Mathematische Zeitschrift (Part II: for authors)

In this post, I give some tips for authors considering submitting to Math Zeitschrift, especially a paper in algebraic number theory. The first suggestion is to read Part I. This should give you a good sense of the standards required. (Of course, it’s always hard to judge your own work without bias.) I do, however, have a few more specific tips for authors:

Submit the paper to the journal rather than email me directly: It’s certainly not a faux pas to send it to me directly, it’s just that it’s easier for me for various administrative reasons if you send the paper through the official channels. (I have a remark to that effect here but perhaps people find my email address directly though the editorial board listings.) There are two associate editors besides myself who deal with number theory papers at Math Zeit: Philippe Michel and Dipendra Prasad. Most of the time it will be clear which editor should be assigned what paper, but I believe you can also make a suggestion for which editor is appropriate when submitting. We can and do swap papers around if we believe another editor is more qualified to handle the paper.

Please don’t ask me before submitting if you think a paper is “of the right level” to submit to Math Zeit: Again this is not an unreasonable question, it’s just that it puts me in an awkward situation — if I say “yes,” then I will feel guilty if the paper is ultimately rejected, so I will usually just explain that as a matter of policy I refrain from giving any such opinions. If there is any situation in which I feel some conflict of interest with regard to a paper, I will usually ask Dipendra to take over (I think I have only done that once).

Don’t suggest a “suitable referee” unless you are doing so as a bluff and don’t want me to choose that person … except maybe I will call your bluff … unless maybe it is a double bluff!

Please don’t complain if your paper is rejected. It really isn’t doing you any favors. There is some cause for complaint if your paper gets rejected after six months without any indication that it’s been read, but that doesn’t happen with the papers I reject.

How long should I wait before asking about the “status” of my article? If you ask me what the status of your article is, the answer is always going to be the same: “the paper is under review.” What other possible answer were you expecting? Perhaps: “the paper has just received a glorious review which is currently sitting on my desk; since your email has just arrived that gives me a convenient reason to write back straight away and accept the paper without further revision.” Of course the real question you want to ask is something like “have you forgotten about the paper” or “can you ask the referee to hurry up.” The reality is that with some journals and editors such reminders are actually necessary. But not with me — I am organized and on top of my editorial duties, and I schedule automatic reminders to reviewers noting them of their previous commitments to review by a certain date. In particular, such emails will make absolutely no difference to how quickly your paper is being refereed, and in the future when I receive such emails I will just send a link to this post. At least when you read this, you will (by looking at the previous post as well) be informed of the rough time scale at which the journal is operating. Even though I find this question mildly annoying, I cannot fault the authors at all for asking such a question, so you certainly shouldn’t feel any need to apologize. After all, how are you to know how responsible I really am? I do think, however, that many of these emails stem from the naivety of youth — when you are a grizzled veteran you will have more experience with how long a referee process usually ends up taking. Even for other journals, I generally don’t recommend sending such an email before a year. After all, if after your email the editor finds that your paper has been under the couch cushions for 11 months, I think that actually increases your chances of an acceptance, because the editor’s resulting guilt may induce them to be somewhat more favorably inclined towards your paper.

I have to admit (surprising though I’m sure this will be to regular readers) that I myself are not immune to mild frustration with journals, especially those for whom the evidence is considerable that the delinquencies in handling my paper may be due to editorial mismanagement. I very nearly wrote a blog post entitled “DUKE HOSTAGE CRISIS DAY NINE HUNDRED” documenting one of my recent experiences, but Richard Hain was apparently brought on board to tidy ship at the last moment and the situation was resolved a cool 54 days short of the intended posting date.

All that said, there is one context in which such an email may make a difference. If one of the authors is just about to go on the job market, then I do feel inclined (if possible) to make what ever efforts I can to expedite the process whenever that is reasonable. Actually I make such efforts unilaterally with younger people I have reason to believe may be applying for jobs (it doesn’t always work, of course).

When you get a referee report, please don’t rush to revise it as quickly as possible. It is exciting to get a report which indicates that your paper has a good chance of being published. There’s a temptation to rush through the referee report as quickly as possible addressing to the minimal extent the complains and sending it back immediately. You will do yourself (and everyone else) a favor by reflecting a little bit more both on what the referee says and on the paper itself. You probably spent a long time writing the paper; but it most likely has been a while since you looked at it and so the time when you get a referee report back is an excellent opportunity to return to the paper with fresh eyes and see how it can be improved. It’s true that referees often request pretty annoying things, but definitely sometimes those suggestions are good ones and should be taken seriously. Note that it is always a good idea to include in your resubmission a file indicating exactly how you responded to the referees comments.

Why should I submit to Math. Zeit. rather than other “similar” journals? How does one go about choosing a journal? It’s always been a tough question. I think that one reason to submit to a journal is that you come across interesting papers which are published in said journal. So take a look at the number theory papers published there recently and then think about submitting. I think that Math Zeit has some great papers and I’m happy with the papers that I get to accept. For example, during my tenure, I think there have been quite a few quality papers on Shimura varieties. I suspect that accepting one quality paper in subfield X often begets another submission by people in the same field. (In order to leverage that as an editor, of course, one then has to increase the standards of the journal in that particular subdiscipline.)

Have you made any blunders as an editor? There have definitely been one or two papers which were rejected but which I later came to think should have been accepted. At least the one paper in particular I am thinking of ended up in a nice home, so all’s well that ends well.