Costs of Writing Research Manuscripts

Upon review of our annual budgets and work accomplished, our research team calculated the cost of writing an original research manuscript for publication after the project was completed and the data collected, cleaned, and entered into a database. This economic figure is important, because this can be the starting point of a research-oriented career for fellows and junior faculty in many academic programs. We separated the work into 5 tasks. The first 4 are necessary to submit the manuscript; the final task is the revision of a conditionally accepted manuscript. We assumed the involvement of 3 professionals in all 5 tasks: the principal author, the statistician or data consultant, and the remaining authors taken together as one professional. The first 4 tasks are: (1) the number of hours for literature review, citation accuracy, and new publications since the project inception; (2) the number of hours for the statistical analysis, data reconciliation, and analysis concordance; (3) the number of hours for data presentation (ie, tables or figures); and (4) the number of hours for writing the estimated 8 drafts that are needed before the manuscript is suitable for submission. Generalizing a median salary for a family physician at $103,000 per annum, the statistician at $60,000 per annum, and the composite third professional at $50,000 per annum, and assigning composite hours for each of the first 4 tasks at 20, 190, 24, and 330, the cost of submitting an original research manuscript is $25,000. When a revision is needed after conditional acceptance, the cost of another 200 hours of time by all members of the authorship team accrues to $31,500. These costs are nontrivial but must be hidden amongst other job descriptions to maintain fiscal equity. Our monthly journal represents a costly treasure of expertise.

Diane M. Harper, MD, MPH, MS
Dartmouth Medical School Lebanon,
New Hampshire