Journal submission

Get your manuscript past the editor's first read

Many submissions are rejected before peer review, often for reasons that have nothing to do with the science: wrong scope, ignored author guidelines, unclear writing. Those are fixable in an afternoon if you know what to look for.

Try it freeSee the steps

Free plan includes 100 AI Autocomplete / Ghost Text · 5,000 AI Writing Words · 100 AI Rewrites.

AI Edit · Consistency

9 suggestions across the manuscript
Abbreviations

magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), defined again in Section 3

MRI

AcceptReject
Terminology

participants / subjects / patients

participants

AcceptReject
Capitalization

figure 2, Table 3, fig. 4

Figure 2, Table 3, Figure 4

AcceptReject
The problem

Why manuscripts get desk-rejected

Editors give the same reasons again and again.

Out of scope

The paper is fine and the journal doesn't publish that kind of work. Ten minutes with recent issues would have shown it.

Author guidelines ignored

Over the word limit, wrong reference style, missing declarations, or a structured abstract that isn't structured.

The abstract buries the finding

Editors decide quickly, and the abstract is often all they read at first.

Language gets in the way

Inconsistent terms, undefined abbreviations and long sentences make an editor doubt the care taken elsewhere.

Step by step

How to do it in LitraMind

Start with the guidelines, not the manuscript.

  1. Read the author guidelines and note the hard limits

    Word count, abstract format, reference style, figure limits, required statements. Put them at the top of your document as a checklist.

  2. Bring the manuscript into the editor

    Start a Research Paper document and paste in your draft, or carry on with one you wrote here.

    About Write New Paper

  3. Run a consistency pass

    AI Edit flags inconsistent terminology, abbreviations, capitalization and formatting, along with grammar and clarity. Accept or reject each suggestion.

    About AI Edit

  4. Rewrite the abstract and title

    Use Trim to hit the word limit, and Simplify on any sentence a non-specialist editor would trip over. State the main result, with its number.

    About AI Rewrite

  5. Switch to the journal's reference style

    Set the citation style to match the guidelines and the reference list reformats. Fill any "citation needed" spots while you're there.

    About Research & Cite

  6. Run the pre-submission checks and export

    LitraMind plans include Manuscript Checks and Journal Submission Checks, with a small monthly allowance on the free plan. Run them, fix what they raise, then export to DOCX or PDF for the journal's submission system.

Start step 1 free
Example

An abstract sentence an editor can use

The first version describes a study. The second reports one.

Vague

In this study, we aimed to investigate the potential effects of a novel intervention on various outcomes in a cohort of patients, and the results obtained suggest that there may be some beneficial effects.

Specific

In a randomized trial of 186 adults with stage 1 hypertension, a 12-week supervised walking program lowered systolic blood pressure by 6.2 mmHg more than usual care (95% CI 3.1 to 9.3).

One sentence now gives the design, the sample, the intervention and the size of the effect. The figures are invented for illustration.

The guide

What editors look for

None of this is secret. It's in most journals' guidance, and most authors skip it.

Fit comes first

Read the journal's aims and scope, then skim the last two or three issues. If nothing like your paper appears, choose another journal.

In your cover letter, say in one or two sentences why this paper suits this journal's readers. Mentioning a relevant recent article from the journal helps, if it comes naturally.

Follow the reporting guideline for your study type

Reporting guidelines list what a paper of a given design must contain. They're collected by the EQUATOR Network, and many health and medical journals require the completed checklist as a submission file.

Other fields have their own conventions. The author guidelines will say.

Reporting guidelines by study design
Study typeGuideline
Randomized trialCONSORT
Observational studySTROBE
Systematic review or meta-analysisPRISMA
Diagnostic accuracy studySTARD
Qualitative researchCOREQ or SRQR
Case reportCARE

The abstract is the paper, for most readers

Structure it even when the journal doesn't ask for headings: one sentence of context, the question, what you did, the main result with numbers, and what it means.

