What do you do when you put so much in writing a research paper but your manuscript get rejected by a journal ?
Rejection happens to all of us. But when we know that our findings and research data are valuable and should be published somewhere , I keep improving the initial manuscript by amending it, taking into consideration the referees comment, and re-submitting it again and again. So in summary, you have few options which include appealing the decision, re-submitting, or finding a new journal.
Try to improvise again in terms of language and the need of the journal
Rejection happens to all of us. But when we know that our findings and research data are valuable and should be published somewhere , I keep improving the initial manuscript by amending it, taking into consideration the referees comment, and re-submitting it again and again. So in summary, you have few options which include appealing the decision, re-submitting, or finding a new journal.
Everyone has recorded manuscript rejection at one time or the other as pointed out by Dr. Mahmoud. Take advantage of the reviewers comment to improve the work and send to another reputable journal.
What to Do When Your Paper Is Rejected by Sullivan (2015)
In the case of submitted papers, authors who are early, as well as those established in their careers, will experience rejection. In response to a rejection letter, one should not react by ripping the letter to shreds or, in today's electronic world, permanently deleting the message. Similarly, one should avoid the decision never to write another paper. Many papers originally rejected may ultimately find a home, with rewrites or better targeting to a more suitable journal. This article will explore feasible options for writers eager for their papers to find such a home.
Reference:
Gail M. Sullivan (2015). What to Do When Your Paper Is Rejected, J Grad Med Educ., 7(1): 1–3. doi: 10.4300/JGME-D-14-00686.1
- will keep writing and correcting till it gets accepted for publication.
- collaborate with colleagues and bring in the best of everyone.
Dear Prof. Mahmoud Omid,
Thank you so much for the insightful response
regards
Anthony Baidoo
Dear Prof. Krishnan
Thank you so much for always being there to help
I think every researcher face this problem at the beginning.
This may happen due to wrong selection of journal or improper representation of research result in the paper. The high IF journal always search rejection criteria to reject maximum papers. It may be the reason also.
In such case, targeting of another journal and preparation of a modified article for submission will be the best option.
Do the necessary corrections and submit for a professional review before re-submission
Either to revise it as the reviewers suggested if there will be a chance for consideration or change to be submited it to another journal if it is recommended to be rejected at the first targeted choice.
In most cases, rejection due to research incompatibility with the publishing requirements of the journal, and lack of scientific probity of the content of the research. Some scientific journals have harsh publishing limitations. The rejection of research by the journal is a natural matter, especially for traditional research with its ideas and content.
A paper rejection is painful experience however, it is always a great learning opportunity because you can see that reviewers spent some time to write their comments. These are valuable pieces of information to improve the quality of the manuscript that, submitted to a similar journal, may lead to publication, eventually. Also, if the author/s is/are writing in a language which is different from their primary language (e.g.: English) this can pose more challenges for the paper to be clear in its content and readable. Therefore, I suggest to collaborate with someone whose primary language is the language used by the journal, or at least proof read the paper prior to its submission to the journal.
Nothing to do than to repackage the paper & send it to another journal...
Some journal dont even have courtesy of rejection...The send reply as if they are fighting you...
Well, if the work has been rejected without having been submitted to review, it is possible that the journal to which we have sent it is not adequate and we simply look for another one more in line with the work's theme. If the rejection has occurred after a review process, what is done is to thank the recommendations and suggestions to improve it, make, as far as possible, those improvements and send it to another journal. The best way for a job to be accepted, apart from having to have sufficient quality, is to present it in the way that the journals require, and for that, the critics and suggestions of the reviewers are a real gift.
Dont give up. The journal must have stated clear reasons why the paper was rejected. These comments/concerns from the journal can be used to refine the paper in line with the journals requirements.
Dear @Anthony,
I think that you have already had the right answers from the colleagues to your question. A good work is never lost.
Regards
In our own publication & even research paper also , when it gets rejected by Journal , it certainly offer us disappointment as it involves our reading ,our study , including our discussing with our friends when such labor gets rejected we may feel certainly dis hearten.
