Last updated: May 20, 2025
Guidelines for Manuscript Decision Process
The process of manuscript decision made by the Editorial Office of Baishideng Publishing Group involves academic integrity as the foundation upon which the stepwise first decision, second decision, and final decision processes are carried out, as described in detail below:
1 Academic Integrity
Throughout the manuscript decision process, the Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Office Director, and Editors from the Editorial Office must adhere to academic integrity and avoid academic misconduct. Academic integrity violations include: (1) Providing editorial opinions that violate academic and ethical standards; (2) Breaching conflict-of-interest disclosure policies; (3) Violating confidentiality requirements; (4) Plagiarizing manuscript content; (5) Interfering with manuscript peer review; (6) Seeking improper benefits; and (7) Other forms of academic misconduct, such as failing to review ethical documents provided by authors in accordance with the Editorial Office’s standards, inadequately identifying authors' inappropriate self-citation, and deliberately distorting the authors' original intent when revising the manuscript.
2 Steps of Manuscript Decision
The steps of manuscript decision include: (1) First decision: The Assistant Editor conducts a technical preliminary review of the manuscript, and the Editor-in-Chief performs an initial assessment of the scientific merit, innovativeness, and potential academic misconduct of the manuscript. Manuscripts that pass this preliminary assessment are sent for external peer review, and the Editor and Editorial Office Director then make a first decision (provisional acceptance or rejection) based on the peer-review reports; (2) Second decision: The Editor-in-Chief reviews all documents submitted by the authors with the revised manuscript, re-evaluates the scientific quality of the manuscript, and makes a decision (acceptance, revision, or rejection); and (3) Final decision: The Editorial Office Director makes the ultimate decision (acceptance for publication, revision, or rejection) based on the comments raised in the initial review, the peer-review reports, and the re-review, as well as the revised manuscript.
3 Manuscript Decision Standards
3.1 First decision standards: The Assistant Editor conducts a technical review initially. Manuscripts meeting the editorial standards are forwarded to the Editor-in-Chief for an academic quality assessment, leading to an initial decision (send for external peer review or reject). Manuscripts approved for external peer review undergo single-blind peer review by invited reviewers. The Editor and Editorial Office Director typically make the first decision (provisional acceptance or rejection) based on peer-review reports from 1-3 reviewers. If the first decision is provisional acceptance, the Editorial Office will notify the author(s) to revise the manuscript according to the peer-review reports, the Editor-in-Chief’s comments, the Editor’s comments, the Editorial Office Director’s comments, and the Checklist for Authors to Revise a Manuscript.
3.2 Second decision standards: The Editor-in-Chief makes the second decision (acceptance, revision, or rejection) based on all documents submitted with the revised manuscript, reviewers’ review/re-review comments, and the final manuscript after editorial processing and author proofreading. In the second review, the Editor-in-Chief re-evaluates the innovativeness and importance of the manuscript, including: Is the topic novel? Are the results innovative? Are the data true? Is the conclusion definite? Does the manuscript have broad medical interest and general importance?
3.3 Final decision standards: The Editorial Office Director makes the ultimate decision (acceptance for publication, revision, or rejection) based on the initial review opinions, peer-review reports, reviewers’ re-review reports, Editor-in-Chief’s re-review report, and all documents submitted with the revised manuscript.