Communicating with eiRxiv

It is important for prospective and current authors to know the best way to communicate with us to ensure any questions or concerns are answered. We know many students authors will be working in this more professional setting for the first time, so here are a couple important items to keep in mind for any communication with eiRxiv:

1. Always try to write your email in a formal/professional tone. While we will answer all emails that are sent to us, this is a great time to practice formal written communication for students!
2. Be clear about your question(s). One of the biggest issues we see in communication from authors is that we are unable to identify the specific question(s) they want answered. Make sure you provide us with enough information to help you out, but also be careful about providing too much extraneous information that we cannot determine what your question is.

Have you searched our previously published published to see if they might answer your question?

Have you searched our previously published p to see if they might answer your question?completed the following steps to try and find your answer first.

1. Have you looked through our submission guide in its entirety?
2. Have you read through the required manuscript template?
3. Have you searched our previously published pre to see if they might answer your question?

If you have done all of these items and still have a question, email us! Make sure you tell us what your specific question is. Questions that are general in nature will result in our editors sending you links to the resources we have mentioned above.

 We have two general email addresses at eiRxiv that authors can use to ask various questions. The volunteers that monitor the inboxes are similar, but not exactly the same, so it does make a difference which one you use!

Use submissions(at)eirxiv.org when you have questions about:

• A previously submitted manuscript
• The submission process at eirxiv

We always recommend using the above email address, even if you happen to have the direct email of the editor handling your submission. If editors are traveling or have recently left, there will likely be a delay in getting a response compared to if you emailed submissions(at)emerginginvestigators.org.

Use questions(at)eirxiv.org when you have questions about anything unrelated to your submission, such as:

• Classroom resources for teachers
• Missing or broken links on the website
• Partnering with eiRxiv 

Use apply(at)eirxiv.org if you are interested in or have questions about volunteering with eiRxiv in any capacity.

 If you already have a submission with eiRxiv:

• The manuscript title
• Your manuscript number (if accepted into scientific review)
  • Manuscript numbers follow this format: eiRxiv-##-###
    • If you see eiRxiv-S-##-###, that is NOT a manuscript number

If you do not have a submission with eiRxiv already:

• See “Before You Send Your Email” section above for resources that could your question without the need to email editors

If you are experiencing issues with eiRxiv submission site:

• Check that you have the correct file types for each item, and have all required files
  • See our Submission Checklists for more details
• Tell us exactly what page you are having issues with and what you have tried
• Include a screenshot of the screen(s) you see. We can often identify exact issues quickly when we see what you see.
  • Avoid using cellphone pictures here as those are often too grainy to really see what the issue is

eiRxiv editors exclusively communicate with authors via email. This is done for two main reasons. First, all eiRxiv editors are volunteers and have regular, full-time jobs outside of their role(s) with eiRxiv they must prioritize. Second, we use inboxes that are monitored by 5+ individuals to help ensure all emails are answered and not lost. Therefore, phone or video calls to discuss questions with our editors is not something offered on an individual basis at eiRxiv.

eiRxiv will always aim to respond to emails within two (2) business days of receipt and we respond to emails in the order in which they are received. If you email us on a Wednesday morning, you should expect to receive a response by Friday evening. However, if you email us on a Thursday or Friday, you may not get a response until the following week. Our editors are not required nor expected to work on eiRxiv items during weekends, so emails received on Saturday and Sunday (local time for our editors) will more than likely not receive an immediate response.

Always reply-all to emails unless directed otherwise by an editor. Multiple editors are on each inox and are all qualified to answer your question(s). If you reply directly to one person you may experience delays in subsequent response time as the email could get lost in their inbox and you have removed the ability of another editor to quickly respond if they are actively checking email at that time.

There are three types of emails we typically do not respond to. We have listed them below and given our reasoning why we do not respond.

You can absolutely email us requesting an extension on a deadline, but we likely will not respond. All of our deadlines are suggestions to help keep the manuscript moving forward, but missing a deadline will not result in the automatic removal of your submission. Submissions must be inactive for over 9 months for removal to occur (and removal in our system is reversible, if needed).

The other reason we do not respond to these requests is that it would simply take up a lot of our time. We would rather focus our time on working on manuscripts in our review process than needing to dedicate a person to respond just to emails asking for revision extensions.

Please see our Review Process page for more information regarding our policy on expediting the review process of any manuscript.

We have put a lot of time and effort into our Submission Guidelines and the information provided to authors within. Therefore, we feel that if authors have utilized these resources they should have a good understanding of whether their work will meet our guidelines, or not. We also don’t require pre-submission approval of a manuscript and reaching out for it does not get your manuscript published any faster.

If authors are confident that their manuscript meets our submission requirements, they are invited to submit it to us. A Managing Editor will review the submission for completeness, formatting, and any items that would impede the review process. If the submission is not yet ready for scientific review, it will be sent back to the authors with information on what needs to be addressed.

If you have any questions on how to design an experiment, if your research question makes sense, etc. then you should contact our Ask A Scientist team! This team is separate from our editors and focuses just on helping students with their work before they have even collected any data.