July 23, 2025 • 24 mins
How long should it take to publish your veterinary research? What happens when a journal promises publication in just 40 days? And how have publication times changed across veterinary medicine in recent years?
Dr. Mark Rishniw joins Veterinary Vertex to discuss his eye-opening research on publication speeds across veterinary journals. Drawing from his analysis of submission-to-publication timelines spanning six years, he reveals how most clinical veterinary publications have dramatically improved their efficiency—with JAVMA transforming from taking two years to publish articles to less than 100 days from submission to publication with robust peer review.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Mark identifies a cluster of journals with publishing speeds that "defy belief." These publications process thousands of articles annually in just 40 days or less, raising serious questions about peer review quality. "How do they find qualified reviewers who will do a critical review that quickly?" Mark asks, noting that specialized journals struggle to find reviewers for just 100 articles per year.
Beyond the data, Mark offers practical advice for researchers navigating the publication landscape. He recommends writing introductions and methods while conducting research, consulting biostatisticians before collecting data, and—most importantly—choosing journals based on audience fit and reputation rather than speed alone. "Don't pick a journal just because it's really quick," he cautions, emphasizing that publication in questionable journals might compromise the credibility of one's work.
Whether you're a seasoned researcher or just beginning your publishing journey, this episode provides crucial insights into the evolving world of veterinary publishing. How will you choose where to publish your next breakthrough? Subscribe to Veterinary Vertex for more conversations that shape the future of veterinary medicine.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:35):
This is Veterinary Vertex, a podcast of the AVMA
Journals.
In this episode, we discuss howmost but not all clinical
veterinary journals haveimproved publication speed of
research articles, with ourguest, mark Vishnu.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Welcome listeners.
I'm Editor-in-Chief LisaFortier, and I'm joined by Sarah
Wright, mark, my friend andcolleague of Cornell for 30 plus
years.
Thank you so much for takingtime out of your busy biking and
working schedule to be with ushere today.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Thank you.
It's a pleasure, Lisa and Sarah.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
All right, let's dive right in.
So, mark, your Javma articlediscusses how most clinical
veterinary journals improveprocess time over the last six
years.
Please share with our listenersthe background on this article.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Yeah, with pleasure.
So about six or seven years agoa friend, a colleague of mine,
pete White, who's a retiredemeritus professor at Cornell,
and I started to look into thepublication speeds of journals
and it was prompted, somewhatfacetiously, by the observation
that Javma would take about twoyears from the time you
(01:39):
submitted till the time thearticle appeared in print.
The time the article appearedin print to the point where we
used to think that the littlecross superscript next to
somebody's name meant that theywere posthumous authors because
they died waiting for theirarticle to appear.
But turns out that wasn't quitethe case, but not far off it.
So we looked at who's doingwhat and how well are they doing
(02:00):
it?
Are there journals that seem tobe on top of the game?
Are there not?
It had been done in medicine, inthe medical and scientific,
other basic scientificliterature a little bit, and
there was a website that wefound, or that I found that,
where somebody had plotted thisover the decades, looking at
publication speeds.
And so we thought, well, let'slook at veterinary journals and
just see how they rank againstothers.
(02:22):
So that was the impetus for thefirst paper and actually never
got published.
But then, through some emailcorrespondence with another
colleague more recently.
It led me to say, well, I canrepeat this to see if that claim
of that colleague was true ornot, that they claimed that they
(02:42):
were, on average, on par withevery other veterinary journal.
And I thought, well, we've gotthe data we can compare and we
can look to see if journals haveimproved, worsened, stayed the
same, what's happened, and givepeople another, you know another
benchmark of journal, ofclinical journals.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, super interesting, mark.
We were talking a little bitabout my career path before we
jumped on to this podcastepisode and how it came from a
clinical Zucorian background tothis role in scholarly
publishing and even as a studentI remember thinking like
knowing it was long publicationtimes, not somewhere you really
want to submit.
So it's been a real pleasure towork with Lisa to really turn
things around and advanceveterinary medicine to and share
(03:19):
and better communicate authors'findings as well communicate
authors' findings as well.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, and it was our observation that JABMA had done
a really good job in the lasttwo years of dramatically
improving publication speeds.
The original work generallysuggested that review times are
immutable.
It takes about six months fromthe time you first submit to the
time it gets accepted give ortake a month or two, but
generally somewhere in thatrange for that first part of a
(03:48):
processing, and that youcouldn't change that.
And then the rest of it was theprocessing time that the
journal takes then to publishthe article once it's been
submitted and accepted.
And again with the improvementsin publication and online
getting manuscripts online,jabmab was stalled for quite a
(04:12):
while in an old model that wasno longer really applicable, and
so I think that was what wefound mostly, although
surprisingly, it was actuallythe review time also that
dramatically improved withcertain journals.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
There are less than 100 days submission and
publication now consistently,which is awesome.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Yeah, I mean it's amazing when most of the
journals we've looked at arecloser to, I would say, eight to
nine months.
So it's not bad, but it's notbrilliant.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, and sometimes I think it's really important to
keep pointing out that we have arobust peer review as well.
Right when I used to go and say, ooh, this is our time to
publication, people were like,yeah, that might not want to be
your biggest bragging pointright now, like we're
author-friendly,reviewer-friendly and lots of
other things.
