Q: Is the first draft of all manuscripts submitted to BMC Anesthesiology uploaded online?
I’ve heard that the first drafts of all manuscripts submitted to BMC Anesthesiology are uploaded online. This means that if the manuscript is not accepted, it’ll be rejected by other journals as well. Is this true?
The journal BMC Anesthesiology is an open-access (OA) journal published by the Springer Nature group. Both the journal and the group (publisher) are established entities, the journal having been published for close to 20 years now. As per the Confidentiality section of the journal’s Editorial Policies, neither editors nor peer reviewers are meant to share any details of a submitted manuscript beyond the purview of the journal. If they wish to involve another party (for a second opinion), they need to first obtain the permission of the journal. Going by this, submitted manuscripts to the journal are not intended to be shared in the public domain. So, it would seem that the source of your information is not accurate.
However, the journal does have an option called In Review, through which submitted manuscripts are uploaded to a preprint server. This allows authors to view the progress of their manuscript through the peer review process. However, the author needs to opt in for this, that is, this occurs with the permission of the author. This may perhaps be what you mean, for uploading a manuscript to a preprint does allow it access to the public. Preprints have emerged to be quite popular in recent times. They allow other researchers to view your work and provide feedback as necessary. This of course is apart from the more formal and structured feedback provided by the journal.
So, in either case (in the journal’s submission system or on their preprint server), it doesn’t seem you have much reason to worry. Typically, journals accept (or reject) a paper for reasons of scope, quality, and novelty, and not necessarily because it has been rejected by a previous journal. If your paper is rejected, you could revise and submit to another journal, based on any feedback the current journal provides.
Finally, if you are still a bit hesitant, you could send a presubmission inquiry to the journal. Through a carefully worded mail (that is, without directly asking about the believed information), you may check about their review process to satisfy any remaining doubts.
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