Reasons for Rejection (Part II)

Apologies for the delay in posting - and for the relative brevity in this post - it's been a busy few weeks. I've had some interesting discussions from my last post; it's been great to hear from other editors and administrators with regard to what they find to be the most common reasons for rejection.

That being said, I'd just like to reiterate that these are simply from my experience and viewpoint, as well as discussions with our publisher from a previous event.

So, without further ado, some more things to think about:

7. Your paper has a very poor theoretical framework, including references to relevant literature.

There’s a thing that most referees and reviewers do when they pick up a new article or book – they flip straight to the bibliography and see what the sources are. If any of the major works are missing, there are audible grumbles. It’s like trying to explain the Mr Men and omitting Mr Happy. It just doesn’t help you.

Your paper should, ideally, place itself within the framework of the literature pretty quickly. This is the so what, who cares? question that you need to be addressing. A journal article is much shorter than a dissertation, thesis, and monograph; therefore, you need to include the relevant literature and build the framework quickly. Don’t dither and leave it to page 8 or you will have lost not only the administrator, but also the editor and any potential referees. Papers where the reader has to do a lot of work are hard to get reviewed so suffer from the things I discuss in this post.

Reviewers will suggest important works that may have been omitted for whatever reason. The point is, pay attention to the pivotal relevant literature. Don’t add references just because, but make sure you are engaging with the existing field.

Publications are part of the ongoing scholarly discussion of academia. Like any discussion worth having, you can’t just say what you want to say in total isolation. It must link to what has already been said and what is likely to be said in the future.

6. You haven’t contextualised your paper and considered your audience.

Just to reiterate a mantra: each journal is different. This includes each journal having a different audience. Some journals are aimed at academics; some are aimed at practitioners. Some are even aimed at postgraduate students, and some are aimed at industry. Know which audience the journal you are submitting to addresses. This is the why are you telling me? part. Don’t submit a paper aimed at academic theorists to a practitioner-targeted journal unless you make an exceptionally well contextualised argument. Even then, the editor is likely to reject your paper and suggest you submit to an academic theory-based journal.

Editors have to look for papers that their readership will not only be interested in reading but also likely to engage with and cite in further papers. Your best chance of success is to be what the editor is looking for.

5. Your paper doesn’t add to the discussion or states the obvious at tedious length

A somewhat obvious biggie. By this, I simply mean you haven’t said anything new; you haven’t added your voice to the scholarly discussion. And yes, even literature reviews must add something new. Don’t submit the worst kind of “literature review” – one that is simply a glorified listing of relevant literature with no analysis. The analysis is the new, and essential, part.

Sometimes though, regardless of whether or not something new is stated, papers are tedious and do nothing but state the obvious. It’s very, very difficult to get a reviewer to look at an exceptionally long paper, especially if it can be summed up in a much shorter paper. To be honest, I’ve seen submissions where I’ve read a few pages and in the back of my mind all I can hear is “Round and round she goes, and where she stops nobody knows” (That’s a line from The Original Amateur Hour for you kiddies out there). 

And that's all for now, folks. I'll have to add the next post when I get a chance. Maybe the Spring/Easter break will afford some time. Maybe not. 

As always, questions/queries/comments/suggestions are always welcome either via Twitter, Email, or below.

-theAdmin 

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Reasons for Rejection (Part I)

My goal with this blog is to help early career researchers navigate the rather complex world that is getting published. I can’t tell you how to write the perfect article because, honestly, there is no such thing. Yes, there are papers that whiz straight through the system and are published without corrections. I’ve counted 2 out of the roughly 850-900 that I’ve overseen. That’s less than one percent of papers, which includes papers by the biggest names in the area. So don’t expect your paper to be as flawless as you think it must be, especially since you haven’t slept in three weeks due to proofreading it repeatedly before submitting.

In order to help out your quest to get your paper to the peer review stage, I’m going to, over the next few posts, give you the main reasons for rejection. Other editorial staff may disagree, but I stand by my list of reasons. Some may sound trivial, and that’s because they are. Hopefully, by knowing why so many papers are rejected, you can make sure your paper doesn’t fall victim to any of these pitfalls, and between your research and my tips, your paper will have the best shot in life that we can give it.

Just for fun, I think I’ll go in no particular order except for the top 5 (though the eagle-eyed amongst you will note that I’ve actually given the number one reason in a previous post…)

10.) Your submission is unprofessional or unethical.