Actually, that article thatMark was talking about was one
(05:03):
of the pieces of information Ibrought forth in my interview to
the AVMA for the job and I waslike here's the evidence on how
far behind JAVMA and AJVR are.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yeah, there was one other journal, the Journal of
Veterinary Emergency andCritical Care, which was on par
with JAVMA of the past, whichwas on par with Jabma of the
past and, somewhatdisappointingly, even though we
alerted the editor-in-chief ofthat seven years ago, no changes
(05:34):
have substantially happenedwith that journal.
And Pete White and I used tojoke that for a journal
concerned with emergency andcritical care, it's clearly not
an emergency to publish anyinformation to people.
So yeah, emergency and criticalcare, it's clearly not an
emergency to publish anyinformation to people.
So yeah it's.
And and I'm not, we're not umembarrassed to ashay to shame
some of these editors intotrying to improve their game.
If it works, everybody benefitsand I've got no, you know,
(05:57):
horse in the race other thanjust to see people, especially
authors, get stuff out in atimely fashion, especially if
you're trying to credential too.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
I know that was something I was always looking.
Especially authors get stuffout in a timely fashion.
Especially if you're trying tocredential too I know that was
something I was always lookingfor when I was trying to publish
is what's going to be fast andgood and constructive so I can
get this in time for residencyet cetera.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Absolutely, and the number of downloads we've had
and the number of views of ourpaper is both the first one and
the second one.
And the first one we basicallyadvertised it through listservs.
It was published into arepository.
It was never published formallybecause the journals we
approached said oh, this is notinteresting enough.
Suggests that people care aboutthis.
They actually are interested infinding journals that are
(06:37):
responsive but critical.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So what are some of the important take-home messages
from this article?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
The things that we noticed is that, as I say,
mostly the review time has notchanged for most journals.
Some got a little better, somegot a little worse.
I think there were two journalsthat actually had longer review
times than they did seven yearsago, which is somewhat
surprising.
The processing speeds improvedconsiderably because people now
(07:05):
can get articles up andoftentimes in a journal they'll
have an article up within amonth of accepting, which is
pretty reasonable speed, andsome of them are up within a day
.
That's pretty outstanding.
Some within a week, butgenerally within a month or so.
You can see your article onceit's been accepted, but
generally within a month or soyou can see your article once
(07:28):
it's been accepted.
The other big thing that wenoticed was that there were a
small group of journals thathave emerged in the interim
period that appear to havepublication speeds that defy
belief in terms of.
They are outliers from the restof the field, and for a number
of reasons.
One, they routinely havesubmission to publication times
(07:51):
of less than 40 days is what ourmedian was, but oftentimes less
than a month and they publishan order of magnitude more
articles per year than virtuallyany other journal, and they
actually we figured out thatthey publish more articles than
virtually all of the otherjournals combined that we looked
(08:13):
at.
So the question then becomeshow do they find sufficient
reviewers, assuming that theirrejection rates are similar to
other journals and they'reequally critical of the
submissions that they receive?
How do they find qualifiedreviewers who will do a critical
review that quickly?
And I don't know we're notspeculating.
(08:48):
Everybody could do with if weknew how you were managing to
get between 8,000 and 12,000reviewers a year.
That's incredible.
I'm a veterinary cardiologistby training and the Journal of
Veterinary Cardiology published,I think, less than 100 papers
last year, and they claim thatthey struggle to find reviewers
for that journal for just 100papers.
So when you're publishing 3,000or 4,000 papers a year, how are
(09:10):
you finding competent reviewersto do a good job for you when
these small journals strut it?
And that was the other big takehome.
It led to us thinking well,maybe there should be some
cautionary advice for authorslooking for a quick publication
is are you really publishing ina journal that is reputable or
(09:34):
are you going to be sufferinglater on because, yeah, it came
out quickly but nobody believesit?
Or everybody thinks, well, itjust got published in such and
such a journal.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Yeah, oh, really good points.
You know, like findingreviewers is the hardest part,
whether you're Nature or Javmaor any journal.
We've done a ton within thesubmission platform to automate
things like send your reminder,send your reminder, move on to
the next.
And that takes time.
It takes a lot of time to getthat submission platform up and
(10:03):
running.
Yeah, really good words ofcaution for some of the authors
that maybe don't know any better.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
And I feel for some of the editors and the
scientific editors and theeditors-in-chief of some of the
smaller journals, becauseoftentimes it's a part-time job
for them.
So they're working a full-timeacademic career and on top of
this they're going home anddealing with three or four hours
of manuscripts every night, ifthey can, and having a family
and trying to have a life, andit becomes difficult.
I appreciate that.
(10:33):
So Jabma, I think, has a verycoveted position of having
full-time editorial staff and areasonable number of editorial
staff that allow you to do thisas a, you know, as a career
rather than just as a sideline.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, very true, and as a result of your article,
other editors have reached outto me and I have the same
philosophy that you do.
We're all on the same team forthe pets.
I'm happy to share any tips andtricks.
I just recently shared ourrevision letter that, as you
know, has exact examples on howto write a revision in your
(11:12):
manuscript, and they're like ooh, thank you for that.
I'm happy to share any of thatstuff too.
We share the same philosophy.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
You touched a little bit earlier on the first article
and publication speed and thenthe second one.
