Update DL/AR page

[naushinthomson]

• [x] Add information about the ed office QC process (see here)
• [x] Melissa approved page
• [x] Fred approved page
• [x] James approved page
• [x] Naushin approved page
• [x] Claudia approved page
• [ ] Share page with Exeter if relevant

Definition of done

• [ ] Team reviewed and approved page?
• [ ] Add changelog to page
• [ ] Assign Fred to update the Schematron if relevant

[fred-atherden]

@naushinthomson, @Melissa37, @griffithsc @JGilbert-eLife this is now ready to review - https://elifesciences.gitbook.io/productionhowto/-M1eY9ikxECYR-0OcnGt/article-details/content/decision-letters-and-author-responses#decision-letter-qc.

The section that has changed is Decision letter QC.

[Melissa37]

Could you indicate at the top of this section that this is outsourced to editorial office?

[Melissa37]

Language/comments that could be construed as inappropriate or offensive are removed.

Could some examples be provided?

[Melissa37]

Where words are marked with asterisks or capitalised for emphasis, they are replaced with italics for emphasis.

I don't think this is house style - they should be just changed to Roman to follow the rest of the article?

[Melissa37]

Long quotations are be abbreviated using ellipses:

remove the word be

[Melissa37]

Hyphens are replaced with en dashes where they don’t concatenate a word.

and

Hyphens (-) are changed to dashes (–) when appropriate.

I wonder whether the Ed Office staff should follow the same guidance we give Exeter instead of this different guidance?

[Melissa37]

Check for any images which are reproduced

I like this bullet without a full stop at the end (it's my preference!), but all the others do have full stops so I think it's easier to add one than delete all the rest :-)

[Melissa37]

see below for formatting in word doc for images

Word is a propper noun in this instance and should be Word

[Melissa37]

Decision letter images should be added to the word doc in the following way:

I'd add, including the Yellow formatting if that's needed, otherwise it looks like it's to make the image clearer? Later text indicates it is part of the requirement but a lazy reader (myself included) might just read that first part!

[Melissa37]

If there is no title or legend, the the full stop in the tag must be present in order for the label to be correctly captured.

Think the first the should be then?

[Melissa37]

Table can be included in the word document. They must be preceded by their label which is formatted in bold:

Word, not word

[Melissa37]

If an article has reviews from other Journals

Journals should be journals

[Melissa37]

Setting up the Macro

@FAtherden-eLife This seems really onerous!! Is there any way you or @JGilbert-eLife could simplify it?

[Melissa37]

If required, Mac users can check the contents of a zip using the following bash command (in the command line):

Is it worth showing people how to get to the command line? For people who have NO IDEA :-)

[Melissa37]

A 'Kitchen sink' decision letter

Decision is capital D everywhere else I think

[Melissa37]

Reloading a Decision letter is as simple as downloading the zip file from the elife/decision-letter-input aws bucket and then re-uploading it (which will overwrite the file).

AWS elsewhere (not aws)

[Melissa37]

eLife production will be made aware of any Decision letters being loaded by an automated email appearing in the Production Inbox. Certain actions may be required depending on whether the email indicates that the Decision Letter ...

Letter in DL should be lower case as per other instances

[Melissa37]

A decision letter may fail to load for the following reasons:

Capital D needed for decision

[Melissa37]

Articles accepted at full submission will not include a 'Your article has been reviewed by ...' introduction paragraph in the decision letter.

Capital D needed for decision

[Melissa37]

We don't say anywhere that citations to references and figures in these assets are NOT linked to them in the main XML and that we don't change figure numbers to match the final version (if there's been any change during submissions/revisions). I think that's useful info

[Melissa37]

Thank you!!

[fred-atherden]

Could you indicate at the top of this section that this is outsourced to editorial office?

It's mentioned at the top of "How are Decision letters and Author responses created?". We want it in this section too?

[fred-atherden]

Where words are marked with asterisks or capitalised for emphasis, they are replaced with italics for emphasis.

I don't think this is house style - they should be just changed to Roman to follow the rest of the article?

Authors can't add emphasis with italics? Where does it say that in our house style?

In the content processing page it says:

Single quotation marks should be used for emphasis ('some text').

But I'm not sure where that's from, and I don't know how stringently that's being applied by copyeditors.

If Ed Office don't try to retain the emphasis might it potentially change the meaning?

[fred-atherden]

Language/comments that could be construed as inappropriate or offensive are removed.

Could some examples be provided?

From Sue:

Hi Fred, if I'm honest I don't think I have ever seen anything truly bad that we have had to remove that I have an example of. The decision letter has been vetted by the Editor before it's gone to the author anyway so even the worse review has been toned down. I do recall one were the author response was pretty scathing of the reviewer and that was moderated before publication...but that's 1 in 5 years....however if I do see one I will flag it your way for the record

[fred-atherden]

We don't say anywhere that citations to references and figures in these assets are NOT linked to them in the main XML and that we don't change figure numbers to match the final version (if there's been any change during submissions/revisions). I think that's useful info

I agree. I've added the following to 'General guidance for Decision letter proofing queries':

We tend to retain the original figure/asset numbering from various steps of revision, rather than updating them to the current numbering in the proofs. However if the authors request that these are updated during proofing, then this is fine to do, provided they indicate to the Production team what needs changing.

