Procedures for Handling Manuscripts

1. Each submitted paper is assigned to an Associate Editor who will handle the paper throughout the editorial decision process according to the Guidelines for Associate Editors.

2. The Associate Editor quickly screens papers to identify those that are clearly not suitable for the Annals of Statistics, so that authors can be given a quick decision on such papers. The criteria at this stage are clarity of writing and presentation, interest to potential readers, and novelty and originality.

3. If a paper passes the screening stage, the Associate Editor identifies appropriate referees, who are invited to review the paper according to the Guidelines for Referees.
4. Referees are not expected to suggest detailed major revisions or programs of future research, but their primary role is to recommend whether or not the paper should be published in its present form, possibly recommending relatively minor revisions. Therefore it is expected that referees will respond to the Associate Editor within one or two months of the receipt of the paper.
5. Informed by the referees’ reports, and also if appropriate taking into account their own views, the Associate Editor makes one of the following recommendations to the Editor:
   
   
   1. Accept (possible subject to minor corrections). In this case authors may be asked to make some corrections or very minor revisions prior to sending their final manuscript to the publisher, but it will not need to be seen again by the Editor or Associate Editor.
   2. Accept subject to minor revision. It is envisioned that any revisions requested will entail not more than a week’s work for the author, but the revised version may need to be checked by the Associate Editor before final acceptance can be recommended.
   3. Reject The Associate Editor will provide a rationale for this recommendation that can be conveyed appropriately to the author if the Editor concurs.
6. The Editor will then make a decision on the paper and communicate it to the author. It is hoped that every decision will be made within three months of the original submission.
7. If a paper is accepted it then goes forward to the production stage, which includes copy editing to correct linguistic errors. Authors whose first language is not English should therefore be reassured that the judgment of clarity of writing and presentation does not lay inappropriate emphasis on detailed linguistic correctness.