Q: What should I do to delete my unknown publication?
After several rejections, my manuscript was accepted by a journal. At the submission, I declared in the cover letter that it has not been published elsewhere. However, when I search, my manuscript appears to be published in “Authorea”, though I have not submitted there at all. I want it to be deleted. What should I do?
I assume that you (or your coauthors) used Authorea at some stage of manuscript preparation to begin with. Authorea is an online writing tool and preprint hosting platform. If you used the platform for writing only and you want to delete a draft of your document, there is a “Delete Document” option (see https://support.authorea.com/en-us/article/how-do-i-delete-a-document-1204imh/). As a preprint, however, a publication on Authorea is registered with a DOI. It thus becomes a permanent part of the literature and cannot be removed. Preprints do not count as formal publications. Because Authorea is a platform or a repository and is not a journal (e.g., it is not indexed in the Web of Science), you should not worry about having your preprint deleted. Most journals allow preprints, but you can check the self-archiving policies of the journal where your manuscript has been accepted. Please get in touch with the journal editor and inform him/her about this. If you get published in that journal, the preprint on Authorea will get updated and be linked to the published version of your article.
This content belongs to the Journal submission & peer review Stage