Is it better to submit a paper to a journal "normal" issue, or wait 4 months and send it to a more focused "special section" of the same journal?

Question

I am a recently PhD graduate student in computer science.

In the last months, I wrote a paper about an aspect of my thesis, with the collaboration of my former supervisor. We found a call for papers for a "special section" of an important journal, that is a section focused on the data set we are exploiting. The submission deadline was set to the end of November 2014, but surprisingly we just discovered that it has been post-poned to the end of March 2015. So a 4 months delay.

Our paper is ready and I don't know what to do with the submission.

I would prefer to submit it now to the "normal" track of the journal, to move on to new projects and close this. But my former supervisor thinks that it's better to wait and submit it to the March 2015 "special section", because he says we will have more likelihood to get it accepted, even if this will make our paper more outdated.

What should I do?

Submit it to the "normal" track now with less chances to get it published, or wait 4 months and submit it (more outdated) to the easier "special section"?

Answer 1

There's another alternative. You can submit to the special issue early.

Usually journals don't have "easier" submission to a special issue or section. Most journals try to have the same review and editing criteria for such contributions as they do for other articles. (Consider that having different criteria makes it harder for them to process and track such articles.) I can attest - I had a manuscript that was asked for significant revision and it didn't make the "special issue" by the time we'd revised it.

But you can submit the article and ask for inclusion in the special issue and explain that you have the manuscript done now. They will probably send it for review, etc. but it won't be published until the remainder of the special section is finished as well.

I've done this. It gets the paper off your desk and lets you move on to other things.

What are the pros and cons?:

• Pro: Usually a special section or special issue gets added attention and publicity. I haven't seen analysis, but one would hope that articles in this section or issue would have more readers and potentially more citations than in a normal issue.

• Con: You will have to wait for the special issue to finalize, while if you submit to the "regular" journal, publication will probably happen sooner. On the other hand, if the journal publishes accepted articles before publication, or you can put the manuscript on a pre-print server, there's little downside.

Personally, I'd submit early, indicate in the submission letter (and online forms) that the article is for the special section and be done with it.

Answer 2

I would strongly recommend choosing the special issue unless you are studying something time sensitive due to competition (e.g., you have a known competitor who might publish tomorrow) or emergence (e.g. an ongoing natural disaster).

First, depending on how the journal works, you might not actually have any delay in publication. Check and see whether the journal has a "just accepted" or "online first" section. If so, then your article will not have to wait for a special issue package to become available and citable. Instead, special issue articles will become available asynchronously as they are processed, and then packaged later.

Second, special issues, while they are reviewed no less tightly, have a specified audience that improves your chance of acceptance. You can much more readily pass the "audience interest" bar that many high-profile journals apply, since somebody else has already made the case that work in this area is of broad interest. Also, because reviewers are picked with expertise in the subject, you are less likely to get a bad match with a reviewer who knows little of your subject.

Third, you are likely to have a higher long-term impact from the publication, as it is grouped in a package with others like it, where it will be easier for people to discover or seek it out.

Finally, in most fields, four months is just not a long time. Finish your paper now, send it to the journal special issue before the deadline, and move on with your work.