This one tends to shock academics the most. The last person I mentioned it to responded with something along the lines of “WHAT? People actually submit papers like that?” Well, in short, yes. To be fair, it’s often unintentional and perhaps just phrased incorrectly. It doesn’t matter. Anything that will cause a journal legal or reputational trouble will be rejected. Especially if you are an early career author. It’s just not worth the gamble. What do I mean by each?:

1. “Of course his/her research would find that outcome though, s/he’s a racist/sexist/biased pig”

That is libellous. Can you criticize someone’s research? Yes, of course. Can you then, by extension, criticize someone personally? That would be a no. [NB: we’re talking about scholars and not figures in history, but still, keep the language professional – you wouldn’t call anyone anything like a ‘pig’ in a journal submission. Unless you’re George Orwell. (That was an admittedly poor Animal Farm joke for a former teacher)]

There is, of course, a grey area here, especially for academics such as historians. The point I’m trying to make is be careful with your language. If, for example, I were writing a piece that criticised a historian of yore, then I would be careful to analyse and make comments on the research and history of that historian rather than personal criticism, unless my argument clearly and legitimately concerned a personal evaluation.

2. Unethical papers are fairly straightforward. If it doesn’t adhere to a journal’s ethics guidelines, then we won’t consider it. We have to be sure that we’re not going to be targeted for publishing something that didn’t receive ethics board approval. Read the journal’s requirements regarding ethics board approval and follow them exactly. This is one area that journal editors will NOT compromise, bend, or make exceptions for early career researchers. Doing so compromises the integrity of the journal, the editor’s entire editorship, and the validity of every other paper published.

3. Rule of thumb: don’t use language you wouldn’t want to read to your grandmother. Or, more shockingly, your PhD supervisor’s grandmother. There you go, that should have been a sufficient enough horror scenario.

9.) Poorly presented and clearly not proofread.

I will say it once. Proofreading is not the job of reviewers and the editor. I will say it again in case you missed it. Proofreading is not the job of reviewers and the editor. We have standards. We have guidelines on presentation. Make sure you adhere to them. Don’t leave your tracked changes with comments to your co-author unless you're at the revisions stage and have been instructed to do so. Don’t leave random indentations and paragraph formatting because you’ve cut and pasted and moved around your text without reformatting. Don’t leave typos, misspellings, grammatical errors, or miss out sentences (or whole paragraphs). All modern word processing software has spellcheck and grammar check. USE THEM. But don’t rely solely on them. They can be confused. For example, have you noticed yet that I use both American and British English spelling in my blog? Yeah, neither has my word processing programme, because technically, both are correct and the program isn’t smart enough to know that I’ve used something incorrectly. The key to submissions is to act as though you are the professional that you are. Want your paper to be taken seriously? Then take it seriously. And, for the love of all things holy, make sure you submit the correct file.

8.) Your submission isn’t an acceptable kind of paper. In short, it’s not a real article.

Who would submit something that wasn’t a proper paper? So. Many. People. If the journal you are submitting your paper to accepts only certain kinds of papers, you better make sure your paper fits. For example, the journal I currently work for does not normally accept opinion pieces, preliminary white papers, discussion pieces, or unsolicited book reviews. So any of the above that gets submitted is rejected pretty quickly. Make sure your paper is a proper research paper if that’s what you want to submit. I once received a submission that was a very pretty pictorial comparison of various kinds of architecture with no reference, analysis, or evaluation whatsoever. We aren’t an architecture journal, and we only publish research papers.

One of the themes of this blog is that every journal is different and will have different aims & scopes and guidelines. This includes acceptable kinds of papers. If your paper is rejected from journal A, don’t just send it to journal B without another thought. Make sure that journal B publishes that kind of paper or you’re in for another rejection.

Stay tuned - the next post will have some more common reasons for rejection. Have you noticed yet how little I've said about your actual research...?

I've had some great questions come in via Twitter and email - keep them coming and I'll do my best to answer.

-theAdmin

Contacting a Journal

Today’s post is dedicated to a friend of mine, who is petrified of contacting an editor.

Why is my friend scared, you may ask. I honestly don’t know, but my main guess is that the editor represents all of academia and stands to cast out judgment. It’s pretty common to develop at least a shade of imposter’s syndrome during graduate studies, and this really comes to the fore when postgraduate students start discussing article submissions. 

So here are my thoughts on the issue. The part of my friend will be played by bold. The conversation isn’t verbatim because when I said “friend”, I quite obviously meant a composite of every graduate student I’ve ever met. Though I do have friends. I promise.

I have a question about something in my paper, and I’m really not sure what common practice is. It’s a non-standard term, and I don’t want to sound dumb. What would you do? I’ve asked around and everyone is saying something different.

