First published: January 21, 2022
Baishideng Publishing Group’s guide for authors to request withdrawal of a manuscript
Although rare, during the manuscript publishing process and after the publication of manuscripts, some authors are faced with the need to request Baishideng Publishing Group (Baishideng) to withdraw their manuscript due to their own reasons. The choice to request a manuscript withdrawal is not a light one, as it causes great loss to both the authors and Baishideng. In recognition of this weighty decision, Baishideng carefully evaluates any author-initiated manuscript withdrawal request based upon the principles of respecting and understanding the details provided with the request. As such, approval is granted to authors' reasonable withdrawal request.
If you are faced with this situation, we request that you and all co-authors conform to the following guidelines to initiate and process the manuscript’s withdrawal:
1 Signatures of all authors: Please provide the written request form signed by all authors for the withdrawal, and explain the reasons for the withdrawal in detail. Once the withdrawal process has started, authors are not allowed to withdraw their request for withdrawal.
2 Writing a retraction note: For a manuscript that has been officially published online, all authors need to write a retraction note and submit it online. The retraction note will undergo the normal publishing process and will be officially published online after the authors pay the publishing fee. The original article will not be removed from Baishideng, Web of Science, PubMed, nor PubMed Central databases. The guideline for writing a retraction note can be found at: https://www.wjgnet.com/bpg/GerInfo/296.
3 Manuscript status and amount of compensation: For a manuscript that is in the process of publishing and has not been officially published online, Baishideng’s peer reviewers, editorial board members, science editors, language editors, and production editors have already spent much time and energy on it. The withdrawal of such a manuscript will cause a heavy loss to Baishideng. Therefore, according to the extent of use of resources in the manuscript publishing process, Baishideng requires the authors who request the withdrawal to pay corresponding compensation. Only if the authors pay the corresponding fee within 28 days after receiving the payment notice will the editorial office withdraw the manuscript.
The specific policy and compensation amount are as follows:
3.1 For manuscripts that have been officially accepted but have not been officially published online (In Press): If the publication fee has been paid, it will not be refunded following the authors’ withdrawal of their article during the publication process. This is in accordance with the publishing fee policy stated in the acceptance letter.
3.2 For manuscripts that have been officially accepted but have not been officially published online (In Press): If the publication fee has not been paid, 1125 USD will be charged.
3.3 For manuscripts that have passed the second decision but have not yet been accepted officially: 500 USD will be charged.
3.4 For manuscripts that have passed the first decision but have not yet passed the second decision: 300 USD will be charged.
3.5 For manuscripts that have been sent for peer review but have not yet passed the first decision: 100 USD will be charged.
4 Withdrawal process and author blacklist: Once the authors complete the withdrawal process, Baishideng will immediately withdraw the manuscript and notify all of its authors by email. If the authors fail to complete the withdrawal process within 28 days, all of the authors will be blacklisted by Baishideng; this action includes all of Baishideng’s journals, which will not accept any contributions from the team which the authors belong to. In addition, a team of lawyers will be activated to recover the compensation.
5 Authors are not allowed to submit the manuscript to other journals before the withdrawal process is completed: To protect against real or perceivable publication ethics misconduct, you must wait until the manuscript is officially withdrawn from the journal before you can submit it to any other journals. Submission before the withdrawal process is completed by the editorial office will be considered as publication misconduct, namely that of duplicate submission. All authors on the paper will bear equally the responsibilities and consequences arising therefrom.
6 Academic misconduct: If any academic misconduct is discovered in the manuscript involved during the evaluation of the withdrawal request, Baishideng will immediately initiate the academic misconduct processing process, including: (1) Rejection of the manuscript or withdrawal of the published paper; (2) Not accepting manuscripts submitted to any of Baishideng’s journals by the same research team within two years; (3) Informing the institution that the corresponding author is affiliated with and the funder(s) about such misconduct; (4) Releasing all penalty documents through publication on the Baishideng site; and (5) Charging $10,000 as compensation costs in the case that a published paper is withdrawn. For details about Baishideng's policy on academic misconduct, please visit: https://www.wjgnet.com/bpg/gerinfo/208.