Introduction to the review process

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This section gives you information about what happens to your article after you have submitted it, including how the peer review process works. We explain what the next steps will be and what to expect.

If you have any suggestions for other useful information we could provide, please contact our Author Services department at authorqueries@tandf.co.uk

We've brought together tips from some of our journal editors on peer review and how to make sure that your paper gets that far.

Advice from Professor Michael Reiss, Editor of Sex Education:
"There's no doubt that as an Editor, when you first get a submission, what you're doing is two things: at one level you're simply filtering so, a fairly small proportion, we're probably only talking about twenty, twenty-five percent, do not get sent out by me for review, that's because they fall into one of a number of categories. Sometimes they simply fall outside the scope of the journal."

Advice from Professor Stephen Ball, Editor of Journal of Education Policy:
"Some people who send papers ... simply send it to the wrong journal and that's becoming increasingly the case ... And it's surprising how many people submit papers clearly never having read the journal, never opened a page of the journal or read on the website what it is the journal's interested in. And increasingly, as the Managing Editor, I'm fielding papers at the initial stage which we would never send out for review and I write back and I say sorry, this doesn't fit within the remit of our journal."

Advice from Professor Len Barton, Editor of Disability and Society:
"I do think this is important for a number of reasons, but I want to say it, it's important that authors remember that where referees' comments have been helpful, and hopefully they will be helpful because in many ways they are quite detailed and specific, it is appropriate in the revised submission that their contribution is acknowledged in the paper. Very, very few people acknowledge the helpfulness of referees."

Advice from John Wallace, Editor of the Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education:
"One needs to submit in order to get feedback. In our journal we welcome submissions; we want people to put their work forward. One shouldn’t forget that in making a submission you are getting a bunch of people to work for you and when you submit an article to a journal you’ve got a good handful of experienced people at work. The Editor, the reviewers are all giving you feedback and it’s free. What you do with it is then up to you but submit, get the feedback and then work through the feedback systematically and resubmit. So my piece of advice in a nutshell is encouragement. Get your work submitted to the journal and let us do some work on your behalf, and then work hard to resubmit. Eventually, persistence pays off, you will get published."

Read more tips on how to get published from our Editors

Frequently asked questions

How can I find out what stage my manuscript is at?
If it has not yet been accepted, please contact the editorial office of the journal, or use the tracking facility provided by any electronic submission system you have used. If it has been accepted, contact your production editor by logging into CATS (the Taylor & Francis Central Article Tracking System).

How can I find out the contact details of an academic editor?
If these are available, there will be a link on the Editorial Board tab for the journal.