With the exception of Decision letter and Author response assets, figures/assets and citations are not linked in the Decision letter.

[fred-atherden]

Setting up the Macro @FAtherden-eLife This seems really onerous!! Is there any way you or @JGilbert-eLife could simplify it?

There are certainly other ways we could do it. For example the bot could probably do this instead, or we could transform the XML after the bot has generated it. That does increase the potential for introducing errors however, since currently someone is manually looking at the decision letter after the automated process has run, and that wouldn't be the case (or it would be 1/2 fewer people looking at it) if we did it later in the workflow.

You only have to set it up once. After that, running it is very simple. I agree it's a bit involved though (not a process we introduced!)

[JGilbert-eLife]

Hmm - it's probably not that important, but 'R0' isn't really a term that we've ever used. It might be better to give an example of a full sub article number (e.g. 14-12-2020-RA-eLife-65764) or leave that out entirely.

[JGilbert-eLife]

Less a comment and more a long prolonged scream that this is the process!

For images in PDFs, in Reader, take a snap shot, paste in Paint (or similar) and save as .jpg.

[JGilbert-eLife]

Is this a typo, since the previous text refers to JPEGs?

When PNGs turn out to be too small . . .

[JGilbert-eLife]

I wonder if it's worth being clear that the images themselves aren't being added to the word document. I'm not sure what alternative wording to use though.

[JGilbert-eLife]

I think expanding 'OSs' to 'operating system's' would make sense for this page.

[JGilbert-eLife]

Thanks @FAtherden-eLife !

[Melissa37]

Where words are marked with asterisks or capitalised for emphasis, they are replaced with italics for emphasis.

I don't think this is house style - they should be just changed to Roman to follow the rest of the article?

Authors can't add emphasis with italics? Where does it say that in our house style?

In the content processing page it says:

Single quotation marks should be used for emphasis ('some text').

But I'm not sure where that's from, and I don't know how stringently that's being applied by copyeditors.

If Ed Office don't try to retain the emphasis might it potentially change the meaning?

If they are getting it in DL/AR one would assume this happens in normal content, but I don't think I've ever seen it and also if we've never instructed our copy editors in how to handle this then why are Ed Office instructions potentially more or different? I guess that's what I am getting at! I wonder whether Sue could provide examples?

[Melissa37]

Could you indicate at the top of this section that this is outsourced to editorial office?

It's mentioned at the top of "How are Decision letters and Author responses created?". We want it in this section too?

I put the thumbs down to indicate ignore me, not sure that was clear!

[Melissa37]

Language/comments that could be construed as inappropriate or offensive are removed.

Could some examples be provided?

From Sue:

Hi Fred, if I'm honest I don't think I have ever seen anything truly bad that we have had to remove that I have an example of. The decision letter has been vetted by the Editor before it's gone to the author anyway so even the worse review has been toned down. I do recall one were the author response was pretty scathing of the reviewer and that was moderated before publication...but that's 1 in 5 years....however if I do see one I will flag it your way for the record

Is it worth reaching out to ask Andy for examples of what he would want removed? Sue has handed this task over to her team but if there is no indication fo what this coul be, the instruction seems a bit silly

[Melissa37]

Setting up the Macro @FAtherden-eLife This seems really onerous!! Is there any way you or @JGilbert-eLife could simplify it?

There are certainly other ways we could do it. For example the bot could probably do this instead, or we could transform the XML after the bot has generated it. That does increase the potential for introducing errors however, since currently someone is manually looking at the decision letter after the automated process has run, and that wouldn't be the case (or it would be 1/2 fewer people looking at it) if we did it later in the workflow.

You only have to set it up once. After that, running it is very simple. I agree it's a bit involved though (not a process we introduced!)

Yes! Looking at the checks they do though, I am not convinced by some of the tasks and makes me ask whether it is all actually necessary to have human intervention if the Bot could do it and Schematron pick up missed items? Worth thinking about

[fred-atherden]

I wonder if it's worth being clear that the images themselves aren't being added to the word document. I'm not sure what alternative wording to use though.

Under Decision letter QC > Images I have changed

Images should be captured as separate .jpg files (see below for formatting in Word doc for images).

to

Images should be captured as separate .jpg files (see below for formatting in Word doc for images - the images are not included inside the actual Word file).

Is that clear enough?

[fred-atherden]

If required, Mac users can check the contents of a zip using the following bash command (in the command line):

Is it worth showing people how to get to the command line? For people who have NO IDEA :-)

I've changed the text to:

(in the command line, which is called 'terminal' on a Mac)

Is that sufficient? They can google Mac and command line/terminal if they are unsure? If we were to provide more extensive guidance, is this page the place to do that?

[fred-atherden]

If they are getting it in DL/AR one would assume this happens in normal content, but I don't think I've ever seen it and also if we've never instructed our copy editors in how to handle this then why are Ed Office instructions potentially more or different? I guess that's what I am getting at! I wonder whether Sue could provide examples?

