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Dispelling a Few Cell Metabolism Misconceptions

2018; Cell Press; Volume: 28; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.cmet.2018.08.019

1932-7420

Nikla Emambokus, Rosalind Mott, Salvatore Fabbiano,

Diet and metabolism studies

Cell Metabolism is nearing its fourteenth birthday and has an established track record of publishing a diverse spectrum of cutting-edge metabolic research from investigators around the globe. Nevertheless, a few misconceptions surrounding the journal and its editorial staff seem to linger. This article follows previous editorials on the topic (Emambokus, 2014Emambokus N. Cell Metabolism’s editorial process.Cell Metab. 2014; 20: 193-194Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar, Emambokus and Granger, 2016Emambokus N. Granger A. Weeding out the bad apples.Cell Metab. 2016; 24: 343-344Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar) and is inspired by that of our colleagues at Nature (Editorial, 2018EditorialNature: the truth.Nature. 2018; 556: 5Crossref Scopus (1) Google Scholar). The nine myths that Nature dispelled also apply to us, including postings on pre-print servers; basing one’s editorial decision on the full read of a paper, rather than just the abstract or the author list; and considering appeals, including those without reviewer feedback. Below are many frequently reported beliefs about Cell Metabolism that we wanted to address directly. As usual, please continue to contact us with questions, and we will do our best to answer them and integrate your feedback in our workflows and practices. Cell Metabolism, like many other high-profile journals, publishes a high percentage of papers from the USA. Our geographical publication breakdown reflects the submissions that we receive: besides the USA, we publish many papers from the UK, China, and Germany. We are actively thinking about geography and diversity as the members of our editorially diverse team increase our global outreach efforts and continue to encourage submissions from all over the world. Although our offices are based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the frequency of our face-to-face interactions with local researchers are on par with those from other institutions across the globe. Despite a persistent rumor, local researchers do not drop by our offices to submit manuscripts—this idea might have originated from the pre-digital time when researchers sent printed copies of their manuscripts to editorial offices for consideration, which is now no longer the case. This is certainly not our aim and would not be a sustainable strategy, given the natural fluctuations in research output that labs experience. We read all the papers we receive, and apply similar editorial screening criteria to them, regardless of whose laboratory, institution, or country they come from. Similarly, the feedback that we receive from reviewers is generally source agnostic and centered on advance. In our view, anonymous peer review is beneficial in leveling the field, as it allows the reviewers to focus more squarely on the science. In our experience, a turning point can happen at the revision stage, when some research labs, by virtue of their strong track record and productivity, have an advantage in terms of resources and collaborations, which allow them to undertake more extensive and quicker revisions, thus permitting them to produce stronger papers that eventually get published. Our editorial board members have a strong advisory role in keeping us updated on new developments and trends in their specific fields, and act as ambassadors for the journal. Unlike journals run by academic editors, our editorial board members do not handle manuscripts and are not directly involved in the content or direction of the journal. Editorial board members can act as reviewers, if the work is in their area of expertise and they have not been excluded by the authors. Also, editorial board members don’t have a specific number of papers that they need to review per year. We are cognizant of this general publishing concern, which turns out to be complicated. Over the years, research papers have become increasingly complex, as new techniques and technologies allow us to ask more extensive and detailed questions, often bridging several fields. The potential for additional work can easily balloon out. Our approach is to have an engaged editorial team, with strong subject knowledge, who can help steer the discussions productively. For starters, we won’t send a paper out for review if, based on our experience, we think that the paper does not stand a good chance of being published in the journal. Second, we carefully evaluate the reviewers’ comments and will often seek clarifications if the rationale for certain experiments is unclear, before transmitting them to the authors. Since many papers are inter-disciplinary, reviewers may have different expectations, based on their field’s yardsticks. An essential component of our editorial role is to integrate and balance the feedback we receive. Some of the recommendations of the reviewers are, at times, more general questions for further work, but this is not always made explicit. Third, and perhaps more importantly, we work closely with the authors to determine the scope of potential revisions needed for publication in the journal. If it is unlikely that the necessary revisions could be achieved within a reasonable time frame, we return the paper to the authors, allowing them the option of swifter publication elsewhere. By carefully aligning the authors’, reviewers’, and editors’ expectations, within the remit of the vagaries of experimental