Papers which have strong content get cited more, which is what creates a high impact rate.  Therefore it is the quality of the papers published which leads to high impact for the journal.

So there is merit in rejecting papers that do not meet high standards, and my guess is that many more researchers try to gain publication in quality journals. This suggests to me that quality journals may get more sub-par submissions.

But I think that there are so many other variables in the determination of impact factor and in the number of high versus low quality papers that there are too many variables to draw a correlation.

Dear Bernard Montoneri, 

       The way you put the question is somewhat biased. It seems like you would like to see more and more research papers to be published in respective journals. However, as you know most papers does not deserve to be published on the following reasons that you may add your complement.

 A.    The papers quality

 1. Lack of originality, novelty, or significance with results that are unoriginal,predictable, or trivial or that have no clinical, theoretical, or practical implications

2.  Mismatch with the journal that means the manuscripts that lie outside the stated aims and scope of the journal and do not follow the format specified by the journal

3. Flaws in study design with poorly formulated research question,conceptualization of the approach to answering the research question, choice of a weak or unreliable method, inappropriate statistical analysis etc.

4. Poor writing and Organization with discussion that only repeats the results but does not tried interpreting, conclusions that do not appear to be supported by the study data etc.

5. Inadequate preparation of the manuscript that fail to follow the journal’s Instructions for Authors and having sentences that are not clear and concise

6. Wordiness and excessive use of jargon and large number of careless errors like poor grammar or spelling mistakes.

 B.   The Journal Publishers

 1.   Editors of print journals especially have to pick and choose which papers to publish, since they can only publish a limited number of articles. Open access journals are less constrained by this consideration since space is not a big issue for them.

2.  The quality of peer review varies widely according to reviewers’ professional experience, educational background, research interests, etc.

3.   Journals that attract a large number of submissions will also reject a large number of manuscripts. 

4.  Some journals follow a policy of rejecting any manuscript that will require major revisions, while some journals will complete another round of peer review if they are unsure of the manuscript's quality.

5.   Sometimes, journal editors may wish to publish a thematic issue of the journal or may be interested in a current hot topic, in which case they might tend to accept more papers focusing on that particular topic.

6.  The journal receives more than one submission on the same topic. In such cases, the journal may well choose to publish only one of the manuscripts, rejecting the other for no other reason. 

 C.   My comments

 I would say that anything that is written based on a certain theme has something to tell. The writer writes because he has something to say (F. Scott Fitzgerald). Thus, it would be nice to see all published for readings, but the responsible bodies who decide on the issue needs to be rational not only for the sake of the writer but also for the readers.

 1.    Don’t give up! Rejection is part of life for an academic, and even the best papers get rejected. While rejection can hurt, the correct way to deal with rejection is to pick up the pieces and try again.

2.    Find another conference: to find a suitable conference or workshop where the paper would fit. Also look at the submission deadlines. You want it to be sufficiently close in time so that you do not have to wait too long for acceptance and will have time to actually enact your changes.

3.  Find a suitable journal for the article: Some papers are simply not fit for the format of a conference, and may benefit from being published at a journal. This is certainly true for many theoretical model papers or literature surveys, which do not necessarily need (or lend themselves to) a public talk at a scientific event

 Mekuria

Dear Mekuria,

Yes, of course, I agree with you. There is plenty of good reasons for accepting or rejecting a submission. My point was that universities seem to believe that journals with very high rejection rate are of better quality. I don't think what I said is biased. It is based on the following research:

"Pascal Rocha da Silva, a process strategy manager at Frontiers, an open access publisher, plotted the impact factors of 570 journals against their rejection rates, only to find that there was “absolutely no correlation” between the two.

Some journals that rejected more than nine out of 10 papers had impact factors well below average, while others that accepted the majority of submissions had some of the best scores."

From "High rejection rates by journals ‘pointless’

Analysis suggests higher selectivity fails to increase journals’ impact factors"

January 28, 2016

Here is the link:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/high-rejection-rates-by-journals-pointless#survey-answer

Papers which have strong content get cited more, which is what creates a high impact rate.  Therefore it is the quality of the papers published which leads to high impact for the journal.

So there is merit in rejecting papers that do not meet high standards, and my guess is that many more researchers try to gain publication in quality journals. This suggests to me that quality journals may get more sub-par submissions.

But I think that there are so many other variables in the determination of impact factor and in the number of high versus low quality papers that there are too many variables to draw a correlation.

 Unfortunately there is school of thought which give higher weight-age to mass rejection of research papers as a sign of the quality of an academic journal

Academic publishing is too complex for that kind of simplistic "black and white" thinking.  

In a way I (sadly) agree. Mass rejection, of course, is not automatically a guarantee of publishing excelent papers and a high quality of a journal. But because they receive a lot of papers they have a chance to choose the best ones (and mass rejection is a by-product of it). The same story occurs with schools. If a one has a good reputation, it has a lot of candidates and can choose the best ones. And even if the teachers are middling, students receive the best scores at some external examinations.

One could hope that the quality of a journal would be based upon how much a journal's papers are cited in a *positive* way - a lousy published paper that get very bad comments also get a lot of citations! - and also how those papers that cite this paper fares in terms of being influential. Hard to measure perhaps, but better than a simple citation number that - as mentioned - may be due to the fact that it is lousy. :-)

Thank you all for the precious feedback. You are right, academic publishing is very complex. I just wished universities would understand it and use more refined measures than "impact factor" and "acceptance/rejection rate" to evaluate the quality of a journal and of a publication. Michael is right, being cited is not necessarily a good thing. One should also measure "positive citations".

yes I'm agree with that , it depends on the subject as well and number of citation of that journal .

Hello there,

Apart from errors in the fundamentals of writing a clinical research paper, things that mitigate against manuscript acceptance by highly rated journals include: lack of objective; irrelevant and unimportant subject matter; questionable and flawed methodology; lack of originality and inadequate “packaging” of the report.The delay

in the turn-around time of many articles is due to the authors themselves, and not necessarily due to the assessors or the Editorial Board.

Providing you a direct link to the entire article for further read.

Regards

http://indexmedicus.afro.who.int/iah/fulltext/journals.pdf