With this we can not afford to keep for our study or research with fore headed hand for which we have to carry out our own introspection & also try to view the publication of other writers related to research in the journal which may help us to offer a guideline .
This is my personal opinion
Do they give reasons for rejecting certain research works?
If they did it would help.
It's really a good opportunity for improvement, hence, it's part of the learning process.
Simply take advantage of the reviewers' comments and reactions, as well as the errors that led to the initial rejection, then make amends and resend to another reputable journal.
I feel depressed, leave the manuscripts completely for a few weeks. After a month, I go back to the manuscript and read the comments of the reviewers and editor. I correct what I can of the reviewers comments. I look for another journal, adopt my manuscript to the journal and resubit the manuscript to that other journal
Rejection of a paper is a common thing in the field of research. Almost everybody has experienced the same in their career. It will be appropriate to incorporate the referee suggestions which are genuine in the manuscript without diverting from the main research objectives. At the end submit it somewhere else.
Find the reason behind it's rejection and try to fix it and not to do it again with next researches.
That is the most embarrassing situation you can ever fall in, especially, when you know you have putting so much into the manuscript.
Be kind of frustrating but you must write in a well articulated research work and understood by everyone
We preparate of a modified article with our and reviewers' corrections
and send it to another journal .
you can find your answer here:
Article What to Do When Your Paper Is Rejected
Dear Dr. Ivanov,
I appreciate your answer.
This advise should be followed by all young researchers.
Like all other sectors, bad people are also present in journal evaluation and publication sector.
During holding of your paper with innovative ideas, same type of work may be performed and published.
Be always clever, as it is the strongest quality to get protection from the actions of the bad people.
Thanks.
Your confidence is most important in the case of rejection of the submitted paper. Please keep in mind, more rejection, more published. Finally, you are the successful explorer in scientific world. This journal could reject your paper, another journal can accept your paper for publication. It is most important for you to have confidence in that your paper is a research paper, your imagination is novel, your curiosity is novel, your writing is original. If your paper is controversial and rejected by the reviewers. This means that you are true scholar and work on some problems scientifically.
Finally, please read my 1. science of research and 2. imaginational intelligence. You will get some inspiration from them.
Prof. Dr. Zhaohao Sun
2018-3-15
Wil still be focusing on it by making the necessary corrections
Thank you
The first goal of my researches is to produce safe data for teaching Seed Science and Technology, bedding plant production, and so on. Please, see the contribution attached to my page: Iguatemi Research Farm: Education, Research and Human Development. Before send a paper for publication it has been part of our work in field plots where we have been developing an agriculture design since we started investigating a system of seed and crop production of Stevia rebaudiana during the early five years back to 1980. Many results are part of Technical reports where we are free to discuss not only agriculture. Please, see the text Priming, October 2016. In fact, I hope my work can help people around the world. Best regards. Walter
Don't despair! Keep cool!
- No review process is perfect and many are biased because of the way it works.
- Research (already many years ago) has found out that it is possible for rejected papers to be accepted one year later, even by the same reviewers!
- Whatever your discipline, there will certainly be many good alternatives.
- Keep a list of five or six of the best journals for your paper: see the acceptance criteria, especially the self-imposed breadth of coverage of the journals.
- Try one after the other (which may cause unacceptable time delays for you) or all in parallel (after the first acceptance, withdraw immediately from the other journals).
- Keep in mind all the good advice from earlier contributions here.
- Well done: enjoy your published paper and let the world know where it can be found!
Be honest on the comments given by reviewers. Try to be more perfect in putting down results in more acceptable way. Modify the manuscript and resubmit again. Or search another good journal and send it to publish.
Try...try...and try with quality amendment.
Dear Anthony Baidoo , It happens sometimes and never and ever give up.
To be successful, pleas try to give emphasis on the following points:
1. Do not narrow your topic (regional) and develop in in a global perspective
2. Strictly follow the guidelines i.e instruction for authors
3. Try to gather comments from your close friends before submitting
4. Try to select appropriate Journals that matches with your topic...
5. etc
Good luck!!
