Q: What does the status 'Draft' mean for ScholarOne manuscripts?

Each publisher uses the ScholarOne system in their own way, making customizations to suit its workflow. So, ScholarOne may work differently for different journals. Additionally, ScholarOne keeps making updates through regular releases, every two-three months or so. (The last release was in May this year. So, the next one could be in the coming month.) With each release, some functionality or feature may change.

Having said that, the ‘draft’ indicator is an existing one in ScholarOne. It can be displayed at several stages, such as when the author has just uploaded a manuscript (even before anyone at the journal has begun processing it), the editorial team has just picked it up for an initial check, and when the peer review comments come in.

Here, it seems that someone from the editorial team has been assigned to it and has probably started reviewing it for basic aspects such as fit with journal’s scope, novelty of the study, quality of the writing, and adherence to the guidelines. In some cases, the status may indicate that the team has found an issue with the manuscript, most probably to do with formatting or some other guideline, and are deciding how to proceed. This will probably result in sending the manuscript back to you both to make these changes.

It’s not clear if you both submitted the manuscript two months ago or finished writing it two months ago but submitted it more recently. If it has been over a month since the submission, it may not hurt to send the editor a courteous mail seeking an update.

For help with some of the points discussed and indicated above, you may refer to the following resources:

• Can you help me understand the status of my manuscripts on ScholarOne?
• A guide to understanding journal statuses [Handbook]
• A practical handbook of templates for communicating with the journal [Handbook]

All the best for the manuscript!