Chinese authors are the third most frequent submitters to the JME. However, as will be apparent from the content published in the journal, relatively fewer papers from China are accepted. That is not due to a lack of important scholarship in China. We recently contributed to a highly successful conference with Professor Xiaomei Zhai at Peking Union Medical College, Beijing and were impressed by the increasing awareness, analysis and progress of medical ethics in China, including in the area of organ transplantation. However, few of these presentations make it into print. It is therefore important to make the criteria that inform editorial judgements as transparent as possible.

There are several reasons why the acceptance rates for the JME are higher in some countries than others. Some of them are related to different views about what constitutes medical ethics or research. In some contexts, articles are not recognised as research unless they are empirical and the bulk of papers submitted from some countries have no ethical argument. Philosophical traditions vary across countries and papers that are primarily exegetical, in the sense that they describe what a famous philosopher would say about an issue, usually do not make it into the JME. There are other journals that accommodate different views about what counts as research or ethics, so authors should match their papers to the content that a journal publishes.

However, academic journals can be opaque about how authors should pitch their papers so as to maximise their chances of publication. Success in publishing often involves learning the tacit knowledge about what a journal is looking for. The JME is looking for a number of quite specific things that authors from China and other countries should factor in when crafting a paper for this journal.

The most common reason why papers are rejected without review for the JME is because they do not include enough in the way of ethical analysis. JME has always aimed to publish content that develops, at least to some extent, a normative ethical argument.1 While qualitative work can often be important to ‘ground’ an ethical argument, for this journal it is important that empirical work also argues out what follows normatively from data collected.2

While all content published in academic journals should contribute to knowledge, the reality is that journal editors are more likely to know the literature published in their own or similar journals. Authors submitting from China are likely to increase their chance of success if they show how their article adds to content previously published in the JME or other similar journals. That can be done quite efficiently and without the addition of many words if authors use the search function or a large language model for the journal they are submitting to.

Chinese (and other non-AngloAmerican contributors) can increase their chances of publication by either describing novel developments in their own country or non-AngloAmerican approaches to medical ethics. Build on your strengths, not your weaknesses. As they say in American business-speak, find your ‘USP’—your Unique Selling Point. However, it is important to ensure there is some analytic development—that is, do not merely describe them but argue for them or on the basis of them. You need to sell your argument. As John Harris used to say, ‘Saying it is so doesn’t make it so’.

There is an important qualification. Like most bioethics journals, the JME has an international readership. Although the journal is published in the UK, its readership is global. Authors who wish to argue about the ethics of a recent development in China are welcome to do so and it may give them an original perspective, but they will increase the chance of their paper being sent for peer review if they situate their analysis of that issue in an international context. Following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation decision,3 a number of US-based authors submitted papers to the JME discussing the issues that this judgement raised for America. Some of these papers were not accepted because they focused too narrowly on the implications of the reversal of Roe v Wade for America. An exception to this is the paper by Giubilini et al that discusses the legal judgement but places it within the context of the broader international debate about conscientious objection.4 Authors submitting to the JME from China, America or any other country where the issue under debate is one that is primarily about that country, will increase the probability of acceptance if they also situate their argument in the broader international literature and global context.

The JME aims to publish content that’s accessible and relevant to doctors, nurses, students and allied health professionals. Narrowly philosophical or legal pieces that do not have an obvious connection to healthcare can fail to be clinically relevant and are less likely to be accepted by the JME. As anyone who has taught ethics to healthcare professionals will know, one of the best ways to show why ethics is relevant to clinicians, is to introduce the analysis with a clinical example. If an article begins with an illustration of why someone working in healthcare needs to know how to think through that situation, they are more likely to view that article as relevant and interesting.

As well as pitching a paper so that it fits what the JME is looking for, authors from China can increase their chances of success in a number of additional ways. The simplest way to find out about how a journal’s editorial process functions is by reviewing for that journal.

Using correct English and readability are also important obstacles to contributors whose first language is not English, including Chinese contributors. We encourage Chinese contributors to use large language models such as ChatGPT, Claude, etc to correct English mistakes, improve grammar and readability. Guidelines for the ethical use and acknowledgement of large language models in academic writing have recently been published5 and will appear on the JME Forum.

Submitting your first full paper to the JME can involve a steep learning curve, given the challenges in figuring out how best to pitch a paper. A more efficient way to submit to the JME is by writing a Feature Article Commentary.6 These are selected so as to present a range of perspectives and given their short word length are a relatively small investment of time. Chinese authors have been missing out on the call for Commentary proposals because X/Twitter was the primary way of distributing that information. The BMJ China Team has recently started distributing the call via WeChat. Authors based in China, and authors who would rather not use X/Twitter to find out about Feature Articles, can join the BMJ’s WeChat channel.

The JME has published several Words columns that define and discuss an ethical concept from a non-western tradition.7 We would like to publish more columns that discuss a Confucian or Daoist ethical concept and would be delighted to hear from authors based in China who would like to write one of these.

The JME will continue to try to reach more readers and contributors around the world. It is committed to inclusiveness and diversity of scholarship in medical ethics. We hope these guidelines will help you to publish your important research and scholarship.

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