Was it just like hanging aroundnoodling with Professor
Emeritus White that came up withthat idea, or how did that idea
spark in your mind in the firstplace?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
I think it was because of something that we
tried to submit back in the dayto JABMA and how long it was
taking to come out.
Um, and so it just becomes abee in my bonnet and I start to,
you know, like a terrier goingdown a rabbit hole, and I'm just
not going to give up.
And so I thought, well, let's,let's just see how other
journals do.
And it was just a, you know,just curiosity.
(11:58):
So this one was then againsparked by a second journal
where I was struggling, where wehad a paper that seemed a
fairly straightforwardmanuscript and it took over a
year to go through review withfour rounds of revisions.
It seemed like either thereviewers were stalling us for
some sort of political gain orthe editors were just being
bogged down and unable to makeit an editorial decision that
(12:21):
this is enough.
It's.
Either we're going to you knowexcuse it the french, and I'm
not going to say it um, uh, youknow or get off the pot, and
we'd be happy to cut our lossesif that was what it was.
But it just kept us draggingout and each revision took three
months to come back when it waslike, okay, we've addressed
these changes.
Why?
(12:41):
Why can't the reviewer see thisin three days, say yes, no,
done and move on.
So yeah, that was thefrustration.
It's all borne out byfrustration.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Well, there's no shortage of curiosity in Mark
Rishnu.
We know that too.
You already described some ofthe really cool findings, but
anytime we do a study,something's like wow, I didn't
expect that.
What surprised you from lookingat the data in this article?
Speaker 4 (13:09):
I think it was the small group of the super fast
journals.
Partly I sort of expected,because I'd already published
several papers since Lisa hadtaken over with Javma, so I knew
that Javma had improveddramatically.
So part of it was also ahighlight and I also felt that
(13:31):
if I can make Javma look goodshe's going to accept the paper.
So there was a selfish interestthere, Maybe, there, Maybe.
But yeah.
So those were the big things.
And then you know, theexpectants were that online
speed getting from acceptance toonline publication is pretty
(13:53):
consistent now and should haveimproved the overall time, and
it seems to have done that formost journals.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
So, mark, is there anything else in the future?
Future Hopper, so any otherlike next steps, future research
in this topic?
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Not on this particular topic at the moment.
Um, I, you know I've always gotstuff in the Hopper, but, um,
you know, I've got, I think,nine papers published this year
so far.
So, um, yeah, there's alwaysstuff going on this one, uh,
we'll, we'll let it rest for abit, um, and then maybe come
(14:25):
back to it.
Um, you know, I'm getting tothe point where I like looking
at things that are somewhatphilosophical, um, but, uh, so,
you know, uh, yeah, it's hard tosay, but nothing, nothing in
the in this line, I'll you know.
Uh, yeah, it's hard to say, butnothing, nothing in the in this
(14:45):
line, I'll you know.
People have asked me can you doother journals, can you do our
journal?
And I'm like, well, you coulddo it.
Um, the methods are pretty easy.
It just requires a lot of gruntwork and a lot of clicking,
open and closing web pages thathave got all the stats there,
you know, because you can'tdownload them, as far as I know,
in a simple, easily extractableformat.
So I simply went through, pageafter page, journal after
(15:08):
journal, and just noted, copiedand pasted their you know
submission date, theiracceptance date and their first
online date, and then collatedit all and sorted it and then
started drawing graphs.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
There is a similar process with looking at
altmetrics, so online attentionscores and dimensions, which
tracks citation scores too forseveral veterinary journals.
And, yeah, familiar with theprocess of writing everything
down, but it makes team to helpme, so, yes, so do you see a
role for AI in this area ofresearch?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Honestly, I haven't thought about AI.
I mean, it's something that ifthose data are easily
extractable, then AI would makeit even easier to do that.
If you could set up right codeto go and, just, you know, pull
data from websites, essentiallyscraping them, that would
(16:01):
certainly be something thatcould be largely automated and
then maintained and updated, youknow, essentially at a click of
a button.
I know nothing about you know,doing that sort of thing.
Um, I have no real codingbackground, so, um, yeah, but it
seems like it's.
There's not a lot ofinterpretive or analytical
complexity to what I did.
(16:25):
Part of it's also just lookingat the data and saying, oh, what
does it show us?
Which you know.
I teach students and residentson how to look at data and
biostatistics and the firstthing I tell them is you know,
draw a graph and look at it,because something's going to
jump out at you or something youdidn't expect will jump out at
you.
Or you'll think of somethingelse, or you'll go.
(16:46):
Why is that value a hundredfoldbigger than every other one?
Oh, somebody misplaced thedecimal point.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Very good advice.
And for those of you justjoining us, we're discussing how
most, but not all, clinicalveterinary journals have
improved publication speed ofresearch articles.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
with our guest Mark, hey, mark, you just said which
is amazing nine articles alreadythis year.
You know how to get it done.
What advice do you have forpeople?
Take a breath, look at the data.
What advice do you have forpeople on getting across the
finish line?
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Especially for young authors, I would say, by the
time you've started yourexperiment, you could probably
or your research study, youcould probably have the
introduction and the methodswritten up.
You should have probablyfigured out what results you
want to definitely include.
So you're not going to precludethe idea that, oh, we found
something really interesting.
