Like many Journals of the American Heart Association, Stroke is a high-impact specialized journal with an impact factor at around 6. Stroke publishes many clinical studies and fewer on basic sciences. The Instruction for Authors is very detail and please try your best to follow all of them, including but not limited to, font size, figure size and number of panels, symbols, abbreviations, and word limits. Stroke has a strict word limit at 5,500 words including references, so write your manuscript concisely. Many articles are rejected even before sending out for peer review, therefore Stroke is a very competitive journal. From my own experience, the Editor-in-Chief (or handling Editor) asks 2 to 3 Reviewers to review your manuscript. You will get the first decision, from my experience, 4 to 6 weeks. Sometimes an additional Reviewer would be invited for opinion in case of a tie (such as one good and one not-so-good review) during second review (re-submission).
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