Letters of rejection

Why me? Main reasons for a manuscript being rejected

If you are planning to submit a manuscript to a renowned journal, you must know that your article may be rejected. Statistically speaking at least, your submission has between a 30% (at best) and 5% (in high profile journals) chance to be accepted. So, rejection is the norm. So, it is not you: rejection is normal. Almost all scholars have had their work rejected at one point or another–between 85–90% of prominent authors admit to having their work rejected (Gans and Shepherd, 1994). And probably the 10–15% remaining authors are simply not admitting it, or not submitting enough manuscripts.

Thus, if rejection is normal, instead of seeing it as a burden or a stain in your immaculate reputation, we could start to work to be in the 30% positive side. To put it in another way: about half of all marriages end in divorce, however, thousands of happy couples exchange vows everyday. They could even try to head off problems: prenup contracts, reading lots of books on how to be happily married, counselling, etc. But, once married, none are thinking about the end–that would be painful in any way: death or divorce. So we could face the process of submitting an article as newlyweds: full of hope and joy, no matter how it ends. The good news is that, contrary to divorce rates, if you are a divorcee remarrying, you have 73% more chance of divorcing again,¹ papers rejected (if appropriately revised and reworked) have more chances of being published in a second, or third submission, even in a journal with a higher impact factor (Calcagno et al., 2012).

A particular manuscript could be rejected at different moments during the review process. The rejection tour starts at the editor desk, but in most cases finishes after the first revision. At the editorial office, all submissions are initially revised by the editor and only papers that meet the scientific and editorial standards, and fit within the aims and scope of the particular journal you have submitted to, will be sent for external review. Then it is the turn of referees, who will read, comment, make criticisms and suggestions, and ultimately advice the editor about the publishability of that manuscript.

Even when rejection is normal–and this should take a big burden off our shoulders–it is never a nice experience and, if possible, all of us would like to avoid it. In the next section, I will present the three main reasons that can make an article be rejected: structural, formatting and content problems.

Structural problems

No matter how good your manuscript, how many times your colleagues have praised previous versions, or how much you have been working on that paper, there are certain issues that do not depend on you nor the merit of your work, and could see your paper rejected.

First, there are journals with very low acceptance rates, so the level of quality and impact expected for the editors are far more specific and exclusive than other journals. These journals, also, because of their reputation, receive a large quantity of submissions, which evidently will increase the rejection rate. Second, we have to consider that journal editors decide which kind of paper fits better within the remit of their journal: about 6% of submissions in Current Sociology are desk rejected just because do not fit the journal editorial policy. As explained elsewhere (Martín, 2014), there is no such a thing as ‘a good article’ that could fit in anywhere, because a good article is not defined just by its content, but also more specifically by a writing approach geared towards a certain publication. Before you start writing then, the most important task is to choose the journal. And when choosing the journal–taking into consideration indexes of impact and prestige, the fame a journal has among your peers, or because the authors we read publish there–it is essential to pay close attention to both the editorial policy and the author guidelines. In many cases, editors clearly state the journal’s editorial policy and which kind of papers they are interested in publishing, such in Current Sociology (Martin, 2011, 2014) or International Sociology (Soler, 2015). Also, if you investigate the journal, you could also find certain patterns of publication. In some cases, certain themes may reoccur showing an editor’s interest in a certain area. In others, it could represent exactly the opposite, and editors could consider a topic to be oversaturated and this may mean that it is difficult to say something different to what has already been published.

In any case, if the editorial policy is not clearly stated, and especially if you haven’t seen a paper like yours (in terms of format or content) published recently, you could contact the editors and ask them if your submission is appropriate for their journal. Sometimes, a journal has not published on certain issue, let’s say sociology of food or clinical sociology, just because they haven’t received any submissions on that topic, and not due to a lack of interest. And sometimes, a journal has published a number of articles, or special issues on certain subjects, let’s say social movements or sociology of sport, and because of that, they have less interest in giving them more space.

In this sense, it is crucial to understand that, although most scholars access academic articles through research engines, and find them unattached, as unities trimmed from their source, they have been originally thought as part of something bigger, and have acquired certain features just because they have been published in that particular journal. So if you have doubts about the potential interest of a journal in your article, contact the editors and ask them. In this case, please, never send your question or ask for advice without reading the journal guidelines first, nor send an entire manuscript to the editor for consideration–otherwise, submit your manuscript and wait for their decision. On the contrary, it is always advisable to explain to the editor why you consider your manuscript fits within the remit of that journal, showing that you are familiar with the publication and you are genuinely interested in having your work published there.

Formal problems

There are three common mistakes that justify desk rejection, all of them are formal and easily resolvable. First, the manuscript format does not follow the journal guidelines. Most journals have clear editorial policies, aims and scope, and guidelines for authors available on its websites. A journal’s remit, its editorial policy and all the submission steps are not mere formalities, and are publicized to help potential authors. And even, so many scholars never read them, and then submit narrative papers, when IMRaD articles are expected, include incomplete or wrongly formatted references or write abstracts of the incorrect length, etc. Therefore, before submitting, read the guidelines and research the journal: it will save you time and frustration, because editors tend to simply reject submissions that do not comply.

In the same way, soon after submission, manuscripts are also desk-rejected that are not academic enough. Journal articles are not the only way of building and disseminating scientific knowledge, especially in the social sciences, and we are glad to have a stylistic variety of writing. But academic journal articles, even when they could offer certain flexibility, are also a specific way of transmitting an idea. Even considering the idiosyncrasies of each national academia modes of writing, there is a common ground in terms of style that makes an article different from a research project, a monograph or a dissertation, but also from a manifesto, an opinion piece, or a normative document for policy makers.

