Anatomy of a Rejection: Improve your Publishing Record
by Christopher Edwards
Abstract
This article discusses some reasons why manuscripts are rejected. It suggests ways to increase your chances for publication by explaining the biases of reviewers, the idiosyncrasies of editors and publishers, and the crucial importance of timing.
Rejection of a manuscript can be a terribly discouraging and frustrating experience, made worse when an author doesn’t know why it was turned down or how to avoid future rejections. Apart from the quality of the research, many factors influence journal manuscript reviews. The following insights may increase your chances for publication.
Manuscripts may be rejected because they are not targeted to the biases of reviewers attached to the journal. Depending on the journal, you will need to appeal to reviewers who emphasize theory, those who require empirical data, or both. As a rule, reviewers in fields such as structural biology emphasize facts more than those who specialize in areas that stress subtle theoretical thinking and indirect argument, such as evolution.
Thus, reviewers for publications such as Biochemistry, Nucleic Acids Research, The Lancet, or The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) will tend to take a “just the facts” approach. Reviewers with interests in evolution, such as Nature Genetics, and reviewers for more general journals such as Science and Nature, may place greater value on elegant argumentation. If you submit to Science or Nature, try appealing both to empiricists and theoreticians, since their reviewers may represent both groups. If you plan to send a manuscript to a journal that you do not read regularly, consider whether its theoretical or empirical bias is different than what you are accustomed to. Write and submit the paper accordingly.
Apart from intellectual bias, a reviewer may also reject your paper because of professional jealousy. You don’t know who reviews your paper, but they always know your name. Of course, personal biases might also work in your favor.
Sometimes reviewers cannot value the novelty and significance of your work simply because they lack expertise in the topic. In this case, you can tactfully argue your rebuttal to the editor. Remember, however, that the editor may send your rebuttal to the reviewer for his comments; thus, respond diplomatically, and never act hostile to the reviewer’s remarks.
In some cases, the reviewer may be qualified to review your paper but cannot appreciate it because it is poorly written. Often, simply improving the introduction and discussion can make the difference between acceptance and rejection. Rejections can also result from your choosing the wrong journal for your paper, or your work may fall prey to the limitations of the editor or the publishing management. Before you send off a manuscript, familiarize yourself with the journal’s content. Is the journal too broad or too narrow to do justice to your paper? Can the editor appreciate the significance of your subfield and your paper? If the editor does not know your previous papers or has a bias against your style of research, you will be fighting an uphill battle. Therefore, choose your target journal wisely. Young scientists should avoid the temptation simply to aim for the top journal. Repeated acceptance at a second-tier specialist journal will do far more for your career and morale than repeated rejections from Cell or Nature.
Your chances of publication in any particular journal are partly determined by the type of editor, his bias, and his influence. Different types of editors will handle your paper, depending upon the journal. Large-circulation journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, and NEJM hire full-time professional editors. Any inexperienced editors at these journals will rely very heavily upon reviewers’ comments; they tend to act as interpreters and will rarely contradict a reviewer. Experienced editors at such journals, however, act more as intelligent juries or judges. While they attend to the reviewers’ comments, they often have strong opinions about the paper and your subfield. If these editors favor your paper, they will act as advocates on your behalf. Instead of rejecting your paper based upon a bad review, they might discuss it with the reviewer before contacting you, or they may carefully weigh a bad review against a good one. They may ask you for revisions and further justification if they favor your paper but the reviews were mixed; in that case, your response would probably be returned to the reviewers for further consideration. Interacting with these editors by phone and email can improve your chances of acceptance when you submit a borderline paper.
Smaller, specialized publications tend to be edited by academics part-time as a scholarly obligation, unless they also own the publication. These honorary editors should be able to read your paper and understand it, if you have chosen the right place to submit your work. They may be hard to reach by phone because of their many other commitments. In addition, they can be less flexible than professional editors if they need to defend their scientific positions. Academic editors who own journals are likely to be more subjective when compared to professional or honorary academic editors. They can easily ignore bad reviews if they want to print your paper. Understanding these different types of editors will help you determine whether to argue for another review, appeal a rejection, or submit elsewhere.
Occasionally, an editor will not publish your paper because of simple human error. Sometimes overworked assistants fail to track manuscripts properly or remind reviewers to send in their comments. Occasionally, a manuscript may sit for weeks under a pile on the editor’s desk or the in box of a reviewer. In another case, an editorial assistant may fail to send the article to all of the reviewers. In that instance, nothing will happen to your article until you call the editor and ask why you have not received notice about publication. You can prevent many of these types of accidents by writing down your submission date. Contact the editor if you have not received any confirmation a few days after submission, or if you have not received a decision after three weeks.
If your article is misplaced in the editor’s office, another scientific team may “scoop” you. However, you are far more likely to be scooped because your article was resting as a half-finished draft in your own computer (or a collaborator’s). To avoid being scooped, revamp your writing habits to finish your drafts promptly. (See my other articles: Blockbusting: Understanding the Causes of Writer’s Block, and Blockbusting II: Tips for Preventing and Breaking Writer’s Block.) In addition, prod your coauthors to start writing the draft. Postdoc coauthors often underestimate the importance of publishing, focusing so closely on their research that they neglect to report it. If you are the first author, you have far more to gain or lose in the race to publish than your collaborators do. Give your coauthors deadlines, whether they are your postdocs or senior scientists at large institutions elsewhere, and remind them until they comply.
By considering the biases of reviewers and editors and submitting your work promptly, your chances of publication should increase significantly. Publishing promptly and repeatedly in top journals is a great reward for your hard work and a real morale builder for your laboratory.