Well, composite friend, I know what I would do, but that’s irrelevant. You’re interested in what the journal would want. If you are so very concerned about it, contact the journal and ask. It’s very rare for something like this to decide whether your paper is accepted or not, but chances are, it’s not the first time someone has asked. Is there an administrator to contact? Email and ask.

But won’t that make me look overly paranoid and pesky?

No. That’s why there’s a contact for queries like that. Same goes for word counts...concerned whether the word count includes references, etc.? Ask. Editors and administrators don’t bite (usually).

What if they don’t respond?

Read the guidelines for authors (the answer might be in there), then submit the paper with the best guess you’ve got. Don’t wrap yourself into knots over such a small issue – be more concerned about the overall paper. Quite often when authors get wound up over a small issue, they lose the plot. Usually, if your non-standard use is going to be queried, it will be at the reviewer stage. They are, after all, the experts.

So you’re saying it’s OK for me to contact an editor before I submit a paper to them?

YES. A THOUSAND TIMES YES. Editors and administrators, in general, do not have a problem about being contacted about possible, potential papers. It actually makes a nice change sometimes to get an email from someone that isn’t an automated email from our online portals saying that “X has submitted a paper entitled Y. Please do something about it.”

No one has EVER told me I could contact an editor before.

I know. It’s one of the flaws of the system. We pressure students and early career researchers to publish, but the system provides very little guidance on the practical process and the nitty gritty of actually getting to the point of publishing. Yes, you can contact the journal. Yes, you can ask questions before submitting your paper. Yes, you can send an abstract and ask if the journal is right for your paper your paper is right for their journal.

What was that last bit?

Choosing the correct journal is one of the single most important parts about getting your paper published. It’s the number one reason for rejection. The onus of finding the right journal is on the author – and it’s well worth your time to research this carefully. I’ll be doing a separate post on this sooner or later. It’s not uncommon for potential authors to email an abstract and ask whether the journal would be interested in the paper. Usually, editors will respond with a clear Yes, we’d love to consider it or no thanks, this one isn’t for us. Why would an editor do this? It saves them time. But there are rules to this.

The (previously) unwritten rules of contacting an editor or administrator:

       1. Be polite and be professional.

You would be surprised how many people forget this rather obvious starting point.

      2. Be clear and to the point. Do not give your CV in introduction.

To be frank, we don’t really care who you are. We operate a blind reviewing system, remember?

      3.  Include the title and abstract.

In-text is usually best. The abstract should conform to the guidelines for submission. Don’t send a 250 word abstract if the journal’s limit is 150 words. Don’t attach it as a separate file. Make it easy for us.

      4. IMPORTANT: Do NOT include the entire paper.

NEVER  send your paper to an editor outside of the formal submission/review process. It’s unethical and unprofessional. It also wastes time and makes it appear that you want to bypass the system that everyone else uses.

      5. Include your contact details

Yes, we should just be able to click reply, but things happen. This is a formal email. Treat it as such.

6.  Don’t overdo it.

Don’t email every editor under the sun. Don’t do this every time, only when you really need to or are unsure about the Aims & Scopes of a journal. Speaking of...

      7.  Be sure you have FULLY read the Aims & Scopes  and Author Guidelines before contacting an editor or administrator.

If you ask us something that is on those pages, we’ll just refer you to them. Take the time to see if we’ve already answered your question elsewhere. Chances are, we have.

       8.   Don’t give a deadline.

Again, you may be surprised how many emails include a phrase similar to “if you could let me know by...” These sorts of demands really irritate me. You’re the one emailing to ask for something extra.

      9. Always include manuscript reference IDs and previous correspondence.

This is for after submission. If you are emailing about a paper, ALWAYS include the reference identifier for your paper. We don’t keep track of authors, we keep track of IDs. It’s infuriating when I have multiple queries to deal with and have to go searching for which paper we’re talking about. We have hundreds of papers in our system.  If you have previous correspondence, include the email trail. We’re more likely to know the answer to what you’re asking if we actually know what you’re talking about.

Treat contacting an editor or even the administrator as emailing a colleague in another institution. Because that’s what you are doing. And don’t expect a glossy response. It’ll probably be short and to the point. We can’t spend oodles of time on a potential paper. Editors will usually, in good faith, say whether or not it falls into the interest area, but keep in mind that ALL submissions are good for a journal for two reasons: (1) it will end up with a good article (2) it will increase the rejection numbers, thus decreasing the acceptance percentage, thereby attracting better quality papers that will result in (1). 

