On which circumstance(s) should a researcher appeal to an editor against his/her rejected article?
Have you ever appealed against a rejection? Was the appeal successful?
Please share your experience.
dear Emeka
Thank for this question. As most of my dear well-experienced colleagues mentioned , it is normal and we should find the other one.
It happened for me several times and I know it can be immensely frustrating when, after many years of research and effort perfecting your research, figures, and manuscript, you receive a rejection letter from your selected journal. For me and most of people who live in developing countries it is normal as sometimes they rejected us only by the name of our country and our affiliation and write that our research is not related to their scope while exactly the same papers have been published by them and ........
Most importantly, don’t get discouraged when you inevitably have a manuscript rejected from your selected journal. Everyone has received a rejection letter during their research career. There are many journal options, and you will eventually find a perfect fit for your manuscript.
Life is short
Ignore and keep moving to another.
You need not spend your energies to correct everyone....
This is a practical tip.....
In my own opinion, it is just a ploy to discourage researchers especially from developing countries to abandon research. You can just take your manuscripts, make adjustments/ corrections that are really compulsory that can make the work more robust and submit it in another journal publisher. Don't be discouraged, forge ahead, break barriers and be successful in life.
Thank you
Olutosin
I think there is no use of appeal.
Better send the paper in another Journal.
Many thanks Dr Artur for your very interesting answer and helpful advice. I discovered that many people do not appeal against injustice, especially in scholaly publishing, and that's one of the reasons it pervades our society. It is hurting to suffer or bear injustice, so we must cry out against it.
Dear Professors Krishnan and Subhash, thank you for your advice. Please is it out of place to appeal against an unfair rejection? Don't you think that by not appealing we are encouraging further abuse of the peer review process?
Dear Dr Olutosin, many thanks for your answer. You may not be far from the truth because researchers from developing countries are somewhat disadvantaged in scholarly publishing.
Rejections are usually a sign that manuscript needs improvements and do not necessarily mean intimidation or that publisher is the best. Sometimes they are misled by an inexperienced editor or one who lack sufficient knowledge in that field.
There is absolutely no need for appeal, make amendments and resend it to even better publisher and I am sure it will be accepted.
Kind regards,
Egbuna, C.
Two of my articles got rejected from editors. But finally both the articles has been accepted in the same journals. So, if you are confident enough about your works. Please appeal. I know it is painful to go through this once again.
Thank you Dr Tanmay for your comment. Congratulations on your successful appeal!
Unjust rejection of a manuscript can happen. I believe there is no need to appeal to the editor, just make the necessary amendments, and go to another journal.
In my opinion The researcher must be sure of his work and study, and when he gives a certain opinion or a certain hypothesis to be convinced of the full conviction to be able to defend it if it was rejected or criticized in an unscientific way.
I agree with Krishnan and Olutosin,
Ignore and keep moving....
I believe that there are sometimes inexperienced editors who are not very much familiar with their fields. What I suggest is that correct accordingly if you see they are a must and move to another journals. I also believe that it is sometimes a kind discouraging researchers from developing countries as Oluyosin said.
I am attached with one journal. I faced some related problems. I want to share it with all the researchers.
1. Our journal is open access, double blind peer reviewed journal. That means the reviewers and the authors are not having any chance to know each others name.
But we send the articles of one particular field to the experts working or attached with that field generally. Those persons also know who are working in the field. Some of them have personal problems with each other. If they can understand the name or laboratory of research, they become biased and sometimes send bad comments unnecessarily.
2. To be frank, all good workers are not good reviewer. Many good workers do not want to think even anything new or modified than his own idea as practical. They do not want to understand that he is a good worker, but many other ideas are also there in the field of research. The send bad comments to such articles.
3. As the reviewer's work is always considered as free service, the journal authorities are not always having many options.
So, as per the advise shared by other experts, better send such articles to any other journal,if there is no scope for correction and reconsideration.
Thanks very much Prof Shibabrata for your insightful answer and helpful advice.
A colleague sent this to my inbox so I am adding it here: "it depends on the leadership pattern of the editor".
There is no point doing that.Carry your work to another journal.Incase you are lucky enough to enjoy their review before the rejection,just effect the meaningful corrections and send the work to a better journal. You may be furtunate to enjooy quick acceptance
It is academically ethical to respond to the comments made by reviewers. This includes unjust comments made by them that need clarifications. Reviewers are not angels in the academia. They also need training and tuition. Therefore, if they unjustly say something about our paper, we must respond when we have sound basis for it. However, we must do it politely and not with the view for them to change their stands on the paper's acceptance. Best regards
Dear Dr Dickson, thanks for your comment. The issue is not to respond to reviewers' comments, but that their reviews resulted in the unjust rejection of the paper.