Listen to the reviewers, but don't to try to satisfy THEM by all means. That would be equivalent to the horrible "teach to the test" paradigm. YOU have to be satisfied with what YOU write on the basis of good research, empirical or theoretical, never mind.
Print the rejection letter and paste on your refrigerator. Take it down when the manuscript gets accepted to another journal. My former advisor once said " If I have to believe the referee comments and suggestions, I might as well stop doing research. Thankfully, I don't!"
Don't get personal. Analyze the merits of the comments dispassionately.
Many many thanks to you all respected RG scholars for your top notch answers.
Regards
Anthony Baidoo
Rejection is normal. It, however, offers you the opportunity to work on the reasons for the rejection and resend it somewhere else.
However, I would like to add that rebuttal is a subset of your response to referee comments. You don't have to agree to all the comments and should defend yourself if you believe so! Sometimes the spirit of the paper changes in your efforts to address the referee comments. Please keep an eye on that.
This happens everyday. But what I'd like to say if you see that your idea and findings are of high important I advice you to consider the reviewers comments and try to improve the manuscript then you have to try again.
Many thanks to you all respected RG scholars for your insightful response
Best wishes
Anthony Baidoo
The rejection of papers is acceptable provided that the given reasons by the journal is logical and fit with time of review processing. Sometimes the review processing continue four or five months or more and then they rejected, because the paper lack of consistency with the goals of the journal?? or write general statements such as the weakness of the results without any determined!!!!. I think these two reasons do not need more than one month to inform the authors.
The rejection of papers is acceptable provided that the given reasons by the journal is logical and fit with time of review processing. Sometimes the review processing continue four or five months or more and then they rejected, because the paper lack of consistency with the goals of the journal?? or write general statements such as the weakness of the results without any determined!!!!. I think these two reasons do not need more than one month to inform the authors.
Well, you rigt that it may be very depressing... But it happens to all of us from time to time, doesn't it?
I completely agree that you may gain from this experience when you consider the reviewers comments and try to improve the manuscript. And then you have to try again!
In my opinion, when that happened it means that there is something needed to be improved in the research, or sometimes rephrasing the research in a way that matches the journal language, It's really time consuming, but I don't consider it a waist, because when mistakes are made, I will learn from them.
Try to correct and improved the research again and try another journal
I sincerely appreciate all your rich inputs to this discourse. I find them very refreshing. Thank you all !
Regards
Anthony Baidoo
I just don't give up !
If we believe inside that the path of science is not easy ... we'll never give up !! ... yes, we may feel sad at the moment but deep inside we have to know that it is something normal !!
The whole road was full of challeges for me ... but teached me to be more strong and more patient !!... there were many unexpected obstacles, lack of help ... but I never gave up and now I am stronger ... it is experience ... it is destiny ... it is science !! ... what went is not more than the rest, and results never lie !! ...
So, in such cases, you've to resist, think logically and take it as a learning experience, try to find rapid solutions to the problem ... there's no other way to success !
If got rejected, learned from the rejection, amend corrodingly and keep moving. Important point is don’t get disappointed, because u know the worth of your work.
Thanks
I take it as an learning experience. I try to improve my article according to the comments and try to publish my article in another journal.
If the reasons for rejection are logical I try to correct the mistakes and send them back to the same Journal because this will increase the value of scientific research
On the contrary, I'll look for another Journal
Good answers and suggestions from RG friends, rejection of paper is quite common in publication if referees are not expects in particular field of specilization. In such a case move for another journal with some modifications in the MS.
Rejection is bound to happen with everyone sometimes, especially if you are trying to get your work published in good journals (by good I mean standard SCI journals, not the worthless predatory ones). I do not think there is any researcher in this world who has never faced rejection for his/her papers. Rejection can be due to several factors:
1) The journal you have selected is not the appropriate one, either due to overambitious author trying in higher impact factor journal than what his paper is worthy of or the theme of the paper does not exactly matches the journal's objectives. Journal selection is actually very important.
