Q: What do I do if I chose the wrong article type when submitting to a Springer journal?

Hello Hasib – Welcome to the forum!

The mistake is unfortunate, but understandable. There are so many things to keep in mind during submission that a mistake or two does happen. :-) So, we’ve provided a few resources at the end of this response to help you make a successful submission. For now, let’s respond to your query.

As it’s been just one day since submission and the document hasn’t been picked up the editorial team at the journal, you can go back to the form and see if it allows you to make an edit. If so, you can simply modify the article type. If not, you may consider deleting the previous submission and making a new submission. Do go through the journal guidelines before proceeding with either action.

If you are unsure about either of these actions, you could write a mail to the editor informing them of this error and either asking them to make the change on their end or advising you on what you need to do. Sometimes, the editorial team makes such changes too – they get a large number of submissions and most have a small point missing or two. Also, manuscripts at Springer take a while to get picked up. So, your error has probably not been noticed by now. By the time it is picked up, hopefully, your mail should have got to them and hopefully too, they would have seen your mail and would know what they need to do.

Hope this helps. And here are those submission-related resources we talked about. Keep them handy!

• What makes a great submission package?
• The importance of manuscript submission readiness checks [While this is actually about one of our new products, R Pubsure, it has a downloadable checklist that you can use for your submissions.]
• How to check and revise your manuscript before final submission [Course]

All the best for a quick resolution!