Submissions and editorial process
Innovations in Graph Theory accepts submissions that are original works of the authors and have not been previously published or are under consideration for publication at other journals. Submissions must be prepared according to the Author guidelines below.
We encourage authors of submissions to simultaneously post their articles on arXiv.
Feel free to contact one of the managing editors if you have any question about the journal or the submission process described below.
Editorial process
Each submission is assigned to one of the regular editors, after an initial vetting by the managing editors. The regular editor assigned to the paper then decides, after possibly seeking opinions from the editorial board or from external experts, whether the submission will be sent out for full reviews or rejected at this stage. If the paper is sent out for review, the final editorial decision is taken by the handling editor when the reviews are complete, subject to approval by the full board of editors. The author is notified, and further rounds of revisions and reviewing may ensue. If the submission is ultimately accepted, the authors are required to submit their final version using the template provided (available here).
Please refrain from inquiries about the status of your article, unless substantially more time than expected has passed since submission. For a typical submission, the expected time for the first stage (declined before review or sent out for full review) is usually 1-2 months, and for the second stage usually not longer than one year.
We publish annual statistics on submission processing/review times.
Author guidelines
Submissions
All submissions are made using this webpage. We require that all authors’ names and affiliations as well as the corresponding author’s email address are input, and that the submission file is in pdf format. Authors may already use the official template, but at submission this is optional. We expect manuscripts that are carefully written, in English, with polished proofs. If an extended abstract of the work has previously appeared in a refereed conference proceedings, we require that this information be indicated on the first page. Since the journal does not provide any copy-editing service, submissions are expected to be formatted in a way suited for publication.
Revisions
Revisions are submitted using the webpage. Together with a pdf file of the revised version, the authors should provide a file, preferably also in pdf format, containing a detailed response to the reviewers’ comments, as well as descriptions and justifications of all further changes to the initial version. In addition to this, a latexdiff generated version can be provided by the authors to make the changes clearer and easier to parse for the editors and reviewers.
Final versions
Manuscripts accepted for publication must be prepared using the template of the journal (available here). Pdflatex should run on your paper without reporting errors such as overfull hboxes. Do not alter the style files as we will use our own copy of the files. It is also highly encouraged to use bibtex, as the Centre Mersenne manually extracts bibliographic information for indexing purposes.
Publication ethics
Authors
Any form of plagiarism is strictly forbidden. All results should be properly credited, and all contributions should be properly acknowledged. Authors who discover important errors in their articles, whether published or under review, should notify the journal promptly.
Editors
Editors can submit manuscripts to the journal, but are then blinded from the review process. We conduct a more rigorous procedure for manuscripts co-authored by editors. In any case of conflict of interest, editors are blinded from the review process. The conflict of interest is automatic in the following cases:
- one of the authors of the submission is a former PhD supervisor of the editor,
- one of the authors of the submission is a current or recent student of the editor (recent = 10 years), or
- one of the authors of the submission is a current or recent postdoc of the editor (recent = 5 years).
Reviewers
The information that a paper is under review for the journal and their involvement in the review process should be kept confidential by the reviewers. Conflict of interest rules also apply to reviewers (if one of the cases above applies, or in any other case of conflict of interest, the reviewer is expected to inform the editor handling the paper).