2) Biased reviewers/editors are also a sad reality but everyone has to deal with that.
3) Non-subject reviewers on several occasions do not understand the value of a paper and reject on baseless thoughts and arguments.
If a researcher has done his work seriously and the work is actually worth publishing, then rejection should not be a stigma. If the reviewers have rejected the paper based on genuine reasoning, the author must take the points positively, revise the paper to get rid of the loopholes and communicate the paper to another journal. If comments are not worth your attention, do not bother and immediately send to another journal.
the rejection most have come with some notes either from the Editor or from the suggested reviewers, so if it was me I would consider their notes and ask for the help of my colleagues for revision. Then I would submit my paper to another Journal that is more related to the considered research.
Feel alittle hurt, smile, rest. Rework on the paper and look for another journal.
If got rejected, learned from the rejection, amend corrodingly and keep moving. Important point is don’t get disappointed, because u know the worth of your work.
Thanks
Revise, reformat, and resubmit to another journal. Many groundbreaking works often require a second try, and sometimes more, to reach publication. Genuinely new ideas are difficult to judge, as they often stand alone, and are not immediately related to a particular discipline's accumulated knowledge.
In my experience it is not so difficult to explain and understand a new result in your pure or applied research to yourself as it is to make it plausible and understandable to your audience.
The reason has often nothing to do with proper language use, i.e. how you express yourself in your paper.
Often, it has not even anything to do with proper use of methods and techniques, i.e. how you conducted your research on which your paper is based.
Most often, the reason is of a rather deeply psychological nature: you forgot to introduce, define and explain the many tacit interwoven concepts and assumptions on which your basic theory and research approach is based, and thus how you write about it. Or, worse, you started from the mostly false assumption, that your audience takes for granted what is so clearly obvious to you.
Conclusions:
Ask yourself, again and again, what your basic concepts and assumptions and approaches are, and how you can make them so plausible, by anecdotes, examples, definitions, illustrations and applications, that nobody fully awake and fully critical (including the reviewers of your paper) could ever blame you for not understanding your paper.
This goes in two directions: nor blame you for the fact that they didn't understand the paper nor blame you for apparently not understanding yourself what you are writing about.
Accept that this process of self-critically investigating and probing your own concepts, assumptions and conclusions may take more time than what you may want to invest initially. It is the price of proper and sincere research. And eventually it will pay off at the time of submitting your new publication!
You will understand this self-critical process far better if you engage in a lot of paper reviewing of other people's reported research for highly respected journals in your own field. Looking with the same critical eyes in the same mental state at your own paper is what counts.
Lots of other journals to explore. Life is short....just move on
"What do you do when you put so much in writing a research paper but your manuscript get rejected by a journal?"
Case I:
- The journal is a highly respected by most people in your field, including yourself. Then try to become a reviewer for that journal yourself and find out what the qualitative acceptance criteria - minor and major ones - really are. Eventually, consider to resubmit your own paper taking into account what you have learned about the journals effective publication strategy.
Case II:
- The journal is not so important or popular by the people in your field. Why did you consider them in the first place? If you don't find good reasons to stick to this publication outlet, forget about it. If you don't believe that you made serious errors whatsoever in your paper, don't change a penny, choose another more respected journal, and submit it there.
Dear Anthony Baidoo,
Firstly, please review yourself to your manuscript.
Check carefully the methodology, language, writing style and correct if there is any mistakes.
Then, resubmit to the other journals.
Nowadays, there are many peer review journals with high impact factor.
You can achieve the acceptance from the reputed journal.
Best Wishes!!!
There are two possiblilities:
1) If you think your manuscript is good and you do not agree with the Editor's or reviewers' comments, do not change a single word and send it elsewhere. Then elsewhere, then elsewhere, then elsewhere...
2) If you realize instead that your manuscript displays several objective problems and therefore is difficult to publish, send it to a predatory Journal.
What do you do when you put so much in writing a research paper but get rejected by a journal ?