But how are you going todisplay your results that you've
(17:42):
gone in looking for, so thatall you have to really do is
write the results, write a briefdiscussion and, you know, put
your references in, but anddon't leave it till, you know,
three months before you're setto graduate from your residency.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, it's always good to get started early.
Like methods should be done,right yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
I mean, while you're doing the experiment, you know
what you're doing.
It's the freshest in your mindabout what you've just done or
what you're going to do, and youcan always tweak it.
But you shouldn't be able towrite it all out, because it's
almost part of your proposal,right?
So if you're getting fundingfor it, they want to know how
you're going to do stuff and youcan set all that out before you
even start the experiment, forsure.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Lisa and I were literally just talking about
this because we're submitting aprotocol for IRB review and I
was like, hey, look at that, Igot the introduction methods
basically done from thisprotocol.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
And also, you know, to me the other thing is, if
it's going to involvestatistical analyses, meet with
a biostatistician, preferablysomebody who has clinical
experience and understands whatyou're trying to do, so that you
don't end up presenting themwith a whole bunch of data
saying, here, can you fix thisfor me?
And they have no idea why orwhat you did, and so having
(18:58):
somebody help clarify yourproject and determine okay, so
this is what you want to do, sothese are how we're going to
collect the data, this is howwe're going to analyze the data,
so that you're not trying tofigure that all out after the
fact and going, oh, I shouldhave gotten that.
And oh man, I should havemeasured this and I didn't know
that that was important.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
So yep Need ahead of time, for sure.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So Marcus next set of questions is going to be really
important for our listeners.
The first one is going to befrom the author's perspective.
So what is one piece ofinformation authors should know
when choosing a journal fortheir manuscript submissions?
Speaker 4 (19:39):
I would say pick a journal.
That well, I can't.
I couldn't say one thing.
I'd say pick a journal thattargets your audience most
accurately.
So find out who is your paperintended to get at.
Is it the specialists in yourfield?
Is it generalists?
Is it the general public?
Find a journal that will mostlikely reach that group.
And secondly, pick a journalthat you believe that you would
(20:00):
like to appear in because youconsider it reputable, for
whatever reason.
It could be high prestige, itcould be, you know, it's got a
long history of track record,it's you know, where your, your
mentor, had published, you knowin, or whatever.
Don't pick it just because it'sreally quick or really slow, or
(20:22):
you know I'm going to get ananswer back and it's going to be
a yes answer and all I need todo is pay him several thousand
dollars and the other side of dois pay him several thousand
dollars On the other side of therelationship.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
what's one thing that readers should know?
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Not all journals are created equal Drop mic.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Be cautious of the three.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
The cluster of three, yeah, and I have heard
anecdotes about at least one ofthem, and you know it's not
worth repeating these because itis all anecdotal evidence, but
I have reason to want to avoidpublishing in them and I don't
think we need to anymore.
A word for you, the Javnispherethat there's enough other
(21:10):
journals in which you canpublish and not be concerned
about the credibility of yourwork being challenged.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I think that's a good point, Mark, and many of those
other journals other than thatcluster of three are journals of
associations or colleges, andit's nice to support those as
well, rather than the ones thatare clearly for profit.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Well, thanks again, Mark.
I love hanging out with you andPete when I can make it in to
talk about philosophy andpublishing and all these things.
And just thanks again for allyour work and all the other help
that you provide at Jabma andAGVR.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
You're welcome.
Thank you, Lisa.
I'll mention, though, thatPete's philosophy You're welcome
.
Thank you, Lisa.
I'll mention, though, thatPete's philosophy discussions
are nothing like myfour-year-old niece's philosophy
question yesterday, which wasin the car after picking her up
from daycare.
Uncle Mark is infinity a number, Because my friend Lucy says
it's a number, but I don't thinkit's a number.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
That's awesome.
What was your answer?
Speaker 4 (22:07):
I said it's both a number and not a number.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yes, sometimes with kids, just a one word yes, yeah,
maybe.
Well, thanks again, mark.
As we wind down, we'd like toask a little bit of a fun
question.
I can't wait to hear thisanswer what was the first
concert you attended?
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Yeah, so I thought about this and I gave you an
option of two.
And the reason I thought aboutit is that I was up at my oldest
nieces, so my four-year-oldnieces one half of the family.
I've got two nieces who are intheir twenties now and one was
graduating from UVM a couple ofweekends ago and after going out
for dinner after graduation, wedrove.
I was driving her back to heruh apartment or the house that
(22:50):
she stays in, um, and a songcame on the radio which was um
David Bowie's, uh something orother from his uh serious
moonlight tour, which happenedin 1983.
And I said to Layla oh, I wentto that concert, that was my
first concert I ever went to,and then I realized that's 40
(23:11):
years ago, that's awesome.
She sort of looked at me and gowho's that guy on the radio?
But whatever, Huey.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Lewis and the News in 90.
Oh, that was, it was theeighties.
It was the early eighties, yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Yeah, huey Lewis would have been early to mid
eighties.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
It was the early eighties.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Yeah, huey Lewis would have been early to mid
eighties.
Absolutely yeah, and I rememberthe concert well because we
were.
It was at VFL park, which was abig football stadium in
Melbourne, and we'd lined upovernight outside the gate for
general admission.
We'd already had the ticketsbut there was no seating
assignment, so you just ran inand found your place as soon as
they opened the gates.
(23:46):
So first, in first serve yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I think I'd actually prefer that over the great
Ticketmaster battle nowadayswaking up at 6 am to get concert
tickets, yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
There was a lot of beer drunk that night waiting in
, you know, in sleeping bags.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Well, thank you so much, mark.
We appreciate you being hereand again for all that you do
for our journals.
So, thank you, no, mark, weappreciate you being here and
again for all that you do forour journals.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
So thank you, no, thank you guys for inviting me.
It's been fun.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
And to our listeners.
You can read Mark's article onJavma.
I'm Sarah Wright with LisaFortier.
Be on the lookout for nextweek's episode and don't forget
to leave us a rating and reviewon Apple Podcasts or whatever
platform you listen to.
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Speaker 2 (00:35):
This is Veterinary Vertex, a podcast of the AVMA
Journals.
In this episode, we discuss howmost but not all clinical
veterinary journals haveimproved publication speed of
research articles, with ourguest, mark Vishnu.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Welcome listeners.
I'm Editor-in-Chief LisaFortier, and I'm joined by Sarah
Wright, mark, my friend andcolleague of Cornell for 30 plus
years.
Thank you so much for takingtime out of your busy biking and
working schedule to be with ushere today.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Thank you.
It's a pleasure, Lisa and Sarah.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
All right, let's dive right in.
So, mark, your Javma articlediscusses how most clinical
veterinary journals improveprocess time over the last six
years.
Please share with our listenersthe background on this article.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Yeah, with pleasure.
So about six or seven years agoa friend, a colleague of mine,
pete White, who's a retiredemeritus professor at Cornell,
and I started to look into thepublication speeds of journals
and it was prompted, somewhatfacetiously, by the observation
that Javma would take about twoyears from the time you
(01:39):
submitted till the time thearticle appeared in print.
The time the article appearedin print to the point where we
used to think that the littlecross superscript next to
somebody's name meant that theywere posthumous authors because
they died waiting for theirarticle to appear.
But turns out that wasn't quitethe case, but not far off it.
So we looked at who's doingwhat and how well are they doing
(02:00):
it?
Are there journals that seem tobe on top of the game?
Are there not?
It had been done in medicine, inthe medical and scientific,
other basic scientificliterature a little bit, and
there was a website that wefound, or that I found that,
where somebody had plotted thisover the decades, looking at
publication speeds.
And so we thought, well, let'slook at veterinary journals and
just see how they rank againstothers.
(02:22):
So that was the impetus for thefirst paper and actually never
got published.
But then, through some emailcorrespondence with another
colleague more recently.
It led me to say, well, I canrepeat this to see if that claim
of that colleague was true ornot, that they claimed that they
(02:42):
were, on average, on par withevery other veterinary journal.
And I thought, well, we've gotthe data we can compare and we
can look to see if journals haveimproved, worsened, stayed the
same, what's happened, and givepeople another, you know another
benchmark of journal, ofclinical journals.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, super interesting, mark.
We were talking a little bitabout my career path before we
jumped on to this podcastepisode and how it came from a
clinical Zucorian background tothis role in scholarly
publishing and even as a studentI remember thinking like
knowing it was long publicationtimes, not somewhere you really
want to submit.
So it's been a real pleasure towork with Lisa to really turn
things around and advanceveterinary medicine to and share
(03:19):
and better communicate authors'findings as well communicate
authors' findings as well.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, and it was our observation that JABMA had done
a really good job in the lasttwo years of dramatically
improving publication speeds.
The original work generallysuggested that review times are
immutable.
It takes about six months fromthe time you first submit to the
time it gets accepted give ortake a month or two, but
generally somewhere in thatrange for that first part of a
(03:48):
processing, and that youcouldn't change that.
And then the rest of it was theprocessing time that the
journal takes then to publishthe article once it's been
submitted and accepted.
And again with the improvementsin publication and online
getting manuscripts online,jabmab was stalled for quite a
(04:12):
while in an old model that wasno longer really applicable, and
so I think that was what wefound mostly, although
surprisingly, it was actuallythe review time also that
dramatically improved withcertain journals.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
There are less than 100 days submission and
publication now consistently,which is awesome.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Yeah, I mean it's amazing when most of the
journals we've looked at arecloser to, I would say, eight to
nine months.
So it's not bad, but it's notbrilliant.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, and sometimes I think it's really important to
keep pointing out that we have arobust peer review as well.
Right when I used to go and say, ooh, this is our time to
publication, people were like,yeah, that might not want to be
your biggest bragging pointright now, like we're
author-friendly,reviewer-friendly and lots of
other things.
Actually, that article thatMark was talking about was one
(05:03):
of the pieces of information Ibrought forth in my interview to
the AVMA for the job and I waslike here's the evidence on how
far behind JAVMA and AJVR are.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yeah, there was one other journal, the Journal of
Veterinary Emergency andCritical Care, which was on par
with JAVMA of the past, whichwas on par with Jabma of the
past and, somewhatdisappointingly, even though we
alerted the editor-in-chief ofthat seven years ago, no changes
(05:34):
have substantially happenedwith that journal.
And Pete White and I used tojoke that for a journal
concerned with emergency andcritical care, it's clearly not
an emergency to publish anyinformation to people.
So yeah, emergency and criticalcare, it's clearly not an
emergency to publish anyinformation to people.
So yeah it's.
And and I'm not, we're not umembarrassed to ashay to shame
some of these editors intotrying to improve their game.
If it works, everybody benefitsand I've got no, you know,
(05:57):
horse in the race other thanjust to see people, especially
authors, get stuff out in atimely fashion, especially if
you're trying to credential too.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
I know that was something I was always looking.
Especially authors get stuffout in a timely fashion.
Especially if you're trying tocredential too I know that was
something I was always lookingfor when I was trying to publish
is what's going to be fast andgood and constructive so I can
get this in time for residencyet cetera.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Absolutely, and the number of downloads we've had
and the number of views of ourpaper is both the first one and
the second one.
And the first one we basicallyadvertised it through listservs.
It was published into arepository.
It was never published formallybecause the journals we
approached said oh, this is notinteresting enough.
Suggests that people care aboutthis.
They actually are interested infinding journals that are
(06:37):
responsive but critical.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So what are some of the important take-home messages
from this article?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
The things that we noticed is that, as I say,
mostly the review time has notchanged for most journals.
Some got a little better, somegot a little worse.
I think there were two journalsthat actually had longer review
times than they did seven yearsago, which is somewhat
surprising.
The processing speeds improvedconsiderably because people now
(07:05):
can get articles up andoftentimes in a journal they'll
have an article up within amonth of accepting, which is
pretty reasonable speed, andsome of them are up within a day
.
That's pretty outstanding.
Some within a week, butgenerally within a month or so.
You can see your article onceit's been accepted, but
generally within a month or soyou can see your article once
(07:28):
it's been accepted.
The other big thing that wenoticed was that there were a
small group of journals thathave emerged in the interim
period that appear to havepublication speeds that defy
belief in terms of.
They are outliers from the restof the field, and for a number
of reasons.
One, they routinely havesubmission to publication times
(07:51):
of less than 40 days is what ourmedian was, but oftentimes less
than a month and they publishan order of magnitude more
articles per year than virtuallyany other journal, and they
actually we figured out thatthey publish more articles than
virtually all of the otherjournals combined that we looked
(08:13):
at.
So the question then becomeshow do they find sufficient
reviewers, assuming that theirrejection rates are similar to
other journals and they'reequally critical of the
submissions that they receive?
How do they find qualifiedreviewers who will do a critical
review that quickly?
And I don't know we're notspeculating.
(08:48):
Everybody could do with if weknew how you were managing to
get between 8,000 and 12,000reviewers a year.
That's incredible.
I'm a veterinary cardiologistby training and the Journal of
Veterinary Cardiology published,I think, less than 100 papers
last year, and they claim thatthey struggle to find reviewers
for that journal for just 100papers.
So when you're publishing 3,000or 4,000 papers a year, how are
(09:10):
you finding competent reviewersto do a good job for you when
these small journals strut it?
And that was the other big takehome.
It led to us thinking well,maybe there should be some
cautionary advice for authorslooking for a quick publication
is are you really publishing ina journal that is reputable or
(09:34):
are you going to be sufferinglater on because, yeah, it came
out quickly but nobody believesit?
Or everybody thinks, well, itjust got published in such and
such a journal.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Yeah, oh, really good points.
You know, like findingreviewers is the hardest part,
whether you're Nature or Javmaor any journal.
We've done a ton within thesubmission platform to automate
things like send your reminder,send your reminder, move on to
the next.
And that takes time.
It takes a lot of time to getthat submission platform up and
(10:03):
running.
Yeah, really good words ofcaution for some of the authors
that maybe don't know any better.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
And I feel for some of the editors and the
scientific editors and theeditors-in-chief of some of the
smaller journals, becauseoftentimes it's a part-time job
for them.
So they're working a full-timeacademic career and on top of
this they're going home anddealing with three or four hours
of manuscripts every night, ifthey can, and having a family
and trying to have a life, andit becomes difficult.
I appreciate that.
(10:33):
So Jabma, I think, has a verycoveted position of having
full-time editorial staff and areasonable number of editorial
staff that allow you to do thisas a, you know, as a career
rather than just as a sideline.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, very true, and as a result of your article,
other editors have reached outto me and I have the same
philosophy that you do.
We're all on the same team forthe pets.
I'm happy to share any tips andtricks.
I just recently shared ourrevision letter that, as you
know, has exact examples on howto write a revision in your
(11:12):
manuscript, and they're like ooh, thank you for that.
I'm happy to share any of thatstuff too.
We share the same philosophy.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
You touched a little bit earlier on the first article
and publication speed and thenthe second one.
Was it just like hanging aroundnoodling with Professor
Emeritus White that came up withthat idea, or how did that idea
spark in your mind in the firstplace?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
I think it was because of something that we
tried to submit back in the dayto JABMA and how long it was
taking to come out.
Um, and so it just becomes abee in my bonnet and I start to,
you know, like a terrier goingdown a rabbit hole, and I'm just
not going to give up.
And so I thought, well, let's,let's just see how other
journals do.
And it was just a, you know,just curiosity.
(11:58):
So this one was then againsparked by a second journal
where I was struggling, where wehad a paper that seemed a
fairly straightforwardmanuscript and it took over a
year to go through review withfour rounds of revisions.
It seemed like either thereviewers were stalling us for
some sort of political gain orthe editors were just being
bogged down and unable to makeit an editorial decision that
(12:21):
this is enough.
It's.
Either we're going to you knowexcuse it the french, and I'm
not going to say it um, uh, youknow or get off the pot, and
we'd be happy to cut our lossesif that was what it was.
But it just kept us draggingout and each revision took three
months to come back when it waslike, okay, we've addressed
these changes.
Why?
(12:41):
Why can't the reviewer see thisin three days, say yes, no,
done and move on.
So yeah, that was thefrustration.
It's all borne out byfrustration.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Well, there's no shortage of curiosity in Mark
Rishnu.
We know that too.
You already described some ofthe really cool findings, but
anytime we do a study,something's like wow, I didn't
expect that.
What surprised you from lookingat the data in this article?
Speaker 4 (13:09):
I think it was the small group of the super fast
journals.
Partly I sort of expected,because I'd already published
several papers since Lisa hadtaken over with Javma, so I knew
that Javma had improveddramatically.
So part of it was also ahighlight and I also felt that
(13:31):
if I can make Javma look goodshe's going to accept the paper.
So there was a selfish interestthere, Maybe, there, Maybe.
But yeah.
So those were the big things.
And then you know, theexpectants were that online
speed getting from acceptance toonline publication is pretty
(13:53):
consistent now and should haveimproved the overall time, and
it seems to have done that formost journals.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
So, mark, is there anything else in the future?
Future Hopper, so any otherlike next steps, future research
in this topic?
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Not on this particular topic at the moment.
Um, I, you know I've always gotstuff in the Hopper, but, um,
you know, I've got, I think,nine papers published this year
so far.
So, um, yeah, there's alwaysstuff going on this one, uh,
we'll, we'll let it rest for abit, um, and then maybe come
(14:25):
back to it.
Um, you know, I'm getting tothe point where I like looking
at things that are somewhatphilosophical, um, but, uh, so,
you know, uh, yeah, it's hard tosay, but nothing, nothing in
the in this line, I'll you know.
Uh, yeah, it's hard to say, butnothing, nothing in the in this
(14:45):
line, I'll you know.
People have asked me can you doother journals, can you do our
journal?
And I'm like, well, you coulddo it.
Um, the methods are pretty easy.
It just requires a lot of gruntwork and a lot of clicking,
open and closing web pages thathave got all the stats there,
you know, because you can'tdownload them, as far as I know,
in a simple, easily extractableformat.
So I simply went through, pageafter page, journal after
(15:08):
journal, and just noted, copiedand pasted their you know
submission date, theiracceptance date and their first
online date, and then collatedit all and sorted it and then
started drawing graphs.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
There is a similar process with looking at
altmetrics, so online attentionscores and dimensions, which
tracks citation scores too forseveral veterinary journals.
And, yeah, familiar with theprocess of writing everything
down, but it makes team to helpme, so, yes, so do you see a
role for AI in this area ofresearch?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Honestly, I haven't thought about AI.
I mean, it's something that ifthose data are easily
extractable, then AI would makeit even easier to do that.
If you could set up right codeto go and, just, you know, pull
data from websites, essentiallyscraping them, that would
(16:01):
certainly be something thatcould be largely automated and
then maintained and updated, youknow, essentially at a click of
a button.
I know nothing about you know,doing that sort of thing.
Um, I have no real codingbackground, so, um, yeah, but it
seems like it's.
There's not a lot ofinterpretive or analytical
complexity to what I did.
(16:25):
Part of it's also just lookingat the data and saying, oh, what
does it show us?
Which you know.
I teach students and residentson how to look at data and
biostatistics and the firstthing I tell them is you know,
draw a graph and look at it,because something's going to
jump out at you or something youdidn't expect will jump out at
you.
Or you'll think of somethingelse, or you'll go.
(16:46):
Why is that value a hundredfoldbigger than every other one?
Oh, somebody misplaced thedecimal point.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Very good advice.
And for those of you justjoining us, we're discussing how
most, but not all, clinicalveterinary journals have
improved publication speed ofresearch articles.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
with our guest Mark, hey, mark, you just said which
is amazing nine articles alreadythis year.
You know how to get it done.
What advice do you have forpeople?
Take a breath, look at the data.
What advice do you have forpeople on getting across the
finish line?
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Especially for young authors, I would say, by the
time you've started yourexperiment, you could probably
or your research study, youcould probably have the
introduction and the methodswritten up.
You should have probablyfigured out what results you
want to definitely include.
So you're not going to precludethe idea that, oh, we found
something really interesting.
But how are you going todisplay your results that you've
(17:42):
gone in looking for, so thatall you have to really do is
write the results, write a briefdiscussion and, you know, put
your references in, but anddon't leave it till, you know,
three months before you're setto graduate from your residency.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, it's always good to get started early.
Like methods should be done,right yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
I mean, while you're doing the experiment, you know
what you're doing.
It's the freshest in your mindabout what you've just done or
what you're going to do, and youcan always tweak it.
But you shouldn't be able towrite it all out, because it's
almost part of your proposal,right?