An appeal must be filed if you see grounds for doing so. The question for you is fundamental, or you give up, or try to prove your position.problem The question for you is fundamental, or you give up, or try to prove your positionAn appeal must be filled if you see reason to do so. The question for you is fundamental, will you surrender, or try to prove your position. On the other hand, it is necessary to understand why the editors took such a decision. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they do not reject the article without sufficient grounds. Political correctness works for them too. An appeal must be filled if you see reason to do so. The question for you is fundamental, will you surrender, or try to prove your position. On the other hand, it is necessary to understand why the editors took such a decision. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they do not reject the article without sufficient grounds. Political correctness works for them too. An appeal must be filled if you see reason to do so. The question for you is fundamental, will you surrender, or try to prove your position. On the other hand, it is necessary to understand why the editors took such a decision. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they do not reject the article without sufficient grounds. Political correctness works for them too
An appeal must be filled if you see reasons to do so. The problem for you is fundamental, will you surrender, or try to prove your position. On the other hand, it is necessary to understand why the editors took such a decision. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they do not reject the article without sufficient grounds. Political correctness works for them too.
However, you must defend yours position. Therefore, the answers to possible objections should be present in the text itself (sometimes implicitly), and not in the responses to the reviewers. If you bring this article to the publication in the same journal, then your next texts will be more fundamental.
Thanks to all the experts. I think the problem of unjust rejection is also related to the following discussion. Please see the link below.
I would like to say that if it is unjust rejection, please have faith in your own work, improve/ present at your best, you will even get better journal.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_authors_name_has_an_effect_on_the_reviewers_and_journal_that_accepted_and_publish_his_article
With best wishes
I really enjoyed reading all answers and comments. They are interesting and fruitful. Ignore, amend accordingly and resubmit to another journal. Do not stop........keep moving as your heart is still pumping..
Dear Dr. Emeka,
If you have confidence on your work - parallel standard of work pertaining to a particular journal, then I feel you may appeal to the editor for reconsideration of the article. It may happen due to the reviewers. Other reviewers may understand the work, its novelty etc. and recommend for publication. Be positive - keep hope for proper evaluation.
Regards
I saw a title "This crazy, absurd, inept scientific world" on the ResearchGate board " https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321185016_This_crazy_absurd_inept_scientific_world
and sent my personal message (in Russian) to prof. V.M.Moskovkin in which I submitted my proposals. Now I want to present an expanded interpretation of these proposals.
The situation is long overdue for cardinal changes, since in the 21st century this state of affairs is simply unacceptable. I want to discuss your key phrase "What needs to be done to stop the global publication race under the cynical slogan" Publish or Perish "? This is possible only if the scientific community and the states that finance scientific research, will be guided by the slogan "Publish Best or Do Not Publish All". Indeed, if states do not force scientists, through different publication and journal metrics, to publish countless articles, the latter will stop doing it, but they will only publish their best works. What is the point of the scientist to produce garbage articles, which no one will read and what is the sense of the state to allocate huge funds for participation in the publication race, if its scientific and technological progress is not provided by numerous breakthrough studies? If we abandon the formal use of publication-journal metrics in assessing the results of scientific research and procedures for managing the career growth of scientists, then the publication of the race will disappear by itself".
My proposal is very simple: THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE SHOULD OVERSE THE PROPERTIES OF THE GOODS. As an example, consider the situation when you have to buy one or another product on the market, let's say household appliances. Any of us will never buy an absolutely useless thing, do not we. However, in the scientific world this is quite possible,
when the magazine prints a completely useless article and it's unfortunately absolutely normal now. The question arises: why in everyday life we buy goods in a state of sound mind, and in the scientific world we are subject to some unwritten rules and agree with these rules. What should be specifically done so that the scientific article is distributed as a product with the properties of the goods.
The global goal is that a good article with scientific merit should be recognized in the scientific community. As a model for imitation, it would be possible to take, for example, the selection of musicians at a prestigious international competition. Prior to the competition, the future winners are completely unknown. However, after the contest, these laureates are recognizable and revered all over the world, as these musicians have received their awards absolutely deserved and no one doubts that this is so.
In my opinion, today's model named "A paper is sent to a journal, then it is accepted or rejected" is an anachronism in the 21st century. In my view, we must consider another alternative model named "A journal invites a paper to publish and offers the rewards". As you can see, in this model the roles of the researcher and the journal change places.
Now I want to submit a more detailed procedure.
1. All papers are sent to a Single Database without any review. These papers are accessible to everyone for reading in the mode of open and free access.
