It happens to all of us from time to time that journals reject our research papers. Sometimes, however, the reasons leave us wondering, and this is one such case that happened to my co-authors and me at Research Papers in Education. The reviews were absolutely positive, not a single negative feedback. None? Well, there was one: the paper was 'stats' heavy. I'm surprised at such a justification in a journal of that name. Has this or something similar ever happened to anyone? Here is the relevant excerpt in the justification of the rejection:
"Thank you for submitting your paper to Research Papers in Education.
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the editors have considered
your paper and feel it is not suitable for publication in our journal.
You address a relevant topic and provide a secure review of the
literature, but there is a need for great clarity in explaining and
linking your findings back to practice bearing in mind our readership.
For our readers, your work is slightly 'stats' heavy whereas we like to
see a flipped emphasis of the substantive discussion and debates over
the statistical debates. You may find that other journals have a
different preference and that your work is publishable there without
many amendments. Indeed, we enjoyed your choice of topic and it is clear
that there is a much larger piece of research behind it that is worthy
of publication."
No hard feelings about it, getting papers rejected happens to all of us once in a while. Nevertheless, I am puzzled. :-)
Some journal favors discussion of the research finding, its impact and how it corelates to the whole literature body. Maybe your manuscript is leaning towards statistical study of the research findings, which not according to the Journal preference.
I have once accepted to a Q1 Journal without any heavy data analysis, relying on the strength of the discussion alone.
Albert Ziegler sounds very similar to cancel culture, doesn't it? It is such an odd phenomenon crisscrossing the globe. There seems to be a tribal affiliation required to be published in that review. You are in good company, I remember Octave Lievenspiel who wrote THE textbook on chemical engineering, telling me that his ground-shaking article on the dinosaur era was refused by 19 journals without any reason
https://levenspiel.com/dinosaurs/
he did eventually get published so keep on fighting!
Sincerely
Professor Yukna
The author of the question proceeds from the false premise that the journal is obliged to publish any article sent to the editorial board and approved by the reviewers. A kind of author's arrogance. This is not true. The author must prove (most often by the text of the article itself) that the article corresponds to the direction of the journal and its criteria. In addition, the journal always has a choice: in decent journales the "portfolio" is full for 6-12 months, and sometimes even more months in advance, with a fairly high failure rate. And this is already the prerogative of the editorial board: to choose what they think is more interesting and necessary. Of course, they may be wrong about this or that article, but this is their right.
Vadim S. Gorshkov I understand your point, even if I find it a bit severe... However over the course of history, there have been so many fruitful, innovative, and breakthrough articles rejected by peer-reviewed journals that I am reminded of Planck's "Science progresses one funeral at a time". Darwin's Origin of the Species had to be published as a book. Show me a journal and I have often created a list of who should be cited from an article published in that journal depending on which topic covered. I have helped write articles and later answered reviewers' remarks in over 500 articles. It is not pretty, and maybe I am jaded, but the journals were housed in Taylor and Francis to Springer.
Christopher Gerard Yukna
For this particular article, the author needs to find the journal in which the article will be published, that's all - you're right. By the way, writers rarely write "for humanity" (and those who write are not published). The writer roughly imagine his future reader, his level of education and the social stratum to which he belongs, why can scientists write "to nowhere"? Not to see what the range of problems of the intended journal is, its level, etc.?
As plumbers say: "Water will find a hole." Nobody promised that everything would be easy. Any new theory goes through the stage of misunderstanding and rejection. Maybe a genius doesn't need to fight the whole world, but just look for allies? One by one? Speaking at conferences rather than submitting articles to journals? But everyone knows very well how much nonsense any journals, including scientific ones, get. An acquaintance of mine, who works as the deputy editor-in-chief of a fairly decent journal, has directories on his hard disk: Perpetuum Mobile, Alternative Quantum Theories, Flat Earth, Pyramids as an Energy Concentrator, Urine Therapy, etc. Moreover, the journal is quite humanitarian, even if these articles were published, it would definitely not in this one.
Vadim S. Gorshkov right (not talking about this article) when you have outliers on one hand you have pyramid power and perpetual motion machines and on the other side of the bell curve there are ideas coached in statistics or laws of physics and mathematical lemmas that are shunned as if they were on the other side of the bell curve.
I'll give three ideas that are currently ignored:
- 1. iron's critical role as a catalyst for viral duplication
- induction heating of planetary bodies (only considered for exoplanets)
- solar wind proton (hydrogen) bombardment of the ozone layer over the poles
Obviously, each contradicts present policies or Nobel prizes for that matter.
Like Octave's ideas on Earth's atmosphere, I find it amazing that there are as many well-argued alternate theories that are ignored as there are believers in a flat earth. Peer-reviewed journals should be an unbiased filter for nonsense, instead, they seem to be more about defending small sectors of science as if they were sexual territories of individual groups of scientists.
Vadim, I did believe that journals like Scientific American, Lancet, or even Popular Science were the closet thing to the truth, and the path to the future but after 60 years of reading them I have found their gatekeeping and bias too disturbing. I guess that is called growing up.
My first boss once said me: "I absolutely do not like your idea, but I will not bother you to prove it, there is something in it." This is the maximum I can expect from a "scientific general". And I am very grateful to him for that. In any case, the author must prove, and many will resist, this is natural. It's hard to expect someone to carry this weight. Let the author do it himself.
Rejection is better reaction than attempt declaring himself as co-author.
Do not be disheartened and discouraged by replies because they are in competition business.
You must read few replied to me.
They eagerly with request make you to submit your work.
Often you don't want to publish under their dictated terms and conditions.
I have published few books under traditional.
In submission they ask questions how your articles is different to the other same topic already in the market to amuse the readers.
Well, this is research work of science and History, why would your work be different to the same topic why would it be amusement. Yes, I wrote fiction in the past and the reply was thrilling, eventful diverse, for the fiction.
I had reply for science work.
Dear Fatema Miah.
This is an absolutely excellent piece of research thesis work. Our review team expressed how pleased they are reading your greatest well explained subject matter. We are sad that we at this moment in time cannot publish this topic as this is not the subject matter on our publishing aim at this moment of time, might be in the near future.
Please keep in touch to keep us updated of your fine research topics.
Then the offer, don't please you either.
Regards,
Fatema Miah
From the "comment", it appears that you and your co-authors chose a "gossip" rather than a scientific magazine.
However, the management of a magazine always reserves the right of publication (it is well known).
Gioacchino de Candia word is a bit sharp off line.
As far as I can see it's an exchanges of experiences and opinions.
Regards
Fatema Miah
They wanted to test dish. They have ways of checking out what's out there doing well and conflicting etc.
From the excerpts that say
"For our readers, your work is slightly 'stats' heavy whereas we like to see a flipped emphasis of the substantive discussion and debates over the statistical debates"
It's obvious that the journal editor prefers more detailed discussion to mainly using statistics. You can do further discussion on the interpretation/significance of your statistical analysis before resubmitting to another journal
Most journals prefer a detailed but concise discussion/explanation of any statistical analysis used in a manuscript. Discuss it and compare it to the works done by other researchers in similar areas
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