With the competition among the authors to publish and the striving of editors/publishing houses to improve their journal rankings, desktop rejection has become a routine affair. In fact, few journals boast or bragg about rejecting 75% manuscripts without even a review. On the surface, it looks a fair practice as each of the manuscript submitted entails assigning handling editor, inviting reviewers, time and expertise of reviewers, etc. Many a times, the reasons cited for desktop rejection includes non-technical issue!
The question is, how the authors take or perceive about this desktop rejection?
Dear Professor,
It is unfair to reject a manuscript without a review except when the article is out of scope. But for most of the journals, the subject scope is broad. Many times, the stated reasons for rejection are not clear and elaborate. While acceptance needs a thorough review, summary rejection should have a strong basis and based on some evidence. The academic research and publication process should never overthrow ethics.
Sometime back the journals stated their rejection rate but, that is not a mark of their pride. Such behaviour reflects badly on them, and merely expresses how the journals look upon the authors. A high rejection rate means the submission of voluminous low-quality manuscripts. That means the concerned journal has low academic standing in the minds of the authors.
Reporting the acceptance rate is also an ugly practice. Whether the acceptance rate reflects the quality of the journal and the review process?
Sending the manuscripts to the review is the only way to improve the academic standing of the journals. At the same time, preprints can help reduce the workload on the review process. The comments that a preprint receives from the community may help in decision making by the editorial board.
After publication, if the article is good, that shall attract citations. There's nothing for the journals to be proud of it, for they don't accept responsibility for low or no citations. Otherwise, just like the impact factor, they may have indices for the number of low or no citation works published in their journal.
I agree that the submitted papers may not meet the expectations of the journal. But the review process is meant for improvement. Then, every journal should help to bring out all research output since billions are spent in research, not for rejection but publication.
Else, all research laboratories and universities should launch their journals - just like Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, etc.
Acceptance requires a thorough review and rejection requires a strong basis should be the cardinal principle for any editor. I totally agree with this. Eswaramoorthi Sellappa Gounder
You had at 'desktop rejection', but lost me by mentioning journals. I was thinking of a more interesting research angle! :-)
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