Discussions are written responses to published journal articles, and closures are responses to discussions. (For more on discussions and closures, see Types of Journal Content.) Editors have several options for managing discussions and closures in their journals. The editor may personally handle the reviews for discussions and closures or may assign an associate editor to do so. For some journals, the associate editor who handled the original paper is responsible for the review for its discussions and closure.
To keep discussions and closures timely, quick turnarounds of reviews at each step are necessary.
- Discussions must be submitted within 5 months from publication of the original paper. Each discussion must have one positive review. More than one discussion can be published for a given paper, and they will all be published together. The editor or associate editor arranges for reviews to be completed in 2 weeks.
- When the discussion period is closed, discussions that have been approved for publication are sent to the author(s) of the original paper, who is invited to write a closure.
- The original author has 1 week to decide whether to write a closure. If the original author forgoes the closure, the discussion are immediately put in the publication queue. If the original authors decide to submit a closure, it must be received within 4 weeks.
- The journal editor is then given the opportunity to review the closure, which must be done within 2 weeks. Once the editor and the original author are satisfied, the discussion(s) and closure will be put in the publication queue.