Avoid "results are discussed". Put the result in.

Declarations and disclosure

Have these ready before you open the submission form: author contributions, funding, conflicts of interest, ethics approval and data availability.

If you used AI tools in the writing, say so where the journal asks. The ICMJE and COPE position, which most major publishers follow, is that AI tools can't be authors and that the authors are accountable for all content.

Written by the LitraMind team. Last reviewed .

In their words

What researchers and students say

“It helped me approach submission as a final manuscript check rather than another complete rewrite. The paper was much more consistent by the end.”

Dr. C•••Postdoctoral Researcher, Biomedical SciencesN••• University, United Kingdom

“I found it useful for checking whether the abstract, main text, tables and references were all telling the same story before submission.”

Dr. L•••Research Fellow, Public HealthW••• M••• University, United States

“The manuscript had been revised by several co-authors, so the consistency check was particularly valuable.”

Dr. K•••Research Fellow, BiotechnologyN••• Institute of B••• R•••, India

“It helped me spot sections that still contained terminology from an earlier version of the study.”

Dr. B•••Postdoctoral Researcher, PsychologyR••• University, Germany

“I mainly used it in the final two days before submission. It made the manuscript feel much more polished without introducing unnecessary changes.”

Dr. M•••Research Fellow, NeuroscienceP••• Institute of N•••, France

“It was useful as a structured final check because journal submission involves many small details that are easy to overlook.”

Dr. L•••Research Fellow, EngineeringP••• Institute of T•••, Singapore
The tools

What this workflow uses

All of them live in the same editor, so you don't move text between apps.

AI Edit

Grammar, tone, clarity and consistency suggestions that you accept or reject one at a time.

About AI Edit

AI Rewrite

Seven rewrite modes for selected text: Paraphrase, Make Academic, Improve Fluency, Simplify, Trim, Change Tone and Synonyms.

About AI Rewrite

Research & Cite

Highlight a claim, search scholarly sources for it, and insert the citation in your chosen style.

About Research & Cite

Write New Paper

Start from a template or your own PDFs and build an outline before you draft.

About Write New Paper
Straight answer

What it doesn't do

Presentation gets you read. It doesn't get you accepted.

  • It can't guarantee acceptance, or tell you whether your findings are novel enough for a given journal.
  • It doesn't submit for you. Submission happens in the journal's own system.
  • Journal layout templates, such as LaTeX classes and Word templates, are applied after export.
Questions

Questions people ask

Short answers before you start. Plan limits are on the pricing page.

See plans and limits
Can LitraMind format my paper for a specific journal?
It handles the parts that are about the text: reference style, consistency, length and clarity. Layout templates supplied by the journal are applied to the exported DOCX.
Do journals allow AI-assisted editing?
Most major publishers allow AI assistance for language and readability with disclosure, and prohibit listing AI as an author. Policies differ in the detail, including on AI-generated images, so read your target journal's policy.
What is a desk rejection?
A decision by the editor to decline a manuscript without sending it to peer reviewers, usually because of scope, presentation or a failure to follow the guidelines. It's quick, so you can fix the issue and submit elsewhere.
Which reference styles are supported?
APA 7th, MLA 9th, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver. Switching style reformats the citations and the reference list.
Can I export to Word or PDF?
Yes, both.
Keep going

Related use cases

All use cases

Citations and bibliography

Find a source at the moment you make a claim, insert it in your style, and let the reference list keep itself in sync.

Read the guide

Academic English for non-native speakers

Draft in the language you think in, translate with your terminology intact, and fix fluency sentence by sentence.

Read the guide

Edit AI drafts into your own voice

Cut the padding from an AI draft, put your own argument back in, and check every claim before your name goes on it.

Read the guide

Give your manuscript one more pass before you submit

Paste it into LitraMind, run AI Edit for consistency, and tighten the abstract. Start on the free plan.

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