Frequently asked questions

Is my paper suitable for publication?

Potential authors often send abstracts of their proposed paper and ask if we would be able to publish it in JCSE. Providing there is at least some link with corrosion, the answer is always yes, but authors need to understand that this is qualified by the way JCSE works, which is not like a conventional paper-based journal. All reputable scientific journals undertake to test the papers that they publish against standards of 'scientific correctness'. Conventional Journals do this at the submission stage. At JCSE we publish the submitted paper without any review as a preprint. This is subsequently subject to conventional peer review, following which it is published as a full paper.

It is important for authors to realise that their paper will be exposed to the general public in exactly the form that it is submitted. It is, therefore, in authors' interests to ensure that their paper is suitable for publication.

Why are so many papers still in preprint form?

JCSE is produced without any financial support, except for a small income from the adverts that appear on many pages (this is currently so small that it has not been worth withdrawing it from our account). Consequently, the management of the paper editing and review process is a 'spare-time' activity, and sadly we have very little spare time, so this has got very much behind our intended timescale.

We are working on a new implementation of the Journal software that will automate many of these processes, and make it possible for us to appoint associate editors who will be able to assist with the management of the paper review process (this is not currently feasible because if the need for much of the management to operate by way of direct access to the database). It is hoped that this system will come online in November or December 2007. There will still be a large backlog of papers to complete, but we shall then be able to concentrate on doing this.

Why haven't I heard from you?

If you are waiting for a response from us, then there are several possible explanations:

1. We have mislaid your message - this is not impossible, although it does not happen very often. It is less likely to happen if you include the acronym 'JCSE' in your message, since this makes it easy for us to locate messages relating to JCSE.
2. The paper has been discarded by our spam filtering system. Unfortunately this is now a significant possibility thanks to the sheer volume of spam that we receive. It is very likely to happen if you send us messages without a subject, or if you use 'spam-like' subjects such as "Why haven't you contacted me".
3. Your message has got lost in transmission. This is relatively rare, although it is more likely for large messages, such as messages with attached documents. While you should get a message to say that the delivery has failed, this does not always happen.
4. We have replied, but the message has failed to be delivered. We find that it is quite common for authors' email addresses to fail, especially for 'open access' addresses such as Hotmail, Yahoo and the like (presumably because these addresses are revoked if not used regularly). We aim to set up a page with a list of 'missing authors' so that you can check whether has happened to you.
5. If you write asking why your paper has not yet been published, then we tend to feel that it is better to spend our limited time trying to get papers published, rather than explaining why papers have not yet been published. Hopefully the new software system will reduce the need for such questions in the future.

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