Quick Start Instructions for Technical Editors

							Manuscript Central 


Quick Start Instructions for 
Technical Editors 

Table of Contents
Tracking Numbers ......................................................................................................................... 2
Invitations to Review a Paper ....................................................................................................... 2
Technical Editor Home Page ........................................................................................................ 5
Accessing the Manuscript ............................................................................................................. 6
Completing the Score Sheet and Submitting Comments .............................................................. 9
Notes about submitting files for your review ............................................................................... 11
Indicating you are temporarily unavailable for assignments ....................................................... 11




                                                                     1
Technical Editor Instructions for Manuscript Central

Browsers and Pop-Ups
Manuscript Central works well with IE 7 or Firefox browsers. Occasional problems may occur if
you are still using IE 6. Manuscript Central uses lots of pop-up windows to provide you with
additional information or actions. You will need to enable pop-ups from the site in order to be
able to work within the system.

Tracking Numbers
Papers will no longer move through peer review identified by their SPE paper number. Every
paper will have a tracking number during peer review in the format of journal abbreviation-
monthyear-sequential number (e.g., PO-0609-0025). Tracking numbers are assigned based on
when papers are submitted.

Invitations to Review a Paper
You will receive invitations to review papers by email. The email includes the title, authors, and
abstract of the paper. Similar to the current system, it also includes several links – clicking one
of the links when you are connected to the Internet will send your response immediately. If you
have any difficulties responding via the links, you can always email peer@spe.org with your
response and they can record it in the system for you.

The invitations you receive may not always be from a single Associate Editor as in the past. To
assist AEs in finding the right group of reviewers for a particular paper, we are treating all
Technical Editors across all of our journals as a single pool of potential reviewers. While it would
happen rarely, you might even get a request to review for another journal. [This would most
likely apply to those with broad or cross-cutting expertise – such as environmental.]

The email you receive will look similar to the one below:

14‐Jun‐2009 
 
Dear Glenda: 
 
Manuscript ID PO‐0509‐0025 entitled "Coal Bed Methane: An Unconventional Source 
of Natural Gas & Its Prospects in Pakistan" with Mr. Author as contact author has 
been submitted to the SPE Production & Operations. 
 
I invite you to review this manuscript.  The abstract appears at the end of this 
letter, along with the names of the authors.  Please let me know as soon as 
possible if you will be able to accept my invitation to review.  If you are 
unable to review at this time, I would appreciate you recommending another expert 
reviewer.  You may reply to this email or click the appropriate link at the 
bottom of the page to automatically register your reply with our online 
manuscript submission and review system. 
 


                                                 2
Once you accept my invitation to review this manuscript, you will be notified via 
email about how to access the paper in our online manuscript submission and 
review system.  You will then have access to the manuscript and reviewer 
instructions in your Technical Editor Center. 
 
I realize that our expert reviewers greatly contribute to the high standards of 
the Journal, and I thank you for your present and/or future participation. 
 
Sincerely, 
Evan Editor 
SPE Production & Operations Associate Editor 
 
To respond automatically, click below: 
 
Agreed: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/spepo?URL_MASK=jj9jd2h6Qckw586Ky8qc 
 
Decline ‐ conflict of interest: 
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/spepo?URL_MASK=jNTjXK56BG2ZYdHdFJQm 
 
Decline ‐ expertise: 
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/spepo?URL_MASK=bYD3Qqqd28H7Rkjk4fJH 
 
Unavailable ‐ workload: 
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/spepo?URL_MASK=5rQNBSnxMGMBQfDtk6tn 
 
Unavailable ‐ personal commitments: 
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/spepo?URL_MASK=T85h4sCJGNyTJBKtSKxF 
 
 
MANUSCRIPT DETAILS 
 
TITLE: Coal Bed Methane: An Unconventional Source of Natural Gas & Its Prospects 
in Pakistan 
 
