A comprehensive interactive checklist to make sure your manuscript is ready before submission. Covers every section reviewers and editors commonly flag.
Peer reviewers and journal editors assess manuscripts against a consistent set of criteria. Understanding what they look for — and checking your manuscript against these criteria before submission — reduces the chance of rejection for avoidable reasons and speeds up the editorial process. This checklist covers the criteria most commonly cited in reviewer and editor rejection letters.
Desk rejection (by the editor before peer review) most commonly occurs for: scope mismatch (the paper does not fit the journal), inadequate novelty claim, missing or insufficient methods detail, obvious statistical errors, and failure to follow the journal's author guidelines (wrong format, missing required sections, over-length). Checking these before submission eliminates the fastest rejection route.
Most journals now require effect sizes and confidence intervals, not just p-values. A result reported as "p = 0.03" is less informative than "mean difference 12.4 units (95% CI 1.8–23.0, p = 0.03)". The ARRIVE guidelines (animal research), CONSORT (clinical trials), STROBE (observational studies), and PRISMA (systematic reviews) provide reporting checklists specific to each study design. Many journals require a completed reporting checklist as part of the submission.