I suppose my closing thoughts are this: Editors and administrators are just people. Academic people, yes, but just people who were once at the same stage of their careers as you. That being said, don’t be scared to contact us, especially if it’s likely to come up later on down the line.  Editors edit because they enjoy it. Trust me, what pay there is for editors isn’t enough to make someone do it unless their heart is truly in it, which means they enjoy encouraging early career scholars whenever they can.

Still scared?  One last thought: if you do email, you’ll probably get a response from someone like me. Which can’t be too bad, can it? (maybe don’t answer that...)

Anything else? Email or comment - or tweet Tweet to @ECRPublishing

-theAdmin

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Referencing

So I’ve been a little bit delinquent in posting as of late, but hey, it’s nearly Christmas, so cut me some slack. After all, it’s the slow season for journals. True story. It’s the end of term and academics are mostly thinking about two things: 1) getting through all that marking/grading and 2) having some time off. I can’t say I blame them. It also means we have a pretty low batting average when it comes to finding reviewers. What it means is that we get to run a lot of statistics about 2013 submissions and see what we’ve been up to. 

But I digress. I’ve been trying to come up with a suitable holiday-themed post but failing miserably. I was going to do an addendum to my last post, but then thought I’d save that for later. Instead, I took a question from the audience, or at least a suggestion from the audience, on a suitably serious topic: referencing.

I can hear the collective groan now. Seriously? Referencing? AT CHRISTMAS?

Yes. Because it’s one of the things I get asked about the most by ECRS. I get strings of emails where the author is anxious, borderline neurotic, about the rules around referencing, so I thought I’d explain them a bit here. Most of what I’m going to say is probably old news, but hopefully it’ll help at least one other ECR out there. So, my Christmas present to you: allaying some of the fears around referencing. And probably creating others, but nevermind…

So, how important is referencing?

Very. Don’t bother submitting a paper that isn’t properly referenced. If we can’t verify what you’re saying by showing that it’s founded on findable (and real) research and sources, we probably aren’t going to consider it for very long. Not to mention that the reviewers will tear it to shreds. Reviewers really like references. They will be very quick to point out when you are missing some.

What do you mean by properly referenced?

In this case, I simply mean that where a reference is needed, one exists. I’m not specifically referring to any particular citation style (more on that below). Instead, the main, pressing concern needs to be that other researchers’ work is fully cited. Always err on the side of caution – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a reviewer or editor comment that there are “just too many citations and references.”

What about citation styles?

Use the one that is recommended by the individual journal to which you are submitting. I know it sounds like a lot of work to rejig your citations for each journal, but it does make a difference. It’s all part of targeting specific journals and improving your success rate. What if Journal A uses Harvard style but Journal B uses Chicago style and you submit a paper to Journal B in Harvard style? It’s just going to be rather obvious that the paper has been “shopped around”. It’s part of following the guidelines, which is the main way to avoid rejection based on anything other than your research content.

Is the referencing really the deciding feature?

To be honest, not usually. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a paper rejected because of the referencing being incorrect or even totally wrong. It might be one of several reasons, but it’s rarely the only reason a paper is rejected. It will probably be sent back for revisions, and the author will be asked to adapt the referencing to the journal’s style (especially if there is an in-house style).  

So, what are you saying?

Always write with a specific journal in mind (this will be a common theme of the blog)  and always try to stick to that journal’s rules on referencing. That being said, don’t tie yourself up in knots and get tunnel vision on the citation style. Make sure your content and research are sound, and you give credit to all research you reference.

But isn’t that what the copyeditor is for?

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard this. Copyeditors do not exist to do your footnotes, references, and bibliographies. That is not their job. It is not the job of reviewers or the editor either. When you become a big name in your field, then you can be more relaxed and go for the “if they want the paper, they’ll sort out my references” attitude, but this is a blog for early career researchers and is about maximising your chances. I would advise against this attitude until you are well established.

Last comment for now – self-referencing, how do I do it if it’s going for blind review?

Just substitute “Author” for your name in both the in-text citations and the bibliography. This is one of the reasons that you are normally told to submit a blind and a non-blind copy of your paper through online portals. It helps with the final product for us to be able to compare them side by side (finding any remaining blinded references in the final product IS part of the copy-editor’s job).

Basically, my advice for referencing is this: follow the guidelines, do it frequently, and be more concerned with the content and proper credit than the nitty gritty of your citations. Yes, the minutae is important, but you are far likelier to have a paper rejected for the big picture – referencing usually merits a revision, which trust me, you can handle.

 

Merry Christmas to you all!  

-theAdmin

 

Deadly Sins of Publishing