Situation
Celia Green receives a paper from a general journal for review. Two days later she receives essentially the same paper from a specialty journal for review. The problem, data and analyses were the same, though the paper had been rewritten to focus more on specialty issues. Professor Green informs both editors.
Questions
- What should the editors do?
- What kinds of factors might the editors ponder in deliberating this case?
Discussion
This case of dual submission is in part similar to the earlier case of dual submission in which the author develops a method from a general paper into a methodological submission. It differs from that case in that methods are generalizable to a variety of subjects. To stand on its own as an independent submission, the specialty paper needs to address a different problem and/or use different data. Grounding it a bit more heavily in specialty literature is not sufficient. The editors may either reject both on the grounds of dual submission, or if they feel the author truly believed the two papers were distinctive, give the author permission to withdraw one and leave the other under review.