AUTHORS: Author, Alex; Author, Abigail 
 
ABSTRACT: The concept of this paper arose from the Pakistan’s rising energy 
needs. Pakistan has the world’s sixth largest coal reserves of the world which is 
about 185 billion tons of coal[1], with energy equivalent to 450 billion barrels 
of oil which is the reserves of Saudi‐Arabia and Iran put together. An 
Unconventional natural gas resource which is “<b>Coal Bed Methane</b>” or 
commonly known as CBM exists in the coal beds or coal seams. Because of its large 
internal surface area, coal stores 6 to 7 times more gas than the equivalent rock 
volume of a conventional gas reservoir[2]. 
Its presence in Pakistan is quite promising because of the lithology of lignite 
coal present in the coal fields of Thar (175 billion tons), Lakhra (1.382 billion 
tons) and Sonda, distt. Thatta (7.112 billion tons); few activities were carried 
out in Pakistan’s coal fields of in order to recover the gas from the coal seams; 
but their results were not encouraging for the companies to drill for CBM 
furthermore. This may be due to an unpredictable nature of the coal seams in 
which the CBM exists. 



                                        3
Once you accept an invitation you will receive another email with information about logging into
Manuscript Central to obtain the files and perform your review.

This email will be especially important if you happen to receive an invitation from a different
journal, since it will have links to the journal that you may not have needed before. In case you
get an assignment from another journal: your login information and personal profile is the same
across all journals.


14‐Jun‐2009 
 
Dear Glenda: 
 
Thank you for agreeing to review Manuscript ID PO‐0509‐0025 entitled "Coal Bed 
Methane: An Unconventional Source of Natural Gas & Its Prospects in Pakistan" for 
the SPE Production & Operations.  Please try your best to complete your review 
within the next 30 days. 
 
In your review, please answer all questions.  On the review page, there is a 
space for "Comments to Editor" and a space for "Comments to the Author."  Please 
be sure to put your comments to the author in the appropriate space. 
 
To login to your account on the SPE Production & Operations ‐ Manuscript Central 
site at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/spepo , your case‐sensitive USER ID is 
gsmith@spe.org.  For security purposes your password is not listed in this email.  
If you are unsure of your password you may click the link below to set a new 
password. 
 
 
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/spepo?URL_MASK=CxnMYc4fHKyD86yHKnqT 
 
Once you are logged in, the Main Menu will be displayed.  Please click on the 
Technical Editor Center, where you will find the manuscript listed under 
"Awaiting Reviewer Scores."  You can click on the manuscript title from this 
point or you can click on the "View Details" button to begin reviewing the 
manuscript. 
 
If you wish to view the manuscript and the review form simultaneously, click on 
the HTML or PDF icons – the manuscript will open in a new window.  Leave the new 
window open, switch back to the main window, and open the score sheet by clicking 
on the Score Sheet tab.  Follow the instructions for reviewers provided in the 
Manuscript Central site.  I strongly encourage you to elaborate on your review in 
the space provided or to upload a document with your comments.  Your specific 
comments will offer valuable feedback to improve future work.  It is essential 
that you click the "Save" button if you wish to exit the review before you submit 
it to the Editor.  Otherwise, none of the information that you have entered will 
be saved in the system.  When you have completed your review and are ready to 
submit it to the Editor, click on "Submit." 
 

                                                4
All communications regarding this manuscript are privileged. Please do not 
contact the author. Any conflict of interest, suspicion of duplicate publication, 
fabrication of data or plagiarism should immediately be reported to me. 
 
Thank you for evaluating this manuscript. 
 
Sincerely, 
Evan Editor 
SPE Production & Operations Associate Editor  



Technical Editor Home Page
Once you login to the website, you will see any manuscripts you have agreed to review at the
top of the page (Review and Score section). You will also see the due date for your review.
Below, in the Scores Submitted section, you will see any manuscripts that you have previously
reviewed for the journal (in Manuscript Central). In the first example below, you see that the
paper is still in review. But in the second example below, you can see the final decision for each
paper and links to the decision letter.




                                                5
Accessing the Manuscript
To begin your review by accessing the files, click the icon in the perform review column. You
can also click the view submission link, which will open the pdf version.




If you click perform review, what you will see next are instructions, with tabs and links to the
other things you need.




                                                 6
You can open the paper as an html version or pdf version, whichever is more convenient for
you. The pdf version has been constructed with line numbers to make it easier to reference
page x, line y in your comments. While the automated line numbers may not line up exactly with
the text (depends on font and layout), they’ll be close enough for someone to follow your use of
them. Authors must check the pdf version prior to submission of their paper. They are not
required to check the html version, but staff experience says that Manuscript Central does a
pretty good job of rendering our papers (even equations). However, if you’re reading the html
version and something doesn’t look right, please double-check the pdf to make certain it isn’t a
conversion error.

