Peer review is the hallmark of a university press and your acquisitions editor will be your guide through this process. For more information about peer review, see our webinar on the topic:
Submitting Your Manuscript for Peer Review
Peer Review Manuscript Checklist
Please follow this checklist when submitting your manuscript for peer review:
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Submit as a double-spaced Word document in 12-point Times New Roman font.
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Remove editing notations, tracked changes, comments, and highlighting.
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Carefully proof the entire text prior to submission to confirm there are no errors of content, style, or spelling that you would not want a peer reviewer to see.
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Include a title page, table of contents, and bibliography.
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Provide a list of figures and, if available, low-resolution illustrations, maps, and tables.
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Check quotations against original sources and verify excerpts, spelling, and accents.
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Ensure that your citation style is clear and followed consistently throughout.
You do not need to follow the Manuscript Requirements or Illustration Requirements when submitting a manuscript for peer review, though these documents will be useful when you submit your final manuscript.
Naming and Submitting Your Files
Label all digital files clearly. We recommend you include your last name in the name of the file. Digital file names should contain only keyboard letters and numbers, hyphens, and underscores. Do not use spaces or special characters.
You are welcome to email the files to your acquisitions editor if they are not too large (35 MB). Alternatively, you can share or send files to your editor through your Dropbox or Google account.
What You Can Do During Peer Review
While your manuscript is out for peer review, we encourage you to prepare for upcoming requirements and lay the groundwork for a smooth publication process.
Documentation
- Review the Documentation section in the Manuscript Requirements
- Confirm your documentation style with your editor and consult the stylebook
- Confirm that you have followed one style consistently throughout your manuscript, notes, and bibliography or refrences
Illustrations & Alternative Text (Alt-Text)
If your book is approved for publication by the editorial board, you will need to submit high-resolution files of the illustrations with your final manuscript for launch to editorial, design, and production. Illustrations reproduced in a book can never look better than the original, so it is essential that the material you provide be of the best possible quality.
All of the illustrations will also require alt-text, which is used by e-readers to describe visual content of an image for readers who may not be able to see the image.
What you can do now:
- If your project is under contract, check the number of illustrations you can include
- Prepare a list of illustrations you would like to include
- Begin to gather illustrations. At this stage, do not purchase illustrations or pay reproduction fees, as the materials included in your project may change
- Read the Illustration Requirements to determine whether your illustrations meet the required specifications. If you have questions, you may submit sample illustrations to your acquisitions editor and/or their assistant for evaluation.
- You can also read about alt-text in the Illustration Requirements and best practices for writing effective alt-text.
- Draft captions and alt-text for all the illustrations you plan to include in your manuscript.
Permissions
As outlined in your contract, you are legally responsible for obtaining permissions for copyrighted materials, paying permissions fees, and providing copies of the book to rights holders. While the Press cannot offer legal advice, our Permission Guidelines contains advice and suggestions. There is no need to secure permission or pay permission fees at this stage, as the materials included in your project may change.
However, you can do the following tasks now:
- Review the Permission Guidelines, Rights Log, and Permission Request Templates
- Create a list of materials you plan to include that may require permission
- Carefully consider whether each item is integral to the book
- Investigate whom you should contact to acquire reproduction rights
- Discuss any questions or concerns with your acquiring editor
- Consult an attorney, preferrably one with a background in copyright law, with any legal questions
After your project has been peer reviewed and approved by our editorial board, your acquiring editor will ask you to obtain necessary permissions.
Funding
As outlined in the publishing agreement, you are responsible for the cost of permission fees, proofreading, and indexing. Publishing a book incurs many other costs, and while the Press does not require a subvention, we encourage you to look for funding to offset these costs.
What you can do now:
- Investigate whether your institution has publication funding available
- Consult colleagues about available funding from outside institutions
- Gather information about the application process and schedules for funding and grants
Promoting Your Book
While promoting your book may seem far in the future, we encourage you to read our information on how to Promote Your Book. This document may give you ideas for ways you can build a foundation for promoting your book.
Preparing a Letter of Response
All authors and volume editors will be asked to write a letter of response to each round of peer review. This letter should outline the changes you plan to implement in your manuscript based on suggestions from the reviewers and provide a picture of your manuscript’s development. The letter is part of the larger conversation between you and your editor about your project’s development.
When your project has received sufficiently positive peer reviews, your editor will present it to our faculty editorial board for final publication approval. The board does not read full manuscripts, but they receive copies of the peer reviews and letter(s) of response for their approval. The board is tasked with assessing the peer review process, and the letter of response is your opportunity to demonstrate to the board that you have carefully considered the reviewers’ suggestions and to explain your revisions. Because the board will read this letter, it is important to write in a collegial tone and to demonstrate that you have engaged fully with the reviewers’ suggestions.
Instructions for Writing a Letter of Response
- The letter of response should be submitted as a Word document, addressed to your acquisitions editor and/or the editorial board.
- Focus on the “big picture” comments from the reviewers. For example, rather than respond to specific copyediting or grammatical errors, you could acknowledge these issues broadly in your letter and note plans to proofread the manuscript ahead of resubmission.
- Because the board and your editor will have access to the reviews themselves, do not copy and paste comments from the reviews into the letter of response. Instead, summarize the suggestions to show that you have fully understood them.
- Explain how you plan to address each “big picture” suggestion from the peer reviews. Keep in mind that transparency will help build trust with your editor and the board.
- If your project is an edited volume and the peer reviewers commented on individual chapters, share this feedback with each chapter author and summarize the changes that will be made to each chapter.
- If the reviewers made suggestions that you do not plan to implement, note what these suggestions are and explain your decision not to implement them. Identify the concern that prompted the suggestion and consider other revisions that might better resolve the concern.
- Include a proposed date for when the revised manuscript will be ready for resubmission. If you have questions about this, discuss the timeline with your editor.
Editorial Board Approval
If these reviews are sufficiently positive, the project is submitted to either the University Press of Florida Faculty Editorial Board or the UF Press Faculty Editorial Board, depending on the project’s subject. Your acquisitions editor will share a packet of information about your project with the board, and the board will vote on final approval. Your acquisitions editor will let you know if the editorial board approves your project.