Rejection

Not all of your work will be accepted or even considered for resubmission with an appropriate review. Do not take this personally, and keep the following advice in mind:

  • Most rejections come on the first review. Some papers may be rejected by an editor without review due to inappropriateness for the journal or obviously inferior content. Sometimes, you will have a paper rejected in a later round of review - second or even third. This is painful as you have already invested much time in the review cycle of the journal. However, it can happen and you need to either appeal it (see below) or send it elsewhere (see below).
  • Don't ignore the rejected paper for more than a month. You may lose interest and end up not doing anything about it. Academic success depends on resilience as much as any other factor.
  • Try again. Fix any major problems the referees or editor point out, and then send it to another journal. Honestly try to make the corrections suggested before resubmitting. You will also need to do some rewriting and reformatting of the paper to customize it for the new journal. Experienced authors often have a "backup" journal already in mind when they originally submit the paper for review.
  • Don't blame the referee for "misunderstanding" your paper. The referee is an expert in your field and if he or she has difficulty understanding your paper then you should try your best to re-evaluate what you have written.
  • If you feel a referee has made a bad decision, do not waste your time trying to prove him or her wrong, but concentrate on explaining why you deserve another opinion. You should make this appeal to whoever is handling the submission, which may be an editor, an area editor or an associate editor. Note, however, that overrules by the editor after the fact or reversals of decisions are exceedingly rare. Most decisions of rejection are final and are best left as is.
  • Never write a response or rebuttal to a referee or editor in anger. Review your response at least once after writing it and before submitting it.

There are numerous reasons why a paper may have been rejected. Consider the counsel given in the Survey as to the top reasons for paper rejection. Editors selected the top five factors contributing to a rejected journal paper, in order of observed frequency. The following table summarizes the responses. The 'number of times selected' indicates the total number of times a rejection factor was identified in the top 5 reasons for rejection. The average importance rating is an indicator of the significance the respondent placed on the rejection factor. The rating is based on a 5-point scale with the most likely reason receiving a five. Thus, a rating of a 5 indicates the respondent selected the rejection factor as the number one reason for rejection. The overall importance rating multiplies the 'number of times selected' and the 'average importance rating' to provide an aggregate perspective. Finally, the overall importance rating is used to proxy the percent of papers rejected per rejection factor by proportioning the overall importance rating. For example, the rejection factor 'lack of contribution to the field' was selected in the top 5 reasons for publication rejection by all 40 survey respondents. It received a rating of 4.77 on a 5-point scale, an overall importance rating of 191, and is the factor accounting for one-third of all rejected papers.

Reasons for paper rejection

Rank Rejection Factor Number of times selected Average importance rating  Overall importance rating Percent of papers rejected
1 Lack of contribution to the field 40 4.77       191 32%
2 Poorly framed research problem 35 3.07       108 18%
3 Lack of theoretical/empirical development 29 3.23        94 16%
4 Poor paper organization and presentation 29 2.56        74 12%
5 Inadequate conclusions  23 2.17        50 8%
6 Inadequate literature review 18 1.94        35 6%
7 Other reason 11 2.46        27 5%
8 Unclear introductory section 7 1.75        12 2%
9 Excessive length 8 1          8 1%

Utilizing information from the Survey, the next table provides the expected paper acceptance outcome based on 100 submitted papers. On average, 35 papers will be accepted for archival journal publication with 10 accepted without major revision. The remaining 65 papers will not be accepted for publication with 43 papers rejected for research related issues and 22 papers rejected for presentation concerns. Twenty-one papers will be rejected for lack of contribution to the field, 12 papers will be rejected for a poorly framed research problem, and 10 papers will be rejected for lack of theoretical/empirical development. Concerning presentation, 8 papers will be rejected for poor paper organization and presentation, 5 papers will be rejected for inadequate conclusions, 4 papers rejected for an inadequate literature review, 1 paper for an unclear introductory section, 1 paper for excessive length, and 3 papers for other reasons.

Average paper results and publication checklist

Frequency
(based on 100 papers)
Accepted Papers 35  
  Accepted without major revision    
  Accepted with revisions    
Rejected Papers  65  
  Research Factors   43
  Lack of contribution to the field    
          Is it really a contribution?    
          Is the problem clearly defined?    
          Do you clearly understand state-of-the-art?    
          Is your poor writing style 'hiding' your contribution?    
          Are you submitting your paper to the 'right' journal?    
          Have you properly identified an impact area or application area?    
  Poorly framed research problem    
          Is it a novel and interesting research question?    
          Is the problem clearly and concisely defined?    
          Is the approach logical and well-organized?    
          Is state-of-the-art clearly contrasted with literature?    
  Lack of theoretical/empirical development    
          Are there analytical or mathematical errors?    
          Are you using an appropriate approach?    
          Does your approach agree with accepted theories?    
          Does your development link the problem statement with the conclusions?    
  Presentation Factors   22
  Poor paper organization and presentation    
          Is the presentation clear, concise, and well-organized?    
          Are you properly linking the introduction, development, and conclusions?    
  Inadequate conclusions     
          Do you have appropriate technical basis for conclusions?    
          Do your conclusions finish the 'story' that began with the problem statement?    
  Inadequate literature review    
          Is your understanding of state-of-the-art clearly demonstrated?    
  Unclear introductory section    
          Do you clearly and concisely get to the 'point'?    
  Excessive length    
          Are all those pages really necessary to tell a clear and concise story?    
  Other reason    
          Are you addressing the reviewer's comments?    
          Are you spending too much time on a marginal contribution?    

Under each rejection criteria, a checklist is provided to assist the young academic in preparing a research paper. Using the above table, it is anticipated an author can mitigate some of the rejection factors by focusing on paper presentation and development. For example, if an author can ensure a properly defined research problem, and adequate paper organization, conclusions, literature review, and introduction, then the author's acceptance rate could potentially go from 35% to 65%. This agrees with the qualitative responses from the engineering journal editors, wherein the two most important factors that editors identified in their open-ended responses are clearly defining the problem and good writing style.