I can ask Sue for examples. I've found an example in 68808:

... The proportion of asymptomatic screening tests is expected to be lower than the proportion of symptomatic tests. Even if fewer than 1% of unvaccinated HCWs tested positive over the course of the period of study, a 75% reduction is clearly extremely valuable in preventing nosocomial transmission to vulnerable patients and other staff i.e. from the point of view of infection control within the hospital, the difference between 0.2% and 0.8% is highly clinically significant. ...

although in the original, the phrases were italicised anyway (instead of all caps or w/e).

I imagine in most cases with this content, the emphasis is being used by authors etc. to show just how wrong someone is [shakes fist].

Maybe this is another case of legacy requirements from Editorial which we don't need to bother with. Perhaps we should consider no intervention at all from Ed Office, rather than changing to roman...

[fred-atherden]

Decision letter images should be added to the word doc in the following way:

I'd add, including the Yellow formatting if that's needed, otherwise it looks like it's to make the image clearer? Later text indicates it is part of the requirement but a lazy reader (myself included) might just read that first part!

AFAIK the highlighting isn't required, although I can't see a case where it hasn't been included.

But, it is useful for whoever needs to look over the doc to immediately distinguish "assets". So I've changed the text to:

Decision letter images should be added to the Word doc in the following way (the yellow highlighting should also be added in the document itself):

[fred-atherden]

Language/comments that could be construed as inappropriate or offensive are removed.

Could some examples be provided?

From Sue:

Hi Fred, if I'm honest I don't think I have ever seen anything truly bad that we have had to remove that I have an example of. The decision letter has been vetted by the Editor before it's gone to the author anyway so even the worse review has been toned down. I do recall one were the author response was pretty scathing of the reviewer and that was moderated before publication...but that's 1 in 5 years....however if I do see one I will flag it your way for the record

Is it worth reaching out to ask Andy for examples of what he would want removed? Sue has handed this task over to her team but if there is no indication fo what this coul be, the instruction seems a bit silly

I have reached out to Andy who has provided some guidance which I have added as a hint. Is this clear enough?

It's context dependent and obviously a judgement call as to what constitutes inappropriate or offensive language, but there are some signals, such as:

• use of words such as "offensive", "offended", "unprofessional", "rude", "dismissive", "conflict of interest", "shocked", "strongly disagree".
• use of exclamation marks may be a sign of enthusiasm (in which case this is okay) or a sign of an unsavoury disagreement (in which case the section should be read for context and edited as appropriate)
• inappropriate language from either a reviewer or author is more likely in the case of very long decision letters, especially those accepted after one or more rounds of appeal.

[Melissa37]

Perfect! Thanks! M

Melissa Harrison Head of Production Operations

Tel: +44 1223 855340

http://elifesciences.org

On Wed, Jul 14, 2021 at 8:56 AM FAtherden-eLife @.***> wrote:

Language/comments that could be construed as inappropriate or offensive are removed.

Could some examples be provided?

From Sue:

Hi Fred, if I'm honest I don't think I have ever seen anything truly bad that we have had to remove that I have an example of. The decision letter has been vetted by the Editor before it's gone to the author anyway so even the worse review has been toned down. I do recall one were the author response was pretty scathing of the reviewer and that was moderated before publication...but that's 1 in 5 years....however if I do see one I will flag it your way for the record

Is it worth reaching out to ask Andy for examples of what he would want removed? Sue has handed this task over to her team but if there is no indication fo what this coul be, the instruction seems a bit silly

I have reached out to Andy who has provided some guidance which I have added as a hint. Is this clear enough?

It's context dependent and obviously a judgement call as to what constitutes inappropriate or offensive language, but there are some signals, such as:

• use of words such as "offensive", "offended", "unprofessional", "rude", "dismissive", "conflict of interest", "shocked", "strongly disagree".
• use of exclamation marks may be a sign of enthusiasm (in which case this is okay) or a sign of an unsavoury disagreement (in which case the section should be read for context and edited as appropriate)
• inappropriate language from either a reviewer or author is more likely in the case of very long decision letters, especially those accepted after one or more rounds of appeal.

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[fred-atherden]

Going to add a schematron check which searches for those 'offensive' words in the DL/AR and will update the page accordingly.

[fred-atherden]

Going to add a schematron check which searches for those offensive words in the DL/AR and will update the page accordingly.

I have added dec-letter-reply-test-7 for this. Please check and let me know if the action sounds OK. I also need to work on the messaging - actually showing which term fired the rule in the message. It doesn't currently do that and I will make it so that it does.

I had a related question - should the Schematron checking for swear words in the DL/AR? Presumably it's extremely unlikely to ever occur, but if it did, wouldn't we want to catch it? If so, I could extend this test to catch those as well.

[naushinthomson]

All looks good to me, including the new schematron check! In terms of the swear words check, I suppose it's worth being extra sure!

[griffithsc]

This looks good to me too - thanks Fred! And I second Naushin about the dec-letter-reply-test-7 schematron check and checking for swear words :-)