2. For the right to publish a paper in his journal, a contest is announced between the journals.
Thus, it is not the scientist who will be interested in publishing his paper in the journal,
but quite the contrary, the jornal will be interested to publish the paper.
The publication right will be won by the journal that will provide the maximum rewards to the researcher for the publication of his paper, after which the jornal acquires all rights to this paper for its further distribution.
In this situation, the jornal will cherish its reputation and will not allow the publication of an paper with questionable scientific value. That is, the situation becomes this: NOT I AS A RESEARCHER IS INTERESTED TO PUBLISH MY PAPER, AND YOU AS A JOURNAL IS INTERESTED IN ME, AS PUBLICATION OF THE PAPER MAY PROVIDE YOU INCOME.
3. Before the publication of the paper in the journal, any researcher, student, graduate student, professor will be able to send your feedback,
which will be included in the competition between the jornals. This will allow more objective assessment of the scientific contribution of the paper.
I want to give one well-known example.
In 2002-2003, Grigory Perelman published on the Internet three of his famous papers, which briefly described the original method of proving the Poincare conjecture:
Perelman, Grisha (November 11, 2002), "The entropy formula for the Ricci flow and its geometric applications", arΧiv:math.DG/0211159 [math.DG]
Perelman, Grisha (March 10, 2003), "Ricci flow with surgery on three-manifolds", arΧiv:math.DG/0303109 [math.DG]
Perelman, Grisha (July 17, 2003), "Finite extinction time for the solutions to the Ricci flow on certain three-manifolds", arΧiv:math.DG/0307245 [math.DG]
We can consider "arΧiv:math.DG" as a DateBase.
In 2004-2006, three independent groups of mathematicians were involved in verifying Perelman's results:
Bruce Kleiner, John Lott [en], University of Michigan;
Zhu Xiping, Sun Yat-sen University, Cao Huaidong, University of Lehigh;
John Morgan, Columbia University, Gan Tian, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
All three groups have come to the conclusion that the Poincare conjecture is completely proved.
Thus, we see an example when a paper with a huge scientific contribution was extracted from a public Database and highly appreciated.
In my view, if a journal reject an article, it means there is some error in the paper or the reviewers not clearly understood your work. In both cases, it is better to edit and resubmit the article.
Hi,
I think it's better to neglect this rejection and look for another publisher. I believe that the level of my article is good and I am not ready to waste my time and efforts in non-fruitful activities.
With my best wishes.
Dr. Adel OUESLATI
dear Emeka
Thank for this question. As most of my dear well-experienced colleagues mentioned , it is normal and we should find the other one.
It happened for me several times and I know it can be immensely frustrating when, after many years of research and effort perfecting your research, figures, and manuscript, you receive a rejection letter from your selected journal. For me and most of people who live in developing countries it is normal as sometimes they rejected us only by the name of our country and our affiliation and write that our research is not related to their scope while exactly the same papers have been published by them and ........
Most importantly, don’t get discouraged when you inevitably have a manuscript rejected from your selected journal. Everyone has received a rejection letter during their research career. There are many journal options, and you will eventually find a perfect fit for your manuscript.
Dear Prof Gennady, thank you for your very inspiring proposal. I hope that your proposal will be adopted one day. The pressure to publish in order not to perish is making the process unhealthy.
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unjust rejection U...perhaps place I will like to answer this uestion. What is unjust? I can say for everyone whose paper was rejectedmay be not forfor, rejected but most likely we will consider that unjust.
And on that note
We must acknowledge the pressure to publish so why waste time appeal when you can take it to another journal. I haven't appealed before and I am not sure I will do. I still feel the pain of rejection after two rounds of peer review for one of my favourite research and I wonder if I should have appealed but life goes on.
Hello Dr Emmanuel, thanks for your comment. It is not a pleasant experience to receive a rejection letter after two rounds of review.
Please do edit the first part of your comment. It seems that something went wrong while you were posting it. Thank you!
Many thanks Daniela for your comment. In fact, Dr Artur's position shows a lot of courage. If we do not appeal, we are then part of those who contribute to the corrosion of the system.
Dear Emeka, Greetings
If the rejection is "justfully" done, then there is no problem.
However, if it is "unjust" then there is a question on what was the unjust reason for the decision. Now in this case, a "human dignity" is involved, that is I can not accept unjust insult, or offense to my personality and abilities. That is a matter of abuse put on my by the reviewer (s) or the journal.