research, Cell Metabolism accepted over 90% of the papers that were invited for revision these past two years. Any qualified expert. Between 2017 and 2018, over a thousand experts have reviewed for the journal. A key aspect of our editorial work is to develop relationships with reviewers, understand the standards of different fields, and help reviewers gauge our editorial requirements. We seek feedback from a diverse set of experts worldwide, who have both the necessary technical expertise and a broad overview of the scientific landscape. We support the involvement of a limited number of trainees in assisiting in reviewing papers as a learning experience as long as this is disclosed to the editors and confidentiality is maintained. We usually give reviewers a time frame of around ten days, though we often allow time extensions as we understand that a good review takes time and that reviewers have multiple demands on their time. Within reason, we prioritize a careful and thorough review over a quicker, but less complete one, and believe that striking the right balance between timeliness and thoroughness is necessary. Many of the papers we publish have health implications, and though the process is not foolproof, it is important that the science we publish is carefully vetted and trusted. We are dedicated, full-time, professional scientific editors who work in partnership with authors and reviewers to help synthesize and disseminate transformative metabolic research. Although we are actively engaged in the scientific enterprise, most of our work is behind the scenes. We, however, hope that, throughout this article, we have provided further insight into our work. No. Over sixteen years ago, Drs. Michael Brown, Jeffrey Flier, Jeffrey Friedman, Joseph Goldstein, C. Ronald Kahn, Richard Lifton, Stephen O’Rahilly, and Bruce Spiegelman approached Cell Press with the idea for the journal (Cell Press Archives, 2015Cell Press ArchivesLetter from the founding editors of Cell Metabolism.Cell Metab. 2015; 21: 6-8Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (1) Google Scholar) and worked with us for the launch of Cell Metabolism. The founding editors are part of the editorial board and, like the rest of the board, are dedicated supporters of the journal. No. If we reject papers without review, we may highlight general areas that seemed preliminary, based on our experience with the review process and the state of knowledge in various fields. We don’t, however, offer specific experimental guidance, which we feel is more within the remit of the reviewers, who are up-to-date experts in their fields and associated experimental techniques. However, we are happy to have follow-up conversations with authors about further data that could address some of the potential gaps in the work. Maybe. This is another general publishing concern that we are tuned in to. It is difficult to generalize submission to publication times, as these depend on the type of papers (e.g., clinical papers are published faster), the thoroughness of the initial submission, the type of further experiments that are needed, and the investigators’ own timelines. Although the editors usually recommend two to three months for revisions, we also do not want investigators to rush their experiments and are supportive of longer revision times. Within the last couple of years, the average time from submission to publication has been around six months. In our experience, the majority of papers benefit from revisions, and in these cases their conclusions are invariably better supported and clearer than at initial submission. Since we understand that priority, among other reasons, matters, we support pre-print postings, including Cell Press Sneak Peek. Although our policy is to consider the published literature available on the day we make our final decision, in practice, Cell Metabolism has rarely, if ever, declined to publish an invited revision that was revised within an agreed-upon time, despite a competitive study being published in the interim. We also offer a more expedited review process for papers that have already been extensively revised, but subsequently declined at other journals for policy reasons, as long as there are no critical technical concerns. We work very hard to minimize editorial delays as, having ourselves been researchers, we understand the uncertainties associated with the submission process, and are motivated to get back to authors as quickly as we can. Our goal is to read new papers and revisions within three to five days of submission and return papers with reviews within a month. Although we have been unable to meet these goals this year, due to increased submission numbers and staffing challenges, we are now in the process of resolving these issues. The Cell Metabolism editorial team remains deeply committed to our mission of helping the field move forward in a rigorous and timely manner. Rigorous, exciting, broadly impacting metabolic research that will inspire and move the field forward. We have a variety of research formats—Articles, Short Articles, Resources, Clinical and Translational Reports (Emambokus and Granger, 2015Emambokus N. Granger A. Cell Metabolism Clinical and Translational Reports.Cell Metab. 2015; 22: 2-3Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar), and Letters—that aim to capture the breadth of metabolic research. Although not a requirement, many of our papers bring different fields together such as Exercise Metabolism or Immunometabolism. During our editorial screening, we evaluate whether (1) the topic fits the scope of the journal, (2) the question addressed is broadly relevant to a general audience, (3) the advance presented significantly moves the field forward beyond the published literature, (4) the conclusions appear adequately supported to justify taking up reviewer time, and (5) we are, in principle, enthusiastic about publishing the paper. Briefly, deconstructing the manuscript into Title, Abstract, Introduction, Results, Discussion, STAR Methods, and Supplemental Information components, here are our recommendations, which are broadly applicable to scientific paper writing, below.