Q: I have several questions about the pending transfer decision by the journal

Hello Ke – Welcome to the forum.

You have four questions. Let’s take them one by one.

How long will it take to help select a target journal after you agree to the transfer?

This would depend on how many journals the publisher has. But if the publisher has decided on a transfer, they would have had an alternative journal in mind. It would most probably be only one. It usually takes about a week or so. But the best way to check this would be to go through the transfer section (if they have one) on the journal site. In case they don’t, you may consider asking the editor by mail. If you decide to write to the journal, you may also decide to ask them which journal it is likely to be. If you decide not to write to the editor, you’ll simply have to wait. Until then, you could go through the publisher’s site to try and identify the alternative journal. If you can identify it, you could go through its Aims and Scope section to determine what the match with your manuscript could be. This would also answer your second question.

Will the chance of getting published be higher with the alternative journal?

The scope match would possibly be higher. Acceptance/Publishing would of course depend on factors such as the novelty of your research and the quality of the writing. In case there’s no acceptance here as well, you may of course consider submitting to a journal outside this publishing group, making any changes as needed.

Do you have to transfer to the alternative journal on your own?

These journals/publishers typically have a workflow. In case you have opted to transfer (and have chosen this option on the site), you would have received a notification acknowledging your acceptance and will then receive a notification asking you to submit to the alternative journal. You should log into the site and check your dashboard (in case you haven’t). You could also check your mail in case a notification is also meant to come there. For more, you can look up the journal information on transfers, and finally, also write to the earlier journal to see if they could help you some more.

Is it academic misconduct if you submit to more than one journal?

This is the simplest to answer, and the answer is yes. It is a case of duplicate submission if you submit to another journal after you have submitted to one journal or a case of simultaneous submission if you submit to two or more journals at the same time. [For more on these issues, you may refer to this article: Duplicate publications and simultaneous submissions] The best practice is to withdraw from one journal, receive confirmation of the withdrawal from there, and only then submit to another journal. However, to save time, you could send a presubmission inquiry to the next journal.

For more information on journal transfers, you may refer to the following queries by other researchers:

• Should I transfer my manuscript as suggested by the journal editor?
• Can I keep the suggestion of transfer by a journal on hold or do I have to refuse the transfer before considering other journals?

Hope that helps. All the best for the next steps!