As my colleagues correctly mentioned, and I personally have encountered several times, the unjust rejection is usually from developing countries are based on racial and prejudice. This happened for me 2 times. As Dr. Ziarati mentioned, the rejection letter is usually very polite and with weak excuses, but from the reviewer comments you can immediately understand the prejudice. In these cases for sure, if you appeal, you will not get any replies. However, I agree fully with Dr. Arthur Braun, that If there is a means of appealing, then use it. In my cases I appealed not in a normal way (that is to resubmit my paper or argue from scientific point of view). But I appealed in a way to defend my personal dignity and honor! That is I send them a letter mentioning about the unjust rejection, and the real reasons for their decision, the biased review of the referee, my qualifications and quality of my paper and so on. For sure I will not get any reply from the journal, but in my heart I am happy that I did not surrender to "unjust" conditions and defended my human dignity, abilities and honor, at least in front of my own soul and heart.
Best wishes
Dear Prof Fahad, thank you for your detailed and very inspiring comment. Of course, I believe that researchers from developing countries suffer a lot of things while trying to publish their work.
Having gone through the tread of comments made by distinguished scholars from different continents, it became more obvious to me that many are suffering in silence. Many researchers have received unfair rejection, but instead of making an attempt to at least ask for an explanation (via an appeal), they chose to resign to fate. In doing so, I believe we are encouraging more injustices.
I had been gone through it. There are two kinds of frustrating rejections. One is, when the editor says the research is not under the scope of the journal where similar research works-even low quality works got published. Second is, when the reviewer takes plenty of time and in the end of the scene they just put a tag, author lags in technical view and English is poor. The bias from few journals had made me decide to not to submit anything to them in future. Anyway, for me, it is waste of time because most of the journals do this. It is something based on their professional ‘ethics’.
Dear Lakshmi, I can understand what you have been through. Scholarly publishing has been politicised.
Thanks for your comment.
Dear Researchers, In my opinion we must register our objection or should make an appeal when we are firm that the rejection of our paper is not made on valid ground or reasons. Some time the rejection irritates us a lot, so we must write back to the editor for clarification of your doubts about reasons of rejection.
I wish to quote an example, my very useful paper once was rejected by giving comments which were not valid. Then I wrote the following letter to the editor:
Dear Editor
............Journal
This is reference to your mail for not considering our paper on Fiis impact on Indian stock market. I dont want to say that your decision is not right as you are responsible to maintain
standard of your esteemed journal and institute reputation as well. What has surprised me
is your remarks that paper does'nt fit on account of recession. Respected editor, I am a professor of finance and to my credit there are 62 research papers and 90% of them are on
capital market both local and global. My expertise in the area compels me to have a firm belief that the paper has gained increased relevence in present scenario. Therefore, I want
the paper be evaluated afresh by a professor of concerened field.
With regards
It needs mention that after one week I got acceptance for my paper in the same journal.
Hence , we must raise our voice in case we are satisfied that the referee of your paper may not be an expert of the area of your paper.
Dear Prof Bhag Singh, thanks for your valuable comments and for providing us with an example of an appeal letter. Like I said earlier, keeping quiet means that we are encouraging injustices.
Dear Emeka W. Dumbili,
I want to discuss your key phrase "... it became more obvious to me that many are suffering in silence. Many researchers have received unfair rejection, but instead of making an attempt to at least ask for an explanation (via an appeal), they chose to resign to fate. In doing so, I believe we are encouraging more injustices".
Life taught me one saying: "With us act exactly like this as we allow it".
For each magazine there have always been more desirable "clients" and less desirable "clients", which your phrase relates to. From this point of view, we see obvious discrimination. The magazine signals to undesirable "clients" the message: "Friends, you want to enter the closed door". You must correctly understand this message and forget about this magazine.
As for the search for honest and fair journals for publication purposes, pay attention to the discussion https://www.researchgate.net/post/ResearchGate_scientific_journals
Many of the researchers and myself, very much hope that it will allow to solve this problem in the proper way. In any case, there is a chance that this problem will somehow be solved.
Dear Dr. Gennady Fedulov
I absolutely agree with you and support your opinion on the issue under reference.
Many thanks Prof Gennady for your powerful and insightful narratives.
Thanks to distinguished scholars who added their comments to this question.
One central point that was raised is that scholarly publishing has been politicised to favour some people and disadvantage others, especially those in developing countries. Please how do we proffer solution to this problem? Or is it beyond remedy?
In my own opinion, researchers all over the continents should be treated with dignity and utmost respect regardless of the status of their publications (Pre-publications and post publications), without fear or favour. Also advocating fair treatment /judgement on the part of researchers/ scholars from the developing countries. This can help expand frontier of knowledge in the academic domain and boost educational development in the whole continents.
