each review usually is sent to the other reviewer or reviewers. A copy of the editors' letter advising the author that an article has been accepted or declined, or that it may be resubmitted in revised form, is sent to each reviewer.

Reviewer Anonymity. Except when a reviewer explicitly wishes to be identified, the editors will maintain the anonymity of the reviewers. It is similarly assumed that reviewers will not identify themselves to authors without informing the editors. The editors discourage such disclosures.

[UP] Acceptance, Revision, Rejections, and Rebuttals

Articles rarely are accepted without having been revised. Usually, manuscripts are either accepted provisionally, pending suitable revisions; returned for major revisions and subsequently re-evaluated; or rejected. In some cases, authors of rejected manuscripts are invited to resubmit a new or revised manuscript, contingent on their being able to satisfy the major criticisms of the reviewers by revision, or by additional experimentation and consequent rewriting and revision. All revised manuscripts are subject to careful reexamination and may be reviewed again, possibly by new reviewers. To avoid long, drawn-out negotiations, only one major revision of a manuscript is permitted.

The revised manuscript must be received in the Editorial Office within three months of the date of the decision letter. Revised manuscripts that are received at a later date will be treated as new submissions, unless the Editor has been notified in writing (email is preferable) of the delay and agreed in writing to receive the revised manuscript at a later date.

All revised and resubmitted manuscripts should be accompanied by a letter that details how the manuscript was modified in light of the reviewers' comments. A carefully crafted resubmission letter that explicitly addresses each of the issues raised by the reviewers will facilitate, and usually accelerate, the review and editorial decision making. The resubmission letter must be signed by the corresponding author, and include a formal statement that all authors have seen and approved the revisions. If one or more authors are added or deleted from the manuscript, all authors (including those deleted) must sign the resubmission letter or in some other way notify the Editor in writing that they agree with this decision. If this information is not provided, the manuscript will be returned unreviewed.

If authors disagree with comments made by reviewers, their reasons should be stated in the resubmission letter. Authors should note, however, that their responses to the reviews usually are disclosed to the reviewers. If the editors find the authors' response to be inappropriate, the letter and the manuscript will be returned with a request to modify the letter of rebuttal (maybe also the manuscript).

If the authors believe that a serious scientific error occurred during the review, they should write to the Editor and explain the reasons why the editors should reconsider the decision. Usually, the Editor and the Associate Editors will consult with one or both of the original reviewers and with one or more Editorial Advisory Board members. In some cases, the final decision will be based largely on the recommendations of the Editorial Advisory Board members or original reviewers, in other cases an additional reviewer is sought.

In case a rejected manuscript is resubmitted without an explicit invitation to do so, the manuscript usually will be returned without further review. In exceptional cases, the original reviewers may be asked whether the revision appears sufficient to overcome their initial reservations. The reviewers will base that determination solely on the resubmission letter and the abstract of the revised manuscript. A positive preliminary determination will engender a full review.

In the case of Letters to the Editor, the publication of a letter does not commit the Journal to publish a reply.

Communications between Authors and the Editorial Office. Questions regarding the status of a manuscript are handled by the Editorial Office staff. To keep the office functioning smoothly, authors are asked to keep such queries to a minimum, and whenever possible to communicate via JGP{at}mail.rockefeller.edu. In any case, the Editorial Office will provide information only to the designated corresponding author, and will not provide extensive details (such as the status of review process or the expected time of decision).

More complex problems concerning the manuscript should be directed to the Editor through the Editorial Office. Such inquiries should be in writing (JGP{at}mail.rockefeller.edu is acceptable). The Editorial Office will maintain a complete file of the communications relating to each manuscript. To ensure consistency and fairness, the Editor usually will discuss the authors' concerns with the Associate Editors, and possibly also the reviewers and one or more Editorial Advisory Board members be fore responding to the authors in writing or by telephone, as appropriate.