You can also refer to the following RG links:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_you_react_after_your_manuscript_get_rejected
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_do_you_handle_Journal_rejection
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Where_you_will_go_if_you_got_rejection_for_your_paper
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_we_must_doing_when_our_paper_is_rejected_by_journal_is_that_mean_that_we_are_bad_researchers
Come with further Improvements and corrections then try any another journal.
Rejection is part of research learning curve,
Keep learning, rewriting improving and resubmitting
Try to understand the reasons for the refusal and rework the article.
In a finite academic career with finite budget and finite time to succeed, you need to also define a clear stopping rule, i.e. when to stop trying to persuade unwilling, insincere or just ignorant reviewers of the merits of your creative research efforts and reports. Use the stopping rules with diligence and insistence, when time has come. And ask your professor, mentor or colleague if you are in doubt about what to do. Most of the time he or she can point out who is wrong: the reviewer or ... you. In the last case, accept his or her well-meant recommendations and suggestions. That's half of the work and of the way to success.
One must try to seek the reason of rejection and then try to incorporate the required changes. One must ensured that his research should not be outdated.
Good luck!
Reviewers' job is it to explain correctly, completely, and carefully when and why they reject a paper. This cannot be the job of the author of the paper, IMHO. If a reviewer doesn't do his job well, I am not inclined to believe him or to accept his judgement and decision, or both. Remember: reviewers are just colleagues of yours, who have the privilege to be the first to read your paper, identify possible errors in it and suggest improvements to it before your paper it is finally published and all errors, flaws and weaknesses in your paper are irrevocably attributed to you, not your paper. That's not good for your reputation at all! Thus, view the reviewers as your lawyers who are there to help you, not to speak bad of you in public.
One should keep on trying to improve the manuscript, take into account the reviewers comments which are feasible. Rejection happens to everyone at one stage or the other. It should not stop us from moving forward. Every failure is a step towards success. One should keep trying and never loose hope and be patient.
Rejection lead to perfection in the publication of the research articles. Take it positively and shape the articles accordance the advices upto your limit. Present again same journal or you can reject that and find a new destination for the hard work. Best wishes Dr. Anthony .
You can try to have it accepted on arXiv.org: that is NOT a publication, and that archiving is accepted by several Journals when you submit to them.
arXiv is broadely consulted.
I have to review the weaknesses in the research, which led to his rejection and work to overcome the negatives in it and re-written in a scientific and correct, especially if the rejection is not related to the subject of research nor the results obtained, but the method of writing or writing methodology.
I usually agree with the answers of Paul Hubert Vossen. But this time - for goodness' sake, never ever submit your paper to two or more journals in parallel! Sooner or later somebody will take notice, and then you may well be banned from submitting to ANY respectable outlet! As the saying goes: when data keeps accumulating, something publishable will eventually emerge. In our version: if sent to 1000 journals in parallel, one of them will eventually accept your work. For the last time. And google out Wittgenstein - how many journal papers did this top-class thinker manage to publish? Surprise, surprise! So you want to better Wittgenstein? Wow...
I usually agree with the answers of Paul Hubert Vossen. But this time - for goodness' sake, never ever submit your paper to two or more journals in parallel! Sooner or later somebody will take notice, and then you may well be banned from submitting to ANY respectable outlet! And google out Wittgenstein - how many journal papers did this top-class thinker manage to publish? Surprise, surprise! So you want to better Wittgenstein? Wow...
I usually agree with the answers of Paul Hubert Vossen. But this time - for goodness' sake, never ever submit your paper to two or more journals in parallel! Sooner or later somebody will take notice, and then you may well be banned from submitting to ANY respectable outlet!
For goodness' sake, never ever submit your paper to two or more journals in parallel! Sooner or later somebody will take notice, and then you may well be banned from submitting to ANY respectable outlet!
Just don't lose hope and try somewhere else. Also, improve the quality of your manuscript and positively consider the comments of reviewers.
It is frustrating. But, the worst case to face the rejection of a paper is get sad. You should try in another journal
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