Check identity and metadata first
Verify title, author order, names, affiliations, corresponding-author details and identifiers. Confirm funding, acknowledgements and declarations. Errors in these fields can affect how the article is attributed and found.
Compare technical content carefully
Check equations, symbols, superscripts, units, numerical values and special characters. Confirm that tables and figures match the accepted files and that captions and callouts are correctly placed. Pay attention to material changed during typesetting.
Review references and links
Check citation order, bibliography entries, DOIs and supplementary-file links. A production conversion can introduce missing text or broken cross-references. Identify the exact location of each correction rather than sending an ambiguous instruction.
Return one author-approved correction record
Coordinate coauthor feedback before replying. Distinguish production errors from requested substantive changes and seek editorial guidance for the latter. Keep the returned proof and correction list, then inspect the published record when it becomes available.
Respond carefully to conditional acceptance
Read the decision letter for every outstanding condition and distinguish editorial revisions from later production corrections. Keep a checklist of required changes, documents and deadlines. Send a concise response showing how each point was addressed, obtain the necessary author approvals and wait for the journal’s explicit final decision before describing the paper as accepted.