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I have written a math paper myself, and wonder whether I have errors or not (I have not found ones, but maybe there are).

Now I wish to send it to a math journal, and simultaneously send it to several experts in the field / previous mentors or colleagues, since the process of refereeing may take a few months and I am curious now if my paper is correct or not (hopefully, the experts / mentors could inform me about an error in a few hours or days, at most).

Is it okay to send it both to a journal and experts / mentors?

Edit: Thank you very much for your answers/comments! I marked each as useful, but could not decide which I like best.

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    I would send the paper to your mentors first. Their feedback will increase the chances of getting your work published.
    – Richard Erickson
    Commented Jul 29, 2021 at 16:26
  • @RichardErickson, thank you. (The subject of my paper is not exactly what they research now, though they have friends that research that area).
    – user237522
    Commented Jul 29, 2021 at 16:49

5 Answers 5

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Pick the most appropriate of your mentors, write to ask if they are willing to look it over for you. Don't send it to "experts" you don't know, and don't send it to lots of people at once.

Wait until you hear back to submit to a journal.

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You can do either, but don't do both simultaneously, and follow the advice of Ethan Bolker.

If you need to send it to people you don't know, get a mentor/advisor/professor to ask on your behalf. A cold email will be ignored. And if you include a paper it might be deleted without opening it. But a mail from a colleague is harder to ignore and likely to be trusted.

Note that sending it to a journal is, in effect, sending it to a panel of experts - the reviewers.

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  • Thank you, too. I see all three advices are quite similar, with some elaboration / emphasis on one thing or another.
    – user237522
    Commented Jul 29, 2021 at 17:14
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This is probably OK. Journals generally have policies against dual submission (example policy from Wiley), but are also generally OK - even happy to encourage - the author sharing preprints.

The only caveat is if the mentors/experts find a fatal flaw in your manuscript, you will probably have to withdraw it from the journal.

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Reading a paper and looking for subtle errors take considerably time. It is hard to convince people to read your paper, even though they might be your coworkers. Convincing a stranger is even harder.

You might consider implementing parts of the paper, and checking statements by computer (depends on your field how difficult this is). This might be more value gained from time spent.

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If you are confident in the work, writing, and meaning of the results, but just looking for someone to double check math, I would submit to the journal at the same time as asking colleagues (but perhaps not people you don't know).

The reasoning is, I consider these situations:

  • its possible/likely there are no problems, and you just wait for a month (or more) to have a colleague say this.
  • you do have a mistake but its not substantial and reviewers end up missing it. while they were reviewing you end up having someone take a look that finds it and you can fix before publication
  • you do have a big mistake and reviewers end up missing it. you have enough time to withdraw
  • reviewers end up finding the same mistake, and you had been working on correcting it, so when you have to revise you have already tackled a lot of the work
  • if there are 3 reviewers, its possible/probable that they don't give the same feedback or requested changes, so adding a "4th reviewer" as in a colleague you know is not much different from getting different feedback and having to balance what to fix/correct
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    The OP clearly has some doubts. Even without them, a second pair of eyes before possibly wasting reviewers time (bullet points 2, 3 and 4) is better professional behavior.
    – Ethan Bolker
    Commented Jul 30, 2021 at 19:11
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    @EthanBolker I think it heavily depends on what the doubts are, which was what the first sentence was trying to address. I don't think many people submit a paper and then completely ignore that paper and topic while waiting for reviews. Perhaps I consider this point more like putting a preprint online at the same time as sending to a journal. People can still comment on it, perhaps they find errors, perhaps not, but I haven't heard arxiv and researchgate preprints etc. as a means to 'waste reviewers time'.
    – 001001
    Commented Jul 30, 2021 at 19:27

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