You are assembling a promotion dossier due on Friday. You run the name of the journal that published your case report two years ago, and a watchlist entry comes back. The fee was paid. The PDF is online. The deadline has not moved.
Before any advice: this is written by Directive Publications, which is itself named on a third-party watchlist. We will not argue about whether that entry is fair, or issue verdicts on anyone else's journal. What follows is tests you can run and records you can make.
The shape of the answer: most of this cannot be undone; what you control is the record you make of it.
Before you contact anyone, write down what actually happened: dates, fees paid, every email, and whether any review comments ever arrived
Do it before you write to the journal; once a request is sent, detail gets reconstructed from memory. Record, in one document:
- The full citation, and the DOI if one was issued
- The submission date, and the date of any acceptance
- Every fee asked for and paid, with dates, amounts and references
- Whether review comments ever reached you — save them, or write "none received" and the date
- Who solicited the submission, if anyone, and how
- Every email exported as PDF, and a PDF of the article as it stands today
Two things are already fixed and no letter will change them: the article stays online, and sending it elsewhere unchanged is duplicate publication
The first is practical. A journal paid to publish has little incentive to remove anything, and removal would not unpublish it: the PDF may already have been downloaded, indexed and mirrored on sites you have no relationship with.
The second is a rule, and it catches people acting in good faith. Sending the work elsewhere because the first appearance was illegitimate is still duplicate publication; the mechanics are identical whoever published it first. Republication is possible only where the prior appearance is disclosed to the new editor, documented as withdrawn, and accepted at that editor's discretion — rare, and never promised.
Which of four situations you are in decides what comes next.
| Branch | Situation | What you do | What this branch does not give you |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | The journal agrees to withdraw | Get dated written confirmation; a fully disclosed resubmission becomes possible | Any assurance of acceptance elsewhere; the next editor decides |
| B | The journal refuses, or never answers | Keep the dated letter and delivery record, and file it | Any resubmission path; the article stands as published |
| C | The journal has vanished | Capture instead of asking: article PDF, journal pages, archival snapshot, DOI status | Anyone to negotiate with, or any removal from the record |
| D | There was never any peer review | Reclassify the output under an accurate CV heading | Erasure; the item stays on the list, in another section |
Branch one — the journal replies and agrees to withdraw: what the next editor must be told, in writing, before you resubmit anything
Get the agreement in writing, with a date. The cover letter to the next editor must state, before the science:
- That the manuscript has appeared before, naming the journal and publication date
- The DOI, if one was issued, and whether it still resolves
- When withdrawal was requested and confirmed, with the confirmation attached
- Whether any peer review took place, and what comments you received — including "none"
- What has changed since the earlier version
Acceptance is at that editor's discretion and is rare; undisclosed prior publication is a standard ground for retraction.
Branch two — the journal refuses or never answers: your dated letter is now the asset, and here is where to file it
No resubmission path here. A dated request, a delivery record and either a refusal or a documented silence answer the question you will be asked: what you did when you found out. File it in three places:
- Your own permanent file, with the article PDF and the correspondence
- Your institution's research office or integrity contact; sending it unprompted makes this disclosed, not discovered
- With your CV master copy, so the note in wording 1 below is substantiated
If no reply comes, record that as a dated fact: "requested 14 March 2026; no response as at 30 August 2026". Silence you can date is evidence.
Branch three — the journal has vanished: capture an archival copy, record whether the DOI still resolves, and preserve the evidence the record existed
There is nobody to write to, so the task changes from asking to capturing.
- Save a PDF of the article and of the journal's own pages: aims and scope, board, review statement, charges
- Lodge a snapshot with a public web archive, and keep the archive URL and capture date
- Record the DOI and test it: whether it resolves, where it lands, the date checked
A resolving DOI shows metadata was deposited and persists with a registration agency; it says nothing about whether review happened. Resolving is not landing: a DOI can resolve and still deliver you to a dead page — the failure preservation exists to prevent. One that does not resolve at all means no registration record is being served: none was ever deposited, or it was removed — not that the article was never published. Your captured copy is the evidence.
Branch four — there was never any peer review: reclassify the output on your CV instead of trying to erase it
If no comments ever arrived and the article appeared within days, you have no evidence that the work was peer reviewed — and no evidence is what you would have to defend. Listing it under "Peer-reviewed publications" is a claim about a process you cannot show took place, and it is the claim, not the article, that fails scrutiny.
So move it. "Other published output" is accurate, and accuracy is what is being tested. The work may still have a future, on the terms in branch one.
A withdrawal-request letter that creates a dated record whichever answer comes back
It asks for withdrawal, asks for a written refusal if the answer is no, and dates itself.
Subject: Withdrawal request — "[Article title]", DOI [10.xxxx/xxxxx]
Dear Editor and Publisher,
I am the corresponding author of "[Article title]", published in [Journal name] on [publication date], DOI [10.xxxx/xxxxx].
I am writing to request that this article be withdrawn and removed from your website.
[Optional, one line, factual only: No peer review comments were provided to me at any stage.]
Please confirm in writing whether the article will be withdrawn, and on what date.
If it will not be withdrawn, please confirm that in writing as well.
Please acknowledge receipt. This request is dated [today's date].
Yours sincerely,
[Name, affiliation, institutional email address]
Send it so the sending is on record. Write from your institutional address to every contact address the journal publishes, copy yourself, and keep the sent message — with any bounce or delivery notification — as a PDF. If the only route is a web form, screenshot it.
Listing or omitting the paper: selection is allowed, deletion is not, and where omission becomes misconduct
Wording 1 — a complete publication list. Keep the entry, add a short factual note.
[Authors]. [Title]. [Journal name] 2024;12(3):45-52. DOI 10.xxxx/xxxxx.
Published [Journal name]; withdrawal requested 14 March 2026, no response received.
Wording 2 — a selected list. Omit the entry, and let the heading say so.
Selected publications
[Your strongest five entries. The omitted paper is not among them.]
Selection is permitted: a section headed "Selected publications" claims nothing about what is absent. Deletion is not. Where an employer, funder, regulator or ethics committee asks for a complete publication history, omitting the entry misstates your record, and can itself be misconduct.
Turn the same tests on us: what Directive Publications does not have, and why we would decline your already-published manuscript
These tests are worth running on us too. What inspection returns:
- Not indexed in PubMed, PubMed Central, MEDLINE, Scopus or Web of Science
- Not listed in DOAJ
- No impact factor displayed, because we do not have one; what journal metrics actually measure is set out separately
- Crossref member; a DOI registered for every published article, under prefix 10.52338
- Open access under CC BY 4.0, authors retaining copyright
- Double-blind review; at least two independent expert reviewers sought per research manuscript, the handling editor deciding
- Submission free; an APC payable only on formal acceptance, nothing owed on rejection; three waiver routes, handled administratively
- Editorial policies aligned with COPE Core Practices; alignment is not membership, and we do not claim membership
- Board verification using ORCID, ROR and OpenAlex in progress, not complete
And the direct answer: we would decline the article you have already published, because submitting work that is already published is duplicate publication. COPE guidance does not order editors to refuse; it asks them to investigate and decide. Withdrawn and fully disclosed, it may be considered at an editor's discretion.
Our policies are published in full: Peer Review Process, Publication Charges, Fee Waivers & Discounts and Editorial Policies. Before resubmitting anything, read duplicate and redundant publication and how retractions happen.