[UP] Manuscripts Submitted by the Editor or Associate Editors

To avoid concerns of bias in the review of manuscripts submitted by the Editor or Associate Editors, those manuscripts will handled by a Guest Editor (usually a member of the Editorial Advisory Board). Manuscripts submitted by close collaborators of the Editor or Associate Editors will be handled in a similar manner, as well as those submitted by any former Editors or Associate Editors who left the position within the last 3 years. Manuscripts submitted by members of the Editorial Advisory Board will be treated as any ordinary manuscript.

[UP] Time from Submission to Editorial Decision to Publication

The Editorial Office strives to minimize the time from submission to the first decision. Currently, the median time from the date of submission to the date of the decision letter is about 31 days. The actual time varies widely from manuscript to manuscript. The editors note that the review process tends to take longer for large and complex manuscripts, or pairs of manuscripts, and for manuscripts that are poorly prepared (but potentially very interesting). Communications will not be subject to accelerated review; nevertheless, short manuscripts tend to be reviewed faster than longer manuscripts, and we expect that the median time from submission to decision will be less than for Regular Articles. The Journal takes pride in the depth and rigor of the reviews, but reviewers do a voluntary service to the Journal (and the authors), and the Editorial Office can do no more than remind reviewers when they are tardy.

Articles will be printed as soon as possible after acceptance, but not necessarily in the order of receipt of the final version.

[UP] Access to Materials and Data

As a condition of publication, authors must make unique materials (e.g., cloned DNAs; antibodies; bacterial, animal, or plant cells; viruses; and computer programs) published in the Journal, available upon request by academic researchers; who may use them in their own laboratory only. In addition, the source code for all computational methods, apart from commercial software packages, must be made freely available. If requested, these materials must be made available without undue delay. It would be reasonable if authors of published articles charge a modest amount to cover the cost of producing the materials. If readers have difficulty obtaining materials, they should contact the Journal's editorial office. Author's failure to comply with this condition will preclude future publication in the Journal.

Nucleic acid and protein sequences, microarray data, and structural data must be deposited in a public database and must be available on the date of publication. Relevant accession numbers must be included in the manuscript text.

For molecular models, the peptide backbone coordinates plus the coordinates of important side chains emphasized in the text should be made available as Online Supplemental Material, in Protein Data Bank (PDB) format.

Submission to a Public Access database. The complete content of the JGP will be posted on PubMed Central and UK PubMed Central, where it will be available to the public 6 months after the publication date. There is no need for authors to submit their papers independently to these repositories. This service is free of charge.

[UP] Editorial Practices at the Journal of General Physiology

Selecting reviewers

When a manuscript is submitted, we peruse the text and figures and scrutinize the suggested reviewers as well as the authors’ requests for excluding specific individuals. In most cases we comply with the requests, particularly when the authors include an appropriate list of expert reviewers. Sometimes, however, authors exclude most, if not all, experts in the field and suggest people who to the editors’ knowledge have not published in the area, as determined by a PubMed search. This can work against the authors’ interests, however, if the reviewers indeed were too removed from the work to fully appreciate its significance. In such cases, the reviewers might find that the manuscript represents only an incremental advance, which usually would be sufficient reason for the manuscript to merit a reject letter. But is that the right decision, given that the reviewers were not experts (which they not infrequently pointed out)? The only way to resolve the dilemma may be to request one of individuals on the “please exclude” list to review the manuscript, which often leads to a detailed review in which the reviewer identifies why the manuscript has the potential to become an important contribution, and then go on to identify what would have to be done in order to fulfill the potential. This is generally a helpful review; yet, at times the “expert” reviewer can be unreasonably picky. The editors spend considerable time discussing such situations, where we are guided by all the reviews, our own independent reading and evaluation of the manuscript and, at times, additional consultation with experts in the field. If it is decided to invite the submission of a revised version, we continue to monitor the process carefully, to ensure convergence.

