International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics | 2019
IJGO: Committed to research capacity strengthening
Abstract
As a peerreviewed journal, the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics (IJGO) is at the end of the research cycle. Our main involvement is in the dissemination of research findings. This last step in the research process can be one of the most frustrating because there is never a guarantee that a manuscript submitted for peer review will eventually be accepted for publication. There are many different reasons why a manuscript might not be accepted, including being poorly written and not presented in the format required by the journal. One of the challenges of modern day publication is the limited number of papers that can be published by any one journal. IJGO receives more than 1200 submissions annually but, due to page limitations, we can only publish a little over 200 papers in one year. This means that some papers that end up being rejected are relatively well written, but are not competitive enough compared with other submissions. Manuscripts that catch the eye of editors and reviewers include those that are analytical or that address contemporary issues in the field of study. Manuscripts that are purely descriptive or simply a repetition of previously published research carried out in a different setting tend not to be accepted for publication. As a peerreviewed journal that takes these major decisions about the writing of researchers, IJGO feels that we owe it to people who are interested in submitting to our journal to help them produce manuscripts that are more competitive in the peerreview process. We have shown our commitment to this by holding special sessions for emerging researchers at congresses organized by The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO). The number of activities that IJGO is involved in that are related to research capacity strengthening reached its peak at the 2018 FIGO World Congress in Rio de Janeiro. Together with the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG) and Obstetrics and Gynecology (The Green Journal), IJGO held a session at the Congress in which presentations were made by the Editors of these three journals on different aspects of the publication process. The presentations covered the manuscript submission process, ethical issues in scientific writing, the essential elements of a good paper, and how to get a good review of one’s manuscript. Some members of the IJGO Editorial Board also ran a workshop on scientific writing. This session provided detailed guidelines on how to write the different sections of a scientific paper and how to perform basic data analysis. The feedback from the participants at these sessions was very positive and this has encouraged us to explore other ways in which we can contribute to equipping emerging researchers to write better manuscripts. The presenters from these two sessions have all agreed for their presentations to be made freely available to all. The presentations are available on the IJGO website: https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/ journal/18793479/about/author-workshops. I would like to encourage all our readers to make use of these resources and to share the link as widely as possible. The material here will be helpful for writing for any peerreviewed journal, not only for IJGO. Readers should also feel the freedom to download these resources and use them for training. The only requirement is that the original presenters should be acknowledged. At IJGO we continue to greatly appreciate all the researchers who submit papers to us and all those who review manuscripts and help us make decisions about publication. With the increasing number of submissions, the average number of reviews per reviewer has increased, but our reviewers still continue to be extremely responsive. We show our appreciation in part by continuing to develop resources that will help our readers improve their writing. We call on other peerreviewed journals to commit to this as a social responsibility to our contributors.