Halfway down a journal's editorial board page is a name you recognise. Two clicks away, in that journal's current issue, is a paper by that person.
Neither is a problem on its own. Editors are drawn from the researchers active in a journal's field, and barring them from their own journal would empty the boards of the people worth having. Nothing on the article page says who handled that manuscript.
If the author handled their own submission, the peer review did not happen in any meaningful sense. Below are six questions that establish whether a journal has a real firewall, and our own answers, including where no rule is written down.
Editors publishing in their own journals is normal; editors deciding on their own manuscripts is not
An editor submitting to the journal they serve is ordinary; the manuscript takes its chances alongside every other submission.
An editor touching the assessment of their own manuscript removes the mechanism the journal exists to operate. COPE and the ICMJE Recommendations set a procedural expectation rather than a personal one — a journal should operate a defined process for an editor's competing interests, and an editor who takes final decisions should recuse themselves where they hold a potential conflict. The safeguard is removal from the handling, not a promise to be fair. Our editorial policies align with COPE Core Practices, which is not a written rule for this case.
Three roles create the problem, and the last is hardest to firewall
A board member is straightforward: somebody else handles the paper, and holds no position under the author. A guest editor of the issue their paper appears in is harder: they proposed the theme and invited the contributors, so the conflict predates the manuscript.
The Editor-in-Chief is hardest: the remedy is to escalate, and escalation points at the author. Assignment, override and appeal terminate at the same desk.
What a firewall means in practice: access, assignment, correspondence and the decision
"Recused" is a word, not an arrangement. A firewall has four parts, and a journal can have some without the others.
- Access — the author-editor cannot see the file, the reviewer identities or the reports.
- Assignment — somebody else picks the handling editor and the reviewers.
- Correspondence — every message reaches the author-editor as an author, never an editor.
- Decision — accept or reject sits with someone who does not answer to the author-editor.
Keep two words apart, ours included. Intended means somebody has undertaken not to look. Enforced means a permission has been removed and looking leaves a trace.
The Editor-in-Chief's own submission is the test case, because the usual answer is unavailable
For every other role the answer is "the Editor-in-Chief assigns it elsewhere". When the chief is the author, that has nothing to point to.
Two arrangements work: final authority for that manuscript is delegated in advance to a named deputy with standing to reject it, or handling passes to an editor outside the journal. The delegation must be in writing before submission, with the appeal route redirected.
Guest editors and their own special issues: the conflict the invitation letter never mentions
A guest editor's own contribution can be legitimate, but only if handling passes to a permanent editor chosen by the journal, not the guest, and the guest takes no part in selecting reviewers — the mechanics belong to special issues and guest editors. The invitation letter may say nothing about who handles the guest's own paper; settle it before accepting.
Why a "handled by" line on the article beats a policy page
A policy page says what a journal does in general; a line on the article says what happened to that manuscript — the author's editorial role, the recusal, and who decided instead, checkable against the masthead.
Such a line can only describe manuscripts handled after a journal adopts it, and cannot be applied backwards. That includes our back catalogue and imported legacy content, which nobody has audited; we will not assert it was all independently handled.
The six questions that establish whether any journal has a real firewall
Paste this into an email to the editorial office.
Dear Editorial Office,
I am considering submitting to [journal] and would be grateful for written answers to six questions about how you handle manuscripts by your own editors.
1. May board members, guest editors and the Editor-in-Chief submit to this journal, and is that stated publicly anywhere I can read?
2. When the author is an editor, who assigns the handling editor, and can the author-editor see or influence that assignment?
3. Is the author-editor excluded from the record of that manuscript — files, reviewer identities, reports, correspondence — and how is that enforced rather than intended?
4. Who takes the final decision when the author is the Editor-in-Chief, and is that person independent in fact as well as on paper?
5. Is the handling arrangement disclosed on the published article, and in what words?
6. Is the same peer-review standard applied to editor-authored manuscripts, and can you show that such a paper was externally reviewed?
A short written reply is fine; I am not asking about any individual manuscript.
With thanks, [name]
What to listen for in each reply:
| Question | A serious answer | A non-answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Permitted, stated publicly | Yes, and here is the page | "It has never been an issue" |
| 2. Who assigns | A named role, not the author | "The editors agree between them" |
| 3. Excluded, how enforced | A named control, labelled accurately | "They would never look" |
| 4. Who decides on the chief's paper | Someone named in advance, appeal redirected | "The chief recuses", no successor |
| 5. Disclosed on the article | Yes, in these words, with an example | "It is in our policy" |
| 6. Same standard, evidenced | The standard, plus what could be shown | "All our papers are rigorously reviewed" |
Our answers to all six, marked written policy or no published rule
| Question | Our answer today |
|---|---|
| 1. Permitted, stated publicly | No published handling rule. Publication Ethics says editors and reviewers recuse themselves from manuscripts in which they have a competing interest; Editorial Policies requires authors, reviewers and editors to declare interests that could be perceived to influence the work. Neither says whether an editor may submit, or who handles the manuscript if they do. |
| 2. Who assigns the handling editor | No published rule. We have not published who assigns, or what stops an author-editor influencing it. |
| 3. Excluded from the record, how enforced | No published rule. Our published route for submission is email to the editorial office (Submit Your Manuscript), not a portal, so there is no system permission to revoke: any exclusion is an office procedure, not a technical control, and we will not call it enforced. |
| 4. Who decides on the Editor-in-Chief's paper | No published rule, and a gap we would rather name. Our statements disagree: Peer Review says an appeal is considered by an editor not involved in the original decision; Editorial Policies says appeals go to the Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is final. Neither names who decides, or who hears an appeal, when the Editor-in-Chief is the author. |
| 5. Disclosed on the article | No published rule. Our article pages do not carry a handling-editor line. |
| 6. Same review standard, evidenced | Written policy — Peer Review. Review is double-blind, at least two independent expert reviewers are sought per research manuscript, and the handling editor decides. Nothing there exempts an editor-authored manuscript, and nothing says who the handling editor is when the author is an editor. |
Five of the six have no published rule that answers them, and the one recusal sentence we publish stops short of a handling rule. Writing one here would make it read as policy — the failure this post is about.
What you can check from outside without asking anyone
- Read the last two or three issues against the masthead, noting which papers are by people listed on it.
- Open those articles and look for a handling-editor line, or a competing-interest statement naming the editorial role.
- Search the policy pages for any mention of editor submissions at all.
The disclosure line is the most informative, because it costs a journal something to print.
If the answers do not come back in writing, what that tells you
A journal that has thought about this answers in a paragraph, because the arrangement exists and somebody wrote it down. A journal that has not sends reassurance instead of mechanism: warm sentences naming no person, no rule, no page.
That is not proof of bad faith. It tells you the handling will be improvised on the day, and improvisation under pressure favours whoever is senior.
Our positions are in Editorial Policies and Publication Ethics; the review standard is on Peer Review. See also the handling editor's role, fair peer review for editors, and what to declare as a competing interest.