Published papers almost always include the dates on which the work was received and accepted by the journal. The received date is one way of determining priority in competing claims to a particular result, which can be important in competitive and fast-developing fields. The risk is that to be 'first', researchers may be tempted to submit preliminary results in the hope that a revised version would eventually be published. In such cases, it can be argued that keeping the original submission date as the received date would be unfair to other researchers who have diligently waited to submit their manuscript until their results were conclusive.

Since its launch in 2006, Nature Nanotechnology has had the policy that if a decision was taken not to publish a manuscript, and the authors decided to revise it and asked us to reconsider it, the new version would automatically be given a new submission date. Clearly, this rule solves the problem of giving priority to preliminary results. However, the preliminary nature of the work is not the only reason why a manuscript might be rejected.

In some cases, the decision not to publish a manuscript is based on referee reports that the authors are subsequently able to address or convince the editors and referees that they were unfair. Alternatively, the decision to reject a manuscript might be due to the lack of a specific piece of experimental or theoretical data, which is deemed essential to make the work suitable for Nature Nanotechnology. If, however, the authors are able to provide such data in reasonable time, and the revised work does not change enormously, then it seems fairer, in such cases, that the original submission date is retained.

The change will no longer be automatic, and if we feel that we should make an exception, we shall.

From now on, when deciding which received date should appear on a paper that has been rejected but is eventually published in the journal, we shall carefully consider its history, the level of revision it has undergone and the time it has taken to resubmit the work. If we feel that the first version of the manuscript was too preliminary to retain the original submission date, we shall change it. But the change will no longer be automatic, and if we feel that we should make an exception, we shall.