Dealing with Journal Rejection

1. Dealing with Journal Rejection
Dr. Wallraven

2. Disclaimer
All content used on this presentation is owned or licensed by Crimson Interactive
Inc. or its affiliates under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Some content may have
been blocked for confidentiality reasons. Unauthorized use of any part of this
presentation by any other party is prohibited. Breach of this condition is liable for
legal action.

3. Peer review process
Causes of rejection
Commonly cited reasons in rejection letters
Sample rejection letters
Processing rejection letters
Understanding reviewers’ comments
Overcoming journal rejection
Avoiding rejection
Agenda

4. Authors
Journal (Re-)Submission
Editorial Screening
Expert Peer Review
Publication
Rejection
/ Revision
Peer Review Process
Peer Review (1/7)
Rejection

5. • Single blind
• Double/triple blind
• Open
• Transparent
Pre-publication
• Open
• Reader evaluatedPost-publication
Types of peer review
Pre-submission review
Peer Review (2/7)

6. • Reviewers give their time for free to help improve science
in their field
• Peer reviewers comment on:
– novelty of the contribution
– trustworthiness of the science
– presentation of the article
• Peer review reports guide the decisions of journal editors
• Standards of review might vary according to the field,
publisher, and journal/publication medium
• Most journals will have a minimum of two reviewers but
more is also common
Peer Review is the backbone of academic publishing
Peer Review (3/7)

7. http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/ retraction-count-for-scientist-who-faked-
emails-to-do-his-own-peer-review-grows-to-35/
Recent Cases of “Fake Reviewers”
Peer Review (4/7)

8. Recent Cases of “Fake Reviewers”
Peer Review (5/7)

9. What happened?
• Journals often ask for “suggested reviewers”
• Authors gave false identities (and email address) for themselves
or colleagues or names of real people with false email addresses
controlled by the author or their associates
• Articles were then reviewed by recommended reviewers
(authors posing as reviewers)
• Reviews were fast and positive
Peer Review (6/7)

10. Is Peer Review Important?
 84% of scientists believe that peer review is essential
for controlling science communication
 32% think that the current system is the best
achievable one
YES
Peer Review (7/7)

11. Rejection in Numbers
 ~4 million scholarly papers published annually
 21% of articles face rejection after editorial screening (without review)
 40% face rejection after peer review
 Over 90% face rejection in top-tier journals such as
Nature, Science, The Lancet, and Cell
 5% to 10% acceptance rate for first submissions (usually after
revisions)
 10-fold increase in rejection rate over this past decade

12. Editorial Screening
Plagiarism
Resubmission of published work, i.e., the article
repeats or confirms previously published data
Insufficient data/evidence, e.g., incomplete results
Non-conformity to journal guidelines and scope, i.e.,
off-topic content
Poor writing
Causes of Rejection (1/2)

13. During Peer Review
 Low significance of the study
 Insufficient data and evidence for validation
 Lack of novelty: Incremental data
 Improper terminology
Causes of Rejection (2/2)

14. Rejection Letters (1/4)
While they find your work of some potential interest
they preclude publication of the work in Nature at
least in its present form.
Should further experimental data allow you to
address the criticism we would be happy to look at a
revised manuscript.
Soft rejection

15. Rejection Letters (2/4)
Your topic is certainly of appropriate scope for
Science and your analysis is interesting; however,
following discussion among the editors and
members of our board of reviewing advisors, it was
given a lower priority ranking than others.
We are sorry to have to disappoint you in this
instance and we wish you the best of luck in
publishing your work elsewhere.
Hard rejection

16. Rejection Letters (3/4)
You will see that while they find your work of some
potential interest, our referees raise concerns about
the degree of novel insight and about the strength
of the novel conclusions that can be drawn at this
stage.
Although we regret that we cannot offer to publish
your paper in Nature for editorial reasons, it might
be appropriate for another journal in the Nature
Publishing Group family such as…
Rejection / offer to transfer

17. Rejection Letters (4/4)
First, there are numerous technical and scientific
issues raised in regard to the interpretation of the
structural studies.
However, if you feel that you are able to address the
reviewer’s comments in full with additional data and
analysis, we would be willing to re-review a
completely revised manuscript.
Revise and
resubmit

18. • Repetitive, not original
• Insignificant study objective
• Topic is irrelevant
• The methods mentioned are
unclear
• Low readership interest
• Not generalizable
• Literature review is outdated
• Inappropriate instrumentation
• Incorrect conclusions
• Inadequate link of results to the
conducted research
• Insufficient discussion of statistical
results
• Failure to provide sufficient
explanation
• Inconsistently reported data
• Improper or lack of controls
Common Reasons in Rejection Letters

19. Journal editors evaluate the overall combination of subject
matter, methodology, theory, and contribution to the discipline.
“There is no substitute for a good idea, for excellent research or
for good, clean, clear writing,” says Nora S. Newcombe, PhD, of
Temple University, former editor of APA’s Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General.
What Do Journals Actually Look For?
Useful
contribution
Well-
performed
study
Match
journal
aims and
scope

20. Processing a Rejection Letter (1/3)
When you receive the rejection letter
• Read the contents then wait
• Read it again later
• Understand what was the decision / type of rejection
• Respond accordingly
• Even if you cannot resubmit to the same journal the
reviewers’ comments will help you improve the
manuscript for another journal