Thank you
Olutosin
I support the fact that you should ignore and move on with publish in another journal. I will say a better journal than that. Just take it as the reviewers opinion of your work at that point. What you are seing may be different from what they are seeing. e
Naturally, there is no general rule if you should protest against a rejection of your article or not. Reviewers and editors are just human beings themselves, and although many (most) of them are doing a very good job, some may not be doing as good job as they should at all times. And even the best may sometimes make mistakes. However, the question here was related to an unjust rejection of your article. Also note that sometimes what feels like an unfair rejection, may in fact be correct or partly correct, at least when knowing that some reviewers/editors may have a tendency of using reject instead of major revision when they see that very much has to be changed in the article for it to become publishable (and some journals may select the very best among the best). Well, if that's not the case and you in fact get an unjust rejection, what do you do then? In my opinion each author or author team has to decide this according to their best knowledge, experience and desire:
- If you believe the rejection is very unjust and you really feel that you want to protest against this unfairness, also believing that you could convince the reviewers/editor, and at the same time really would like to publish your work in the selected journal, then you should indeed protest in a good and convincing (and polite) way, making your point clear why your article should be published in this journal and pointing out any errors or wrong assumptions made by the reviewers/editor.
- If you on the other hand feel that, even if it's an unjust rejection, you will not be able to convince the reviewers/editor, and that it's not so important for you to protest and make your case, furthermore neither so important to publish your work in exactly this journal, then you could very well submit to another journal instead (after improving your article further according to the reviewer/editor comments you agree with).
The above may also be true for a major revision, where you feel you have received an unjust evaluation, although you then are invited to submit a new version after a major revision. You may also often agree with several of the comments from the reviewers/editor, and disagree with several others.
Myself as a reviewer, I very seldom use "reject". Most of the articles I have reviewed have been tagged "minor revision", "revision" or "major revision". The author or author team should get a chance to improve their article so it may become publishable in the given journal. And I try to be very conscious about that I'm evaluating the articles for what they contain, and not for what they do not contain. That is, evaluating if the content of the articles (is so good that it) should be published, i.e. not evaluating for what I and others could wish these articles could also contain.
Myself as an author I have experienced all kinds of reviewers and editors. Among them reviewers/editors who have made me improve the articles substantially, some also initiating thought processes in me which have improved the articles far beyond what the reviewers/editors requested and asked for (as I would not be happy about the articles if I didn't include what I discovered I really wanted to include in them as improvements). But also reviewers which have had comments I totally disagree with, both for "reject" and "revision" cases. Then, as indicated in the above discussion, in some cases I have protested against an unfair/incorrect review, and in some other cases I have selected another appropriate journal. Some articles have been accepted very fast, and some accepted after very long review processes.
Dear Prof Petter Jelle, I am thankful for your detailed and very insightful comment. You've made things easier for us who are inexperienced. I particularly liked your suggestion to make an appeal if one feels that he had suffered unfair rejection.
Many thanks Prof Mutasem for your comment. That your appeal succeeded shows that it is good to appeal if one feels short-changed.
It’s probably not a case of injustice. Huge numbers of articles are received from which only a fraction can be accepted for publication. Something radically new or written by only one author who is not well known will probably be rejected. Many good articles are rejected, which makes an opportunity for RG.
Thank you Prof Jerry for pointing out some reasons why articles are rejected. This is helpful.
Dr. Bjørn Petter Jelle,
Detailed and lucid explanation. I appreciate your comment.
Regards
Thanks Dr Asit! Sure, his comment is quite detailed and insightful.
You should always refute the negative opinions of the reviewers in a respectful and clear manner. Emphasizing why your results and the experimental decisions you took and also the materials at your disposal to reach those conclusions.
Many thanks Prof Nelson for your advice. As a reviewer myself, I will appeal any wrong decision, especially when I have done one or two revisions based on reviewers' suggestion/reviews.
Dr. Nelson's remarks " .....................always refute the negative opinions of the reviewers in a respectful and clear manner".
I agree with this view. You have right to point out the wrong decisions but with supportive evidences. Thanks and regards.
I believe there is no need to waste your time, just find another journal.
All the best,
Dear Prof Haitham, thanks for your comment. But what if the journal had wasted my time already say 9 months, and I have done two revisions before it was rejected without good reasons?
It depends on who is determining that an editorial decision was "unjust".
Unless you can demonstrate that virtually every technical reason given for the rejection is incorrect, you will lose even more time than you have already lost.
Nine months is nothing.
I have spent up to 4 years in R&R at leading journals in Economics and Finance before a final editorial decision.
Learn to live with it as it is a fact of academic life.
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