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Publishing replies to forthcoming papers?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Suppose you're writing a reply paper, but the target paper isn't published yet. The reply is intended for the same journal in which the target paper is forthcoming. Do you need to wait for the target paper to be officially published to submit the reply?

I feel like I've seen this plenty of times. As long as the forthcoming paper is publicly available, it seems to me that journals are likely to consider a response. Does anyone know any differently?

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5 responses to “Publishing replies to forthcoming papers?”

  1. Jinx

    I have just directly asked a leading journal this exact question yesterday. When I hear back from them I will let you know.

    Reply
  2. been there, done that

    This may depend on what “officially published” means but I have submitted (and had accepted) a reply paper to a paper which was published online but not yet in the physical journal. The paper I was replying for did appear in print during the review process, but no one seemed worried by the fact that it was not in print at the time of submission.

    Reply
  3. Jinx

    I was just told by a journal that yes, they are happy to receive a submission of a reply piece to a paper that is forthcoming, but only available on the author’s website. So that is one journal that is fine with it.

    Reply
  4. Daniel Weltman

    I’m co-authoring a reply like this right now and my co-author just asked Mind if they’d be fine with us submitting it before the paper is officially published. They said that’s fine. But the reason he asked is that we weren’t sure what the answer was, and other journals might not be fine.

    Reply
  5. UK Postdoc

    Same as Jinx, I have (successfully) submitted a reply to a paper that was accepted by the journal in question but only available online as a preprint at that time.

    Reply

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