What are the authors' responsibilities during copyediting?

Authors take part in copyediting during step 2. Detailed instructions are as follows:

1. Review the copyedited MANUSCRIPT and respond to copyeditor’s queries
   
   • Log into the journal website http://www.jmir.org/author/submissionEditing/{$articleId}
   • Download and open the Initial Copyedit File
   • Turn on the "track changes" function in Word before making changes and responding to queries
   • Please note that we use American spelling and the AMA styleguide, so please do not revert any such changes made by the copyeditor.

      

2. Review and correct the REFERENCES, using the Web-based interface (RefCheck)
   • The references should have already been removed by the copyeditor in this version of the manuscript
   • Please review all references online (click the link "check references"). Note that this RefCheck form is optimized for Firefox/Safari and may not work properly in Internet Explorer.
   • Please check each field for each reference carefully, as some fields may not have been parsed correctly. Fields marked with an asterisks (*) are required. Note that the correct reference elements are required for XML tagging and depositing in PubMed Central.
   • Always use the PMID/DOI/ISSN lookup function when the reference has one of these elements. Most fields will autopopulate/overwrite incorrect information in existing fields if the information is available on Medline, ISBNdb, Crossref databases. (PMID works much better than DOIs as publishers sometimes do not submit complete metadata for the DOI)
   • Save each reference after checking and making the appropriate changes. When this has been done correctly, a green checkmark will appear by each reference. A red line indicates that a mandatory field is missing/incomplete, and requires fixing.
   • Please address editorial comments left with references when applicable.
   • No references can be inserted or deleted at this stage! You can only REPLACE a reference if absolutely needed. We can also not change the order of the references at this stage.
   • The RefCheck form is a JMIR innovation and currently in beta-test. We are interested in your opinion and feedback. To our knowledge, JMIR is the only journal employing this workflow. Please email any issues and feedback to jmir.tech@gmail.com, with cc to geysenba@gmail.com, or leave feedback in the "completed" email notification to the copyeditor.

      

3. Review the Metadata
   • In particular all author names, first initials, degrees, affiliations, etc, and your Abstract, using the Web-based metadata form. See attached PDF or http://www.jmir.org/front/pdf/{$articleId}/1 for a preview of your metadata (this preview should reflect changes you make in real-time). Circulate the PDF with co-authors so they can check their information as well (authors will not be able to access the link as they have different accounts).
   • http://www.jmir.org/author/viewMetadata/{$articleId}, where [{$articleId} is your article number]
   • Make sure that all your co-authors, including their middle names (eg, "Smith AJ" instead of "Smith A"), etc, and their affiliations are correctly entered. Only changes saved on the metadata form will be reflected in the final publication.
   • If co-authors are missing, please click ADD AUTHOR to add them.
   • Make sure that the order of authors in the metadata reflect the order that should be displayed in the final manuscript.
   • Do not use short forms or acronyms; for example, an affiliation like "Nursing" should be changed into "Department of Nursing", and acronyms like "UHN" should be resolved (eg, "University Health Network").
   • Affiliations are usually in title case (which means that all words except minor words like "of" or "on" are capitalized). Do not enter information in ALL CAPS or all lower case (department of nursing). Do not abbreviate "Dep" or "Dept", with or without periods.
   • If authors have multiple affiliations, ALL affiliations must be enteredNote that author degrees can be sorted from lowest (earliest obtained) to highest. Use the arrow up/down buttons in the metadata form to resort them (degrees at the top appear first)
   • City names, if from US or Canada, should be followed by the State/Province abbreviation (eg, "Bethesda, MD" or "Toronto, ON")
   • A footnote "these authors contributed equally" will be rendered for any two or more authors where the "equal contribution" dropdown selection is set to "yes". This can be used to indicate if for example the first two authors or the first and last author contributed "equally" (it is at the discretion of authors to determine what this means). If all authors are checked, a footnote "All authors contributed equally" will be rendered. However, rather than (or in addition to) using these footnotes, we encourage a section "Authors' Contributions" in the manuscript, which specifies the exact contributions in a narrative form.

      

4. Review Figures and Multimedia Appendices intended for publication including their captions
   • Make sure that all Figures and Multimedia Appendices intended for publishing are numbered.
   • Make sure that all Figures and Multimedia Appendices intended for publishing are cited in the manuscript (neither the copyeditor nor the typesetter knows which files were intended for publication unless this is done).
   • Click on EDIT to edit the Figure or Multimedia Appendix caption. Do not include "Figure #" or "Multimedia Appendix #" in the caption; these will be autogenerated, preceding the actual caption in the final publication.
   • Please make sure that you have uploaded all figures in PNG format. Please ensure the largest side is 1200 pixels.
5. Complete a quick survey to provide us with feedback on your copyediting experience.

Related:

• Step 2(a) How do I respond to copyeditors' queries?
• Step 2(b) What is the RefCheck process?
• Step 2(c) How do I edit/correct/enter article metadata before publication?
• Step 2(d) What are the guidelines for supplementary files?