We consider authors’ reasoned requests to exempt possible candidates when selecting reviewers, and there are “toxic” author-reviewer combinations that we keep in mind and avoid. In most cases, however, we find that the authors’ concerns are unfounded. Based on our experiences described above, we therefore may request the advice of an individual on the “please exclude” list when we assign reviewers. In any case, potential reviewers may disqualify themselves because they are uncomfortable by the similarities between their own work and that reported in the manuscript, and therefore wish to avoid any impression of impropriety.

Reviewing the reviews

When we receive the reviews, the reviewers provide a score (ranging from “A” to “F”), Comments to the Authors, and usually also Confidential Comments to the Editors. The editors read all the comments to determine whether the scores and the narrative comments are concordant and the comments are informative; in effect, the reviews are rated. The editors then go over the manuscript to form their own evaluation. When the reviewers concur, and the editor agree with their assessment, the situation is simple and one of the editors writes the decision letter which then is considered by the group. Sometimes, however, there is significant divergence in the reviewers’ assessments of a manuscript—scores of “A” and “F” for the same manuscript are not uncommon. Such cases are discussed at length among the editors. When we cannot identify why the reviewers have such divergent evaluations, we request the advice of a third (and in a few cases, a fourth) expert. When we can identify the reason(s) for the divergence based on our own evaluation of the manuscript (and reviews), we make the decision without additional reviews.

The most frequent reason for divergence between the reviewers is that the manuscript has the potential to become an important contribution, but that it also has one or more flaws; one reviewer focuses on the potential, the other on the flaw(s). In such cases the editorial decision may be to invite the submission of a revised version of the manuscript. Often, however, the decision is to reject the manuscript but invite the authors to submit a new version (new receipt date and manuscript number)—provided they resolve the reviewers’ major concerns (and address all their other concerns). The resulting manuscript usually will be sent to three reviewers (the two original reviewers, if available, plus a new reviewer) in order to facilitate the editorial decision process. In any case, the invitation to submit a new version of the manuscript is meant seriously; if we do not believe that the new version of the manuscript is likely to fare well in a subsequent review, we do not extend the invitation. Indeed, the acceptance rate for new versions of manuscripts that are submitted after the initial rejection is about twice the overall acceptance rate.

The decision to invite the submission of a new version, rather than a revised version, of the manuscript is based on the editors’ assessment of the effort that would be required to resolve the reviewers’ concerns. If we find that essential experiments are missing, or if the authors need to undertake a major additional analysis of the results—i.e., if the original manuscript was too preliminary—we invite the authors to submit a new manuscript rather than a revised version of the manuscript.

Revision and resubmission

When the editors ask the authors to submit an ordinary revised version, we indicate whether the manuscript definitely will be evaluated again by the reviewers, or whether it may be evaluated again. In the latter case, if we cannot evaluate whether the authors have responded satisfactorily to the reviewers’ concerns, we send the manuscript out for additional evaluation. A carefully crafted letter, in which the authors clearly indicate how they have responded to the reviewers’ concerns—point by point— therefore facilitates the editorial decision. A common error is that the authors provide lengthy responses in the resubmission letter but have made more modest changes in the manuscript. If the authors believe that the lengthy responses are necessary in order to educate the reviewers, who are experts, they should include the detailed responses in the revised manuscript. We may return a revised manuscript to the authors with a request to incorporate the responses in the letter into a further revised version, which we then will evaluate (and maybe send out to the reviewers).

Not infrequently, a manuscript receives lackluster reviews because the authors wrote the manuscript in a manner that did not make clear why the study was important. This may be the case when the manuscript provides information that may question current dogma. If the authors do not clearly inform the readers, including the reviewers, why the problem and the results are important, the reviewers may find that the manuscript adds confusion rather than insight. The editors strive to identify such situations in order to advise the authors how to resolve them. Generally, though the full importance of a manuscript may be appreciated by only a few experts (competitors), it should be accessible to all readers of the Journal. The authors should aim to educate the non-expert reader, which may include the editors, and write the manuscript with sufficient clarity to achieve that goal.

The Role of Supplemental Material

Related to this point, we encourage authors to make use of the possibility to make some material available as online Supplemental Material. If, for example, the manuscript includes an in–depth analysis of various kinetic models of channel gating or ion permeation, do all the unsuccessful models need to be described in detail in the article? In many cases, it will suffice to include only the most successful model(s) in the text, and to place others in the Supplemental Material, to be available for those experts who are also interested in knowing what models did not work. The Supplemental Material section should not be abused, however, by the inclusion of material that is essential for the reader’s comprehension of the article. So, apart from videos and similar dynamic material that only can be made available as Supplemental Material, the guiding principle for what to include in the Supplemental Material section is that the article should be read and understood without consulting the Supplemental Materials section.

Appropriateness of an article for the Journal: mechanism and models

Authors, reviewers and editors spend considerable efforts to ascertain whether a manuscript is appropriate for the Journal of General Physiology and how a manuscript can be revised to accomplish the Journal’s mission—to publish original work of the highest quality that elucidates basic biological, chemical, or physical mechanisms of broad physiological significance. The expectation that the articles provide mechanistic insight has served the Journal well; it also has been cause for much uncertainty, mostly pertaining to what constitutes mechanistic insight?

Particular problems arise in manuscripts that have extensive modeling. The Journal publishes many such articles, and we are proud to do so. When evaluating such manuscripts, we are guided by the principle that the theory and modeling must provide mechanistic insight.

On the one hand, general physiology is a quantitative science, meaning that it increasingly becomes necessary to design and interpret experiments using an appropriate mathematical framework. This is particularly important in the case of the organ or the whole organism, where rigorous analysis and simulation of increasingly complex models will be required to integrate new findings at the molecular (or cellular) level into an understanding of the higher-order function. Function is measured—usually by a number—and real understanding of function means that one can account for the magnitude of that number and not just make qualitative predictions of the direction of an effect. Model development and analysis therefore often will be necessary in order to arrive at “mechanistic insight”, and authors tend to put considerable efforts into this endeavor.

On the other hand, models represent an idealization of the system under study and the choice of model, as well as the approximations or assumptions that are imbedded in the model building may be problematic—if not inappropriate or simply wrong. Though the experimental results may be very important, the model used for the mechanistic interpretation may be questionable; a situation that causes considerable frustration for authors, reviewers and editors alike. As a general guide to the authors, the Journal’s policies state “Manuscripts that rely on quantitative modeling and simulations to interpret the experimental results will be judged by whether the underlying chemical or physical model is appropriate for the biological system at hand (cf. Editorial in the October 1999 issue of The Journal)”.

Particular difficulties arise when the experimental study was designed to test a particular mechanism, and the reviewers (or editors) then question the underlying hypotheses or approximations that were made in order to evaluate the model. Models tend to take on a life of their own, meaning that the truth value of statements such as “I have this model, which should not taken too seriously” is likely to be below that of “I am from the government; I am here to help you”.

The editors spend considerable time to resolve such situations; first by evaluating whether the reviewers’ concerns are appropriate for the problem at hand, and then by trying to resolve the situation to the authors’ (and reviewers’) satisfaction. In some cases the appropriate course of action is to redo the modeling effort, after dealing with the problematic issues. Sometimes, however, we advise the authors that “less is more” or “better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong” and to focus on the key results and the “logic” of the underlying processes—the “model-independent” conclusions—if such can be drawn. In the end, the key criterion for whether a manuscript is appropriate for the Journal is whether the readers would think differently about the problem after reading the article. If they would, the manuscript appropriate. If they would not, no amount of modeling can rescue the manuscript. This is a somewhat subjective criterion, but we believe that it has served the Journal and its authors well.

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