Withdraw a manuscript then submit a revised version

Question

I wrote a manuscript and submitted it to a journal. One day I realize there is a critical mistake in the manuscript, so I revised my manuscript. Now I don't know if I can submit a revised manuscript to the journal, so I decided to withdraw my current manuscript and submit the revised manuscript to the same journal, is it appropriate to do this?

Answer 1

Yes it's appropriate, and it's better to get this done ASAP (especially before they invite reviewers).

A good editorial management system should flag your manuscript as a duplicate, so the journal staff will be paying attention, but you could add in your cover letter that you've corrected a critical mistake.