Ask EveryONE: How to submit an appeal request

This post is by Nicholas Ellinwood, who has worked with PLoS ONE since last year. He is a Publications Assistant who focuses on assigning Academic Editors to appropriate manuscripts, managing email queries and handling our new species papers.

Can I formally appeal a final decision on my paper if I believe my paper satisfies all of PLoS ONE’s acceptance criteria?

Although PLoS ONE does not approve all appeal requests, if you feel that your paper was Rejected due to considerations outside of PLoS ONE’s acceptance criteria, then you can submit a formal appeal request to the PLoS ONE staff by emailing plosone@plos.org and including a point-by-point response to all of the reviewers comments and a detailed rebuttal letter explaining why you think your paper is publishable.

Our internal editors thoroughly review all rebuttal letters, and we do grant appeal requests if we think your paper would benefit from a re-review.

The peer-review process for an appeal is typically much longer than a normal submission because of the complexity of the manuscript’s history.  Also, we require two Academic Editors to evaluate all appeals and to jointly co-sign the decision letters.

PLoS ONE closely monitors the appeals that it accepts, and will mediate between a disagreement between the two Academic Editors assigned to the resubmission if necessary.

Before you submit an appeal request, remember that PLoS ONE requires all research articles to fulfill the following acceptance criteria:

1. The study presents the results of primary scientific research.

2. Results reported have not been published elsewhere.

3. Experiments, statistics, and other analyses are performed to a high technical standard and are described in sufficient detail.

4. Conclusions are presented in an appropriate fashion and are supported by the data.

5. The article is presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in standard English.

6. The research meets all applicable standards for the ethics of experimentation and research integrity.

7. The article adheres to appropriate reporting guidelines and community standards for data availability.