At JMIR Publications, we provide authors the opportunity to review the copyediting changes, respond to any comments from the copyeditor, and provide their input on the copyedited manuscript in order to ensure that the manuscript is in the best-possible shape for publication.
Post-acceptance journey
Once an article is accepted, we await payment of the Article Processing Fee (APF, if applicable; see Payments FAQ if you have any questions), after which the article enters the Copyediting process. If authors need to upload a revised manuscript or make major changes to the references post-acceptance, they should do so and upload the revised file to our system before the APF is paid and before the article enters Copyediting. Please ensure that all references you intended to cite are in the reference list. It is not possible to make major modifications to the reference list after copyediting has commenced, because the copyeditor extracts references into a database where they can be reviewed/corrected by the author online (see RefCheck). Once copyediting commences, the manuscript file also cannot be changed.
For the steps after acceptance, please see My paper has been accepted, what are the next steps? If you have been contacted by our Editorial-Production Controller, please see here instead.
If you have queries about the copyediting process, you can file a ticket at copyed-support@jmir.org.
Copyediting process
The Copyediting process at JMIR Publications comprises 3 steps:
Step 1
- In Step 1 of the copyediting process, the copyeditor downloads the manuscript received from the editor and edits the manuscript for English language in accordance with the AMA style guidelines (11th edition) and the JMIR style guidelines.
- Our copyeditors use Microsoft Word's Track Changes function to edit manuscripts and use the Comments feature to add any queries for the authors.
- The copyeditor deletes the figures and references from the source manuscript, as these will hereon be handled in the JMIR online system only (references are moved into RefCheck; figures are moved to the article webpage).
- The copyeditor edits the author metadata form to apply journal style.
- Once all tasks for Step 1 have been completed, the copyeditor sends an "Initial Copyediting Completed" email to the author to initiate Step 2.
Step 2
- Step 2 of copyediting is the author's review stage.
- At this point, the author needs to complete 5 substeps (2a-2e) to move the article forward in the copyediting process.
- We have provided a step-by-step guide on completing this stage here: What are the authors' responsibilities during copyediting (Step 2)?
Step 3
- In step 3, copyeditors review the author's revised Step 2 manuscript, incorporate any additional changes/clarifications received from the author, and do a final clean up of the manuscript to prepare it for typesetting.
- If there are any pending issues from Step 2 that were not addressed by the authors, the copyeditor will email the authors to seek the required clarifications. We request that you respond to your copyeditor's email promptly, so that we can adhere to the publication schedule for your manuscript.
- The copyeditor will then upload the Step 3 revised document to our system and mark Step 3 complete.
This marks the end of the copyediting process for an article. Please refrain from contacting the copyeditor beyond this point, as they will not be able to make any further changes to the article either. If you wish to contact our staff after the copyediting process is complete, you can reach out to us at prod-support@jmir.org.
After copyediting, the author's point of contact is the Production Editor. Our Production Editors will typeset your manuscript and send authors a PDF file for final proofreading. The next stage after Copyediting is Proofreading - see What should the author do when proofreading the final galleys?
No substantial changes will be made beyond the copyediting stage. Step 2 of copyediting is the final stage for authors to make content-related (language or data) changes. Any additional changes requested beyond this point may warrant an additional fee, and we reserve the right to charge authors for additional work if the author requests content-related changes during the Proofreading stage.
See also: