Can this manuscript be saved?

The title of this editorial is a tag line I adapted from a longstanding column in the Ladies Home Journal entitled “Can this marriage be saved?” (n.d.) In that column, a marriage is considered salvageable when the authors, who are identified as Counselors in the column, find a way to bring the couple to reconciliation or at least willingness to work together. I ask this question when I send manuscripts out to one of the five Research in Nursing & Health (RINAH) Associate Editors for review, and I am not sure about the prospects of the manuscript for publication. Sometimes I ask this question when reviewers have highly divergent opinions from “publish with few revisions” to outright “reject.” Other times I ask it when I think I see a diamond in the rough regardless of the reviews, and still other times, when the paper appears to have promise, but I am uncertain whether either the Associate Editor or I will have the time and energy to work with the authors through the multiple revisions I anticipate will be needed to achieve a publishable paper. Margarete Sandelowski. Foundational to my judgment about whether a manuscript can be saved are reviewers' comments concerning the significance of the manuscript and fatal flaws. That is, reviewers who are the experts in a domain of knowledge must see the manuscript as a potentially important contribution to that domain and as having no fatal flaws that would preclude further RINAH investment in the work. Manuscripts I consider not salvageable are ones that reviewers judge to make no discernible contribution to a knowledge domain or to have conceptual and/or methodological problems that make the work (as opposed to the presentation of the work) itself unsalvageable. I make a judgment of salvageability too if, despite a less-than-adequate presentation of the work, I can clearly see and then communicate to the authors exactly what needs to be done to re-present it. Because re-presentation often entails re-thinking the work, this might require a more targeted re-analysis of the data or re-staging of the problem that led to the work (whether a report of a study or a theory or methods paper). Indeed, constituting a highly fixable problem are those papers that slide between different purposes, for example, to report the results of an empirical study conducted or to feature a methodological or conceptual issue. Such manuscripts can be saved to become potentially two or three manuscripts, each of which is appropriately staged and a significant and distinctive contribution. If on re-submission, the authors have made good progress on the revisions suggested, I will be motivated to keep working with them to achieve that final acceptable product. Yet regretfully there are too often times when a manuscript cannot be saved: when there is no indication in the manuscript itself that it can be turned around largely because the authors show little or no understanding of the methods ostensibly selected for use or ability to execute those methods. Robin D. Froman. For me, it is not just a question of whether a manuscript can be saved, but also of whether it should be saved. If a marriage is toxic to all involved, including children, sometimes dissolution is best. Following Margarete's comments on fatal flaws, I deem some flaws fatal if they are likely to mislead the reading audience to unjustified conclusions. For example, a small, biased, or unrepresentative sample might yield some interesting and even seductive findings, but those results will serve only to misdirect until the sampling flaws are corrected. Another source of irreparable damage lies in lack of evidence for the soundness of the key measuring instruments employed. If scales have no discernibly acceptable reliability or validity, reported findings will have been built on an unsustainable foundation. In contrast, if the analyses are questionable, manuscripts can frequently be saved with additional analytic efforts applied to existing data. Problems in writing or organization are also flaws that can be addressed, either by the author(s) working with a journal or private editor, or with some other consultant. A final and all too common fatal flaw is the one group, pretest and posttest design. Campbell and Stanley (1963) called this a pre-experimental design and showed how susceptible it is to all manner of threats to internal and external validity. Half of the Institutional Review Boards on which I have sat would refuse to approve studies with such designs as a waste of participants' time because no valid conclusions could be drawn from the results. Margaret Kearney. For me the determinants of salvageability are the quality of the data at hand and the demonstrated expertise of the analyst. Whether quantitative or qualitative, I need to have confidence in the data. I make that judgment based on the appropriateness and thoroughness of the instruments and methods used to collect them and the number and characteristics of data sources. But size is not everything. As Robin noted, in a quantitative project, some small or idiosyncratic datasets have little potential to yield widely useful findings regardless of efforts at re-analysis. A contrasting situation is qualitative data in the hands of an expert. A highly skilled qualitative analyst can make the most of a small or unusual dataset by closely examining each case and directing the reader to see significant questions raised by the unique constellation of the people, events, circumstances, and actions constituting the case. I regret that RINAH receives relatively few manuscripts portraying qualitative analyses at this level. If I trust the data, then I offer the authors the opportunity to analyze them further, and await the outcome of a revision. It may take more than one revision before I can determine whether these authors can save this manuscript. Patricia Becker. For me also, primary criteria for whether a manuscript can be saved are that the reviewers in the author's area of expertise have deemed that the question being addressed is relevant, that the data have the potential to add new and important information, and that there will be nothing in the manuscript that will mislead the audience toward drawing unjustified conclusions. For the manuscript to have potential, the author must not only provide convincing evidence that the data are sound—both as collected and analyzed—but also that any weaknesses, even if inevitable, are acknowledged and convincingly explained and justified. The issue of salvageability usually arises, however, precisely because reviewers disagree on their evaluation of these factors. Therefore my decision often depends on evaluating the logical coherence of the presentation of the study as submitted, and the thoughtfulness and scholarship with which the author responds to the reviewers' critiques if resubmission has been encouraged. For me, these stand as proxies for the scholarship with which the study was conceived and conducted. Bonnie Jennings. Following Patricia, I begin by reinforcing how author responses serve as a proxy for scholarship. I find manuscripts more salvageable when authors provide a thorough and careful set of comments to reviewers. Conversely, I find manuscripts less salvageable when authors write responses to reviewers indicating their approach to recommendations for change, yet these ideas do not materialize in the manuscript itself. Although likely not intended, such revisions seem to brush aside issues raised by the reviewers. They also make me wonder about how the authors attended to details related to the scientific conduct of their inquiry. I also consider where we are in the process of revisions. Sometimes authors are highly responsive early in the review process, but less so as the process continues. I liken this to “failure to progress” in labor. Here salvageability comes into question not on the first submission but rather when manuscripts fail to progress late in the review process. By this point, authors, reviewers, and editors have invested considerable time and effort into trying to save the manuscript, so a decision to reject is all the more difficult. Yet, the manuscript belongs to the authors and it is ultimately the authors' progress—or lack thereof—that will determine if efforts ought to continue. Like my colleagues, other standards I use to determine salvageability include the relevance and innovativeness of the questions asked, the absence of fatal conceptual and methodological flaws, quality of data, and the analytical expertise shown by the investigators. The clarity and coherence of writing can be “fixed” but the fixing is the responsibility of the authors, not that of the reviewers or editors. Indeed, poor writing might make a manuscript so incomprehensible as to make it appear unsalvageable on the first submission. So, can this manuscript be saved? There is wisdom in what is presented here; wise women with years of experience editing manuscripts have provided guidance to future authors. I urge authors to take advantage of this guidance. We all work to assist authors to do what can be done to move worthy manuscripts forward to publication in order to disseminate valuable knowledge.