"Please Verify": Standard Author Queries
by Laura Miske, Manuscript Editor III, Radiology
On the proof for your Radiology article, several of the author queries are standard queries, meaning they are asked on every manuscript. Typically, these standard queries make up 15%–25% of author queries on a proof (and often over 50% for editorials). The main purpose of these queries is to verify personal information – no one knows this information better than the authors themselves. Another standard query, typically the first in each manuscript, is not a question but rather provides the manuscript editor’s contact information.
Your manuscript editor will ask you to verify personal information that appears in your article, including:
Name spelling and initials
Highest academic degree(s)
Affiliation(s)
Email address of the corresponding author
Disclosures of conflicts of interest, including membership on the Radiology editorial board
They will also request professional and institutional social media handles for social media coverage.
If you and your co-authors have already provided the above information, why are verification queries needed? This information resides in multiple locations—author profiles, title page, and forms like the disclosures form—and it all comes together for the first time on the proof. Although we try our best to get it right the first time, errors can be introduced when this information is transferred from these disparate sources to the final layout, so we ask authors to verify it.
These standard queries also offer an opportunity for you to update anything that may have been incorrect on the title page or author forms or anything that has changed since you originally submitted those documents. We often have the privilege of congratulating authors on a marriage, new position, or completion of an advanced degree!