(1)For titles, our preference is that they convey the conceptual significance of the paper to a broad readership without being overly technical or over-simplified. We have found that active voice works well in titles.(2)For abstracts, besides clearly stating what was done and in what system, highlight the overall direction of the work, the main findings, and what potential impact these are likely to have on the field.(3)For the introduction, we are partial to the “Cell Press format,” offering sufficient background about the question being addressed and a summary of the current state of knowledge.(4)For the results, we cannot emphasize enough how important it is to present them in a direct and comprehensive manner, while focusing on the main narrative. For data presentation, we recommend explaining if the data shown are representative of multiple experimental replicates. We also encourage scatterplot representation of data over bar graphs, and support complete raw data deposition for the underlying figures on Mendeley data (see Hu et al., 2018Hu S. Wang L. Yang D. Li L. Togo J. Wu Y. Liu Q. Li B. Li M. Wang G. et al.Dietary fat, but not protein or carbohydrate, regulates energy intake and causes adiposity in mice.Cell Metab. 2018; 28: 415-431Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (141) Google Scholar as an example for Mendeley data deposition for the figures). We also advocate that statistical significance be included in the figure legends.(5)For the discussion section, we believe that it is appropriate to put the work in a broad context, as long as existing caveats are recognized. As of last year, we now specifically require a final Discussion paragraph entitled “Limitations of Study” for all published Cell Metabolism papers.(6)We encourage authors to take full advantage of STAR Methods for reporting of the experimental procedures (Marcus and whole Cell team, 2016Marcus E. whole Cell teamA STAR is born.Cell. 2016; 166: 1059-1060Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (32) Google Scholar), which consolidates all the methods in one section. Although STAR Methods is not required at the initial submission stages, detailed methodology reporting makes it easier for the editors and reviewers to assess the paper.(7)Finally, our philosophy on Supplemental Information is that “more is not always better” (Marcus, 2009Marcus E. Taming supplemental material.Cell. 2009; 139: 11Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (11) Google Scholar), though we also recognize the growing complexity of some of the data and that better integration is needed, and are working on this issue. We are open to most formats at the initial submission stage. Two general tips that would go a long way for editors and reviewers are providing figure legends on the same page as figures, and numbering the pages of the submitted manuscript. We also advise using the cover letter to have a conversation with the editors and to provide a perspective on the broad relevance of the article, together with any confidential or sensitive information that would be important for the editors to know, rather than re-stating the abstract and/or introduction. We want our papers to be engaging and inspiring to scientists, including those in peripheral fields, to promote cross-fertilization of ideas and inter-disciplinary research. Although we don't necessarily expect all our papers to be read by a lay audience, we believe that making the effort to explain the significance of the work to non-specialists increases the outreach of the science. Cell Metabolism papers are often picked up by the popular press, and it is important that interested parties be able to read the original work rather than second- or third-party digests of the paper. In a broader context, it behooves us to communicate science better to allay public concerns about the value of research. We don't. For instance, many of our clinical papers don't contain detailed mechanisms. The reason for seeking mechanistic understanding is to move beyond an “observation,” however interesting it might be, and have a better idea of the causation—“what,” “when,” and “how.” We, however, recognize that not all papers need detailed mechanistic insights. Sometimes the nature of the experimental system and/or technical limitations precludes the pursuit of mechanisms. This is not the case either, though the pace of new technologies being developed and offering novel vistas on old questions can be humbling. Ideally, the techniques should be commonly used and validated by the field and allow the conclusions of the paper to be rigorously supported. Our Resource format allows for the reporting of new techniques/methodologies/databases. Besides the technological advance, we require proof-of-concept application to advance our biological knowledge for Cell Metabolism Resource articles. Currently, Cell Press and Elsevier have agreements with specific institutions and funding bodies regarding open access policies, and we don’t offer ad hoc open access outside of these agreements. However, we offer free featured content, including research articles and previews, each month on our website and all our content can be freely accessed after one year. The 2017 impact factor is 20.565.