I have personally experience that its relatively tough to publish in a good journal in social science, for example let us suppose in the field of finance, marketing and so on. In comparison i have seen that in natural sciences the publication chances and frequency are higher. What are the possible reasons for this?
My guess is the greater volume of submissions that the journal of the social sciences area receives, because there are more researchers involved in this field. The journals have a limited number of editions and they need to prioritize the best articles, the most innovative research and the ones with the highest potential for citation. In terms of the number of researchers, in Brazil, for example, there are 18.2% of undergraduate students enrolled in administration courses, against 7.1% enrolled in engineering courses and 2.6% in biology courses. The representativeness of students in the social sciences is even greater if distance courses are considered.
I have had very bad experience with so called 'good 'journals. Even after meeting experts requirements my work was not accepted for publication. I consider this unfair on part of experts to turn down a paper even after all their objections have been answered and all their requirements have been met. Are they not sure about what they want or because they have decided to reject the paper initially and just play around with the scholar. Mind you , it requires at least six months to write a paper and another three to four months to revise it. I think that in sciences most of the papers are quantitative and easy to evaluate. In social sciences experts themselves have widely differing standards. Hence it is very difficult for an author to gauge what they really want,.I think that a lot also depends on the editor.If he thinks that this paper should be published , he may send it to one who will favorably review it.. If not , he can always put the blame on referees.
ANIRBAN BANERJEE
Dear Anirban Banerjee, I totally agree with you. I personally think the current review process is not up to the standard. Some time the author receive comments that are shocking. like no where close to what the author has mentioned in the text... Besides they waste your four to five months in first review and some time in the revision and finally rejected.. ahhhh very strange
A reference: "The over-all acceptance rate for submitted manuscripts is far higher (generally about 76 to 80% in the natural versus 20 to 25% in the social sciences)" (Easley et al. 2000, p. 84).
Easley, R. W., Madden, C. S., & Dunn, M. G. (2000). Conducting marketing science: The role of replication in the research process. Journal of Business Research, 48(1), 83-92.
In my opinion, I think one of the key reasons would be that tests to confirm the reliability and validity in social science fields is relatively difficult compared to natural sciences.
Agree. Working papers help you obtain comments & suggestions on your papers, thus affording opportunity to develop or improve them before final publication.
Observing society is more difficult and takes longer time and efforts than observing natural phenomena?
The ideological interest factor is greater in social science than in natural science.
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