21. “The paper is not acceptable in its present form”
Suggests that the paper could be accepted after revisions
Revise and resubmit
“The paper did not get a high enough priority”
The journal may have reached its annual maximum number
of pages or its readership may not be interested in the paper.
Submit the manuscript elsewhere
Processing a Rejection Letter (2/3)

22. “The study is interesting but too preliminary”
The paper is interesting but requires additional data
Revise and resubmit (as new article) or resubmit elsewhere
“The study is interesting but is technically flawed”
Some data may be incomplete / results might be over interpreted
May be possible to revise and resubmit or resubmit elsewhere
“The work is more appropriate for a specialized journal”
Submit the manuscript elsewhere
Processing a Rejection Letter (3/3)

23. “The study is descriptive”
The paper lists data that do not come together into a clear,
hypothesis-driven study
“The study is incremental”
The work builds on previous work without contributing any
major new concepts
“The study lacks important controls”
Additional experiments needed for validation
Understanding Reviewers’ Comments (1/2)

24. “The data are not convincing”
• The data are insufficient to validate the main conclusions of
the work
• Data quality and statistical significance are inadequate
• The writing style might have obscured the message of the
manuscript
Understanding Reviewers’ Comments (2/2)

25. Responding to Reviewers’ Comments (1/3)
 Carefully read and re-read the comments
 Decide whether you can address the reviewer comments for
resubmission (in time)
 Group reviewer comments together based on the part of your
manuscript they refer to
 Decide whether additional experiments are needed
 Make a list of changes needed:
• Minor rewriting, language improvement, word count reduction
• Adding data, Figures, Introduction, Discussion, References
• Revising you analysis (different model, statistical method)
 Outline your response letter
• Respond to all reviewer comments

26. Response when you agree with a reviewer
 Thank the reviewer
 Say that you agree and explain why
 Describe the changes you made
 Indicate where you made the changes
Response when you disagree with a reviewer
It’s okay to disagree as long as you provide evidence.
 Thank the reviewer
 Show that you understand the comment.
 Explain why you disagree and your changes
 Indicate where you made the changes
Responding to Reviewers’ Comments (2/3)
Thank you for you comments. We agree with your suggestion to XXX, because
YYY. We have made changes to ZZZ on page/line XX as you suggested.
Thank you for you comments. We understand your concern about XXX.
However, because YYY. To make this clearer we have changed ZZZ on page/line
XX.

27. What you want to say: You just didn’t understand what we wrote!
What you should: Some statements that we made were slightly ambiguous; we
have clarified the text.
What you want to say: That experiment would take forever!
What you should: The suggested experiment is very interesting; however, we feel
that it is beyond the scope of our study
What you want to say: You didn’t even read what we wrote!
What you should: We did not intend to indicate ‘XYZ’ and have therefore altered
the text to specify ‘PQR’.
What you want to say: You are being too picky about grammar and formatting.
What you should: We apologize for the errors and have made the suggested
changes.
Responding to Reviewers’ Comments (3/3)
✔
✔
✔
✔

28. Facts about Journal Rejection
 The rejection rate of a journal is the number of rejections divided by
the number of submissions to the journal.
 ~79% of journals have rejection rates between 25% and 60%.
 Rejection rates in Humanities and Social Sciences journals (>70%) are
higher than those in Physical Science journals (~30%).
 On the basis of a survey conducted for atmospheric sciences journals,
the mean rejection rate was 33% for non-profit journals and 48% for
for-profit journals.
 ~75 articles are submitted every day for publication in high-impact
factor journals.

29.  Appealing rejection
• Check the journal appeal policy
• Journal editors will investigate and may ask for another reviewer / editorial
board member to reassess your manuscript
• Rarely successful
 Resubmit to the same journal
• If you manuscript received a soft rejection you could revise and resubmit as
a new manuscript (include point-by-point response letter)
 Submitting to a new journal
• If you received a hard rejection or cannot complete all the revisions choose a
new journal
• Carefully choose a new journal and reformat your manuscript
• Use the reviewer comments you receive to improve the manuscript
Overcoming Journal Rejection

30. Avoiding rejection
 Choose the right journal
 Make it clear what your findings mean
for the field (consider writing a cover
letter)
 Novelty: explain what is new about
your work
 Back up your claims with convincing
experimental evidence
 Include up-to-date citations in your
introduction
 Check spelling and grammar
 Include clear and appropriately
labelled figures
 Avoid research or publication
misconduct (register clinical trials,
get approval from ethics board)
 Clearly identify your topic,
hypothesis, and objectives
 Organize your manuscript clearly
 Adhere to the guidelines of the
target journal

31. Riding Out Rejection
In 1937, Nature rejected the seminal paper from
Hans Krebs on the citric acid cycle, which was
published a couple months later in Enzymologia

32. In 1966, the paper on Fourier
transform nuclear magnetic
resonance spectroscopy by Nobel
laureate in Chemistry Richard
Ernst (1991) was rejected twice
by the Journal of Chemical
Physics before its publication in
the Review of Scientific
Instruments.
© Nobel Media AB 2016
Riding Out Rejection

33. Disclaimer
All content used on this presentation is owned or licensed by Crimson Interactive
Inc. or its affiliates under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Some content may have
been blocked for confidentiality reasons. Unauthorized use of any part of this
presentation by any other party is prohibited. Breach of this condition is liable for
legal action.

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