The BMJ peer reviews all the material it receives. About half the original articles are rejected after review in house, usually by two medical editors. The usual reasons for rejection at this stage are insufficient originality, serious scientific flaws, or the absence of a message that is important to a general medical audience.

We give priority to articles that will help doctors to make better decisions - whether those doctors are practising clinical medicine, working in public health, developing and implementing health policy, or working mostly as researchers.

If your article is an original research paper we may screen it by reading only the structured abstract, so please ensure that the abstract is as complete, accurate, and clear as possible—but not unnecessarily long—and has been approved by all authors.

We aim to reach a first decision on all manuscripts within two or three weeks of submission. Rejection is often much quicker than this, however, and we reject about two thirds of all submissions without external peer review.

The BMJ now has a system of open peer review. This means that reviewers have to sign their reports, saying briefly who they are and where they work. We also ask reviewers to declare to the editors any competing interests that might relate to articles we have asked them to review.

Open peer review does not mean, however, that authors should feel able to contact reviewers directly to discuss their reports; all queries should still be directed through the editorial office.

For original research articles one editor will usually take each article through from start to finish. The BMJ's team of research editors aims to read 98% of newly submitted research articles within two working days. If your article is potentially suitable for the BMJ that editor will ask a senior colleague to approve it and, if that succeeds, he or she will send your article to two external peer reviewers.

The next step for your research article, if it is still in the running after peer review and assessment by the BMJ's clinical epidemiology editor, is full appraisal at our weekly research manuscript meeting. A statistician, an external editorial adviser, your paper's editor, and the BMJ research team will read and discuss your article's importance, originality, and scientific quality and the editor will make the final decision. 

Articles for the Analysis section of the BMJ go through a similar process and those that survive external review go to an editorial committee meeting where the editors make the final decision.

Some articles may also be seen by the BMJ ethics commmittee and, in cases where the Editor suspects serious research misconduct, by appropriate third parties.

We aim to reach a final decision on publication within eight to 10 weeks of submission for all articles.  If we make an offer of publication subject to revision we usually ask authors to return their articles to us within the subsequent month.

For accepted original research articles we offer full online publication as soon as the authors have approved the proofs, with print publication a few weeks later. We aim to publish other articles within three months of final acceptance after any necessary revisions.  

Article provenance

Who had the idea, and was the article externally peer reviewed? At the end of every accepted editorial, research article, clinical review, practice article, analysis article, feature, and head-to-head article the BMJ will add a statement explaining the article's provenance. The options are:

• not commissioned; externally peer reviewed
• not commissioned; not externally peer reviewed
• commissioned; externally peer reviewed
• commissioned; not externally peer reviewed
• commissioned, based on an idea from the author; externally peer reviewed
• commissioned, based on an idea from the author; not externally peer reviewed

Peer review for papers submitted by BMJ editorial staff

Editorials, news items, analysis articles and features written by BMJ editors do not undergo external peer review. Articles reporting original research done at the BMJ are independently peer reviewed.

Submitting an appeal

Peer review by editors and external reviewers is usually based on a mix of evidence and opinion and may not always lead to the best decision. We welcome serious appeals, and many succeed.