Clicking on either the html or pdf link will open the paper in a new window (or a new tab for
some browsers). If you want to save the pdf to your hard drive to read and perform your review
offline, click the pdf link, then when the paper opens, use the save icon in Acrobat to save it to
your hard drive.

The link for external searches is more appropriate for medical journals, but it will allow you to
quickly search for the title or authors on Google. [Eventually, we would like to add OnePetro to
the search options for SPE, but for now that isn’t feasible.]


                                                 7
If you click on the Details tab, you’ll see a summary of the paper’s title, authors, keywords, and
the AE and EE for this paper.




The section on version history would give you access to an earlier version of the paper if this is
a revision (minor revision) or resubmission (major revision).




                                                 8
There is always an indicator to tell you which version of the paper you are viewing currently. To
view a prior version, click the magnifying glass icon in the Switch Details column. After viewing
the earlier version, to get back to the current version, just choose the magnifying glass next to
the latest version.

Completing the Score Sheet and Submitting Comments

The tab for Score Sheet will bring you to our new, streamlined score sheet. You’ll give the paper
an overall numeric score on a scale of 1-100, answer 2 Yes/No questions, and then 4 multiple
choice questions.




                                                9
On the lower portion of the score sheet, you will click a radio button for your recommended
decision on the paper. You then have two boxes – one for comments to the AE and EE, and
one for comments to the author. Please don’t get them confused. The comments you enter for
the author will be included in the decision letter.

If you prefer to provide a Word file or annotated pdf with your comments, you can upload the file
in the attach a file section. Click the Browse… button to locate the file on your hard drive, then
the attach button to the attach the file to your score sheet. When the file has been uploaded,
you’ll see it listed under Files attached.

If you begin work on the score sheet and need to stop, you can save your work using the Save
as Draft button, then come back to complete it later. When you are through entering your
comments, please click the Submit button. [If you close your browser without submitting, your
data will be lost if you haven’t already saved it. So be sure to submit your review.]

When you click Submit, you’re done with your review of this paper. You can always come back
to your Technical Editor center to see the final decision. If the author submits requested
revisions, you may be asked to review the next version to see how well he/she has made the
requested changes.




                                                10
Notes about submitting files for your review
   •   Word: If you use Word to type your comments on the paper, please remove your name
       from the document properties.
   •   Adobe Acrobat annotated files: If you use Adobe to annotate the file, please remove
       your name from the document properties before you begin adding comments. If your
       name gets attached to every comment, it is very difficult and time consuming for the peer
       review staff to remove your name (to hide reviewer identities). While we understand the
       ease of using Adobe as a tool for this purpose, we need your help to be certain that it
       doesn’t reveal your identity.
   •   Scanned documents: We request that you not submit scans of handwritten comments.
       They are often very difficult for authors (and staff) to read. They can also appear
       demoralizing to an author (especially if you can’t help marking every instance of poor
       grammar and punctuation). If it easier for you to mark up a paper as you read, then
       please take a few minutes to highlight your key technical concerns in a Word document
       (you can refer to page and line numbers for clarity). This will be very helpful to the author
       as it shows him/her where to focus to improve the technical quality of the paper.

In performing your review, remember to focus on the technical content and overall ease of
understanding – SPE staff will be editing accepted papers prior to publication and can take care
of grammar-type mistakes. But staff can’t help with the technical content – that’s the important
role you are filling.

Indicating you are temporarily unavailable for assignments
If you will be unavailable due to a work assignment or holiday, you can easily input that
information in your Manuscript Central profile. This will make you unavailable for assignments
during that time frame.

Where ever you are in Manuscript Central, you should see the following links in the upper right
portion of the header. Select Edit Account.



This will open your personal profile in Manuscript Central (which applies across all journals).




You can page through and make sure your information is current, or go directly to the 3rd page –
User ID and Password, by clicking on that link.

Then scroll down the page. Near the bottom you’ll see a section called unavailable dates.

                                                11
Here you can enter the dates you are going to be unavailable. Anyone making assignments in
the system will still see your name, but it will be flagged as unavailable during those dates. You
can update this information at any time you are going to be unavailable.

Scroll all the way to the bottom and click the Finish button. This will save any changes you have
made.




                                                12