Rejections pave the pay for good future publications. Do not be disheartened.

Best of luck.

Sometimes my paper gets rejected once or twice before being accepted for publication. It is usually frustrating, honestly, however I mostly deal with the rejections by trying my utmost best to comply with the rules the publisher has laid down to the smallest details, and see it as a developmental process to my paper writing skills

Rejections pave the pay for good future publications. Do not be disheartened.

Best of luck.

During the past 3 months, I submitted three article to one of my favorite journals (Neurology) and 2 of the articles got rejected straightaway (I received rejection after 5 days). One of the articles made it with minor revision and I'm waiting for the response.

I submitted one of the rejected articles to another journal and it got accepted and published.

What I do with frustration? I anticipate it before submitting the article to the journal. I make a list of the journals I want to submit to before submitting to my first choice and I anticipate this rejection. After I get the message, I wait for several days to deal with my emotions, make some corrections, follow author guidelines of the other journal and then submit it to my 2nd choice journal..

Hi,

There is always a certain percent of rejections to papers sent for publication. Even Nobel Prize winners have a percentage of rejections (if it is any consolation). Usually this is a discouraging feeling, but one has to see why the paper was rejected, what are the reasons. If it happened because the paper was not in the aim and scope of the journal, then the only thing to do is find another journal that will accept the paper. If the reason relates to the content and format of writing, then the best thing to do is to improve the paper and find another journal where it can be published.

For me, 3-4 rejections before a final publication are common. :-) This is the same with my colleagues who serve as a assistant/associate professor. People are getting more rejections than we thought. I hope that a new researcher does not be discouraged by such a rejection. The rejection actually very much depends on the editor-in-chief or associate editor's preference rather than a quality of the paper. My work is about nursing setting-based businesses administration. Most of nursing journals gave a desk reject. The reason was "out of the scope." I am concerned about this trend. No matter how innovative and promising the work is, if the paper would not be read/understood/cited by the nurse science community, it is actually hard to bring out a significant change in a way of thinking or in nursing practice.

Thank you all Alli Noah Subir Bandyopadhyay Essam Al-Sibahee Avishag Gordon

Dear Claire,

The cause of rejections that I have usually received before publication is that my English language that is not native. However, their number is not high.I wish scientists to help those who do not speak English fluent. A global movement is needed. Many of their good works are rejected for this reason!

Thank you for your contribution to this discussion Nader Aghakhani

Actually that's depends on the subject that researcher work on, if he or she worked on old topic that no one still interest in, or may be the researcher didn't add any things new or useful in his or her article, that things don't allow your paper to be accepted. also the researcher must support the results that he/she got with applications through the examples, figures and do the simulations or use any things can support the results. In addition the author should care for the language, the structure and the the order of the paper.

Hi

I had papers that was accepted without revision, papers that was rejected in 24 hours, and papers that was accepted after 4 years times and after more than 20 revise and reject process. Sometimes the problem is with the chief editor, and sometimes with the reviewers. The rejection of papers containing new and innovative ideas is more common, that is because most persons think that the work in their field is complete, in general, and only refinements is needed!

For example, In the field of earthquake engineering, a fragility curve is constructed via 100 of 1000s of time history nonlinear dynamic analyses. I detected, and logically verified that the fragility curve is a property of the structure and can be constructed with a few simple calculation, that more than million times simpler and more accurate than the common methods. The journals reject in 24 hours and colleague throw it in garbage bin!

But I am not depressed. Sometimes in future this will become the common practice.

I was the Editor-in-Chief of two separate scholarly journals in my field -- for a total of 10 years. Both had an acceptance rate of 12%.

It is quite a different view from the Editor's desk than from the Author's. Many of the rejected manuscripts sent to my journals were just unsuitable: topics were not original, inadequate research or evidence to prove the premise, too short/too long, more suitable for another publication, redundant of the extant literature -- or ignorant thereof, etc.

As for my own history with rejection letters as an author, I've received 4 in my 40-year career: 2 were published in other journals, having been rejected on inappropriate grounds: in one, my thesis was deemed to be "anti-Christian" by a grad student zealot on the Editorial Board (she was fired); the referee on the other one said that my compare/contrast essay should only be about ONE text, when the whole point WAS the comparison. (I ended up writing about the one text and it was published in a book anthology.)

The other two that were rejected (with an invitation to "Revise and Resubmit") were dis-approved on legitimate scholarly grounds: they were both a little dated and I was unwilling (due to time constraints) to update them, as was recommended by the anonymous readers.

For me, frustration only came to play for the essays that were turned down without good cause. And I channeled that frustration into finding a more suitable venue for my ideas.

Abdolrasoul Ranjbaran I was moved to see your advice. Yes, right. I strongly agree with you. My program of research is also radical. It may thus make the mainstream researchers uncomfortable. My papers continue to be rejected for that reason. I am really sad to see that such peer pressure leads to a retrogression in advancing science.

In my field, after some rejections, it is complicated to publish your work, especially in high-quality journals. Choosing the right outlet is essential while developing a paper, in terms of writing style, selection of the literature (which should, at least partially, come from that specific journal), and so on. Try to engage with known scholars as coauthors, and try to learn from them. It will get better!

I have noticed that several of the scholars/researchers who have been rejected seem to be non-native speakers of English. If they are attempting to publish in English, I hope that they have the forethought to have their submissions proofread in advance. (This may explain why they are rejected so quickly, "out of hand," without a thorough review.)

Incidentally, I am available to perform copyediting and proofreading services for almost all academic fields.

Rejections are part of the learning process and developing your own critical view to become a good professional. Either if you are a new researcher or more experienced, you may get eventually some rejections. The best is to be aware if your work is really matching the journal, conference interests and get some review/s from a professional colleague if possible before submitting. If you get rejected, ask for some feedback in case it's not provided, it always help you to spot what to improve. To deal with frustration, breath and be gentle with yourself, accept it, there are many reasons why they reject a paper, and sometimes its as simple as they have to select due to a high volume of applicants so they go for minor details to discard and in the worst case your work is very weak in many aspects, then keep practicing and get a mentor, keep learning, it never ends.

Good luck!!

Admittedly, paper rejections are painful to scholars ; however, they are a central part of academic growth. Such events should not be fatal; rather, they should give us the courage to continue . As Idowu Koyenikan righty observes, “Failure is constructive feedback that tells you to try a different approach to accomplish what you want.”

I have had papers rejected and am hoping a journal will publish my work on Tourism Management based on Sustainability issues