So if you're getting fundingfor it, they want to know how
you're going to do stuff and youcan set all that out before you
even start the experiment, forsure.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Lisa and I were literally just talking about
this because we're submitting aprotocol for IRB review and I
was like, hey, look at that, Igot the introduction methods
basically done from thisprotocol.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
And also, you know, to me the other thing is, if
it's going to involvestatistical analyses, meet with
a biostatistician, preferablysomebody who has clinical
experience and understands whatyou're trying to do, so that you
don't end up presenting themwith a whole bunch of data
saying, here, can you fix thisfor me?
And they have no idea why orwhat you did, and so having
(18:58):
somebody help clarify yourproject and determine okay, so
this is what you want to do, sothese are how we're going to
collect the data, this is howwe're going to analyze the data,
so that you're not trying tofigure that all out after the
fact and going, oh, I shouldhave gotten that.
And oh man, I should havemeasured this and I didn't know
that that was important.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
So yep Need ahead of time, for sure.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So Marcus next set of questions is going to be really
important for our listeners.
The first one is going to befrom the author's perspective.
So what is one piece ofinformation authors should know
when choosing a journal fortheir manuscript submissions?
Speaker 4 (19:39):
I would say pick a journal.
That well, I can't.
I couldn't say one thing.
I'd say pick a journal thattargets your audience most
accurately.
So find out who is your paperintended to get at.
Is it the specialists in yourfield?
Is it generalists?
Is it the general public?
Find a journal that will mostlikely reach that group.
And secondly, pick a journalthat you believe that you would
(20:00):
like to appear in because youconsider it reputable, for
whatever reason.
It could be high prestige, itcould be, you know, it's got a
long history of track record,it's you know, where your, your
mentor, had published, you knowin, or whatever.
Don't pick it just because it'sreally quick or really slow, or
(20:22):
you know I'm going to get ananswer back and it's going to be
a yes answer and all I need todo is pay him several thousand
dollars and the other side of dois pay him several thousand
dollars On the other side of therelationship.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
what's one thing that readers should know?
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Not all journals are created equal Drop mic.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Be cautious of the three.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
The cluster of three, yeah, and I have heard
anecdotes about at least one ofthem, and you know it's not
worth repeating these because itis all anecdotal evidence, but
I have reason to want to avoidpublishing in them and I don't
think we need to anymore.
A word for you, the Javnispherethat there's enough other
(21:10):
journals in which you canpublish and not be concerned
about the credibility of yourwork being challenged.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I think that's a good point, Mark, and many of those
other journals other than thatcluster of three are journals of
associations or colleges, andit's nice to support those as
well, rather than the ones thatare clearly for profit.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Well, thanks again, Mark.
I love hanging out with you andPete when I can make it in to
talk about philosophy andpublishing and all these things.
And just thanks again for allyour work and all the other help
that you provide at Jabma andAGVR.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
You're welcome.
Thank you, Lisa.
I'll mention, though, thatPete's philosophy You're welcome
.
Thank you, Lisa.
I'll mention, though, thatPete's philosophy discussions
are nothing like myfour-year-old niece's philosophy
question yesterday, which wasin the car after picking her up
from daycare.
Uncle Mark is infinity a number, Because my friend Lucy says
it's a number, but I don't thinkit's a number.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
That's awesome.
What was your answer?
Speaker 4 (22:07):
I said it's both a number and not a number.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yes, sometimes with kids, just a one word yes, yeah,
maybe.
Well, thanks again, mark.
As we wind down, we'd like toask a little bit of a fun
question.
I can't wait to hear thisanswer what was the first
concert you attended?
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Yeah, so I thought about this and I gave you an
option of two.
And the reason I thought aboutit is that I was up at my oldest
nieces, so my four-year-oldnieces one half of the family.
I've got two nieces who are intheir twenties now and one was
graduating from UVM a couple ofweekends ago and after going out
for dinner after graduation, wedrove.
I was driving her back to heruh apartment or the house that
(22:50):
she stays in, um, and a songcame on the radio which was um
David Bowie's, uh something orother from his uh serious
moonlight tour, which happenedin 1983.
And I said to Layla oh, I wentto that concert, that was my
first concert I ever went to,and then I realized that's 40
(23:11):
years ago, that's awesome.
She sort of looked at me and gowho's that guy on the radio?
But whatever, Huey.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Lewis and the News in 90.
Oh, that was, it was theeighties.
It was the early eighties, yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Yeah, huey Lewis would have been early to mid
eighties.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
It was the early eighties.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Yeah, huey Lewis would have been early to mid
eighties.
Absolutely yeah, and I rememberthe concert well because we
were.
It was at VFL park, which was abig football stadium in
Melbourne, and we'd lined upovernight outside the gate for
general admission.
We'd already had the ticketsbut there was no seating
assignment, so you just ran inand found your place as soon as
they opened the gates.
(23:46):
So first, in first serve yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I think I'd actually prefer that over the great
Ticketmaster battle nowadayswaking up at 6 am to get concert
tickets, yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
There was a lot of beer drunk that night waiting in
, you know, in sleeping bags.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Well, thank you so much, mark.
We appreciate you being hereand again for all that you do
for our journals.
So, thank you, no, mark, weappreciate you being here and
again for all that you do forour journals.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
So thank you, no, thank you guys for inviting me.
It's been fun.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
And to our listeners.
You can read Mark's article onJavma.
I'm Sarah Wright with LisaFortier.
Be on the lookout for nextweek's episode and don't forget
to leave us a rating and reviewon Apple Podcasts or whatever
platform you listen to.
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