Within this group of formal mistakes, we find that many papers are not the size required: generally far more words (or characters) than the limit requested by the journal. Do not submit your work expecting an editor will make an exception, no matter how great your paper could be: instead it is better to send a paper 500–800 words under the limit, so you could include the amendments that referees may ask for. In general, editors may be flexible at a final stage of the review process and consider the concerns of the referees. But in most cases, reducing the number of words is just a question of remaining focused, editing, and eliminating redundancy.

There are also articles with serious grammatical mistakes that, in some cases, make it impossible to read. This is particularly sensitive for scholars whose first language is not English (like this editor) or has not been trained in an Anglophone university (also this editor) and would like to publish in an international journal. The good news is that Current Sociology accepts papers in any language that we can find suitable referees. So you do not need to send your first submission in English, but go through the peer review process in your mother language–and then, if accepted, invest in a good translator.

Problems of content

Considering the submissions I have received during the last five years in Current Sociology the main reason for a paper being rejected after peer review is the lack of relevance and originality. As explained elsewhere (Martin, 2014), relevance rests on three factors:

For each one, readers expect a specific discussion and a very specific explanation to analyze and contextualize the data.

Since referees are your peers, they are researching and reading the same subject as you. In many cases, rejection is due to missing or misreading basic literature for your debate, or just repeating the same arguments another author has published before. At this point, you will be involved in an academic debate with the referees, so you should be prepared to take constructive criticism, while also discussing with them to support your ideas–with clear sociological arguments–when you disagree with their recommendations. It is fundamental to understand that the review is an on-going process wherein referees comment on the stronger and weaker points of a paper, mediated by the editor who, at a final stage, will decide about the publishability of that paper.

On the one hand, editors invite renowned scholars as referees and rely on their expertise and judgement, so they are going to listen to their comments and concerns about the manuscript. On the other hand, authors are not passive receptors of comments that should obey everything referees are asking–even more because, on many occasions, referees ask for quite different things. Therefore, you should take the advice you consider will improve your paper, especially if more than one referee asks for the same amendments or the editor has highlighted them. But regarding the recommendations with which you do not agree (or those that are not possible to comply with without completely changing your argument) you could simply explain to the referees and the editor the reasons why you are not following their advice. Of course, you don’t need to write a whole new paper to support your decision, but at least discuss your point of view, premise, or theoretical framework in a way that allows the referees to engage in the discussion, and the editor to make a decision regarding your paper. In many cases, even when you disagree with the author, referees have moved from rejection to minor revision after considering the author’s reasons to back up his/her argument.

Still, if the two referees rejected your paper, the editor agreed with their comments and concerns, and there’s no space for negotiation, then, take a breath and prepare to resubmit. And instead of considering it as a backward step, remember that high-impact journals publish proportionally more articles that have been resubmitted from another journal, and that resubmissions receive many more citations than first-time submissions (Calcagno et al., 2012). I agree with Calcagno, who considers this trend is the result of the work an author has put into the paper after the review process. Receiving a rejection letter could be a painful experience, even more so if the same manuscript have been rejected more than twice. But since revision is an ongoing process, you could improve your paper and submit it to a more prestigious journal, and see it finally published with a potentially higher impact in your field.

Conclusion

Receiving a letter of rejection is always an undesirable experience that all scholars will undergo in their professional career. As an editor, sending a letter of rejection is not easy. When I need to desk reject a paper or, even worse, when I have to reject a paper after one or two rounds of revision, I usually take a bit longer before writing these decision letters.

From the point of view of the author, Calcagno et al.’s research shows that nearly 75% of published papers were rejected by the first journal to which they were submitted. So, rejection is normal, but if the submission is prepared carefully, you have a real chance of being published in the first journal you have chosen. And to succeed in the review process, awareness of the journal is crucial. Besides reading the journal, you could meet the editors and members of the editorial board to understand the editorial policies of the publication. Most editors and editorial boards have meetings during conferences and, in some cases, they also open space to meet potential authors. ISA and SAGE have dedicated time slots for all their editors during ISA World Congresses and Forums, not to mention workshops and seminars on academic writing and publication. These are key spaces to consult editors directly and ask questions about how their journal works and which are the most recent editorial decisions.

Regarding rejection, Current Sociology works in a very idiosyncratic manner. Differently to other high profile journals, we have been working to decrease (and not to increase!) the rejection rates. High rejection rates apparently means that both: 1) the journal has a large amount of submissions and 2) it is more exigent and rigorous with their evaluation. In fact, many journals do not work with the authors to revise and resubmit after the first round, and this policy is reasonable: each round of the review process produces an enormous amount of work for the editorial office and the referees, and the final result is not always an acceptance letter. Having more than one round or revision also affects the journal’s statistics: if a publication has a few papers under revision that need three or four rounds, the turnaround time is going to increase significantly–and in our world of publish fast or perish even faster, this is also a significant indicator for potential authors.

In the last 5 years, Current Sociology have been working to reduce its rejection rate while keeping the average turnaround time to 18 months, retaining a stable Impact Factor, and also increasing the plurality in national representation among our authors. Editors and referees are expected to work with the author until the final version is considered perfect for all the parties involved–and of course, this takes some time. In this sense, we could argue than quality and excellence are not necessarily related to higher rejection rates, but to working in a collaborative effort between authors, referees (indispensable and never thanked enough) and the editor. All in all, as Albrow (1991) suggested, journals are a collective enterprise, and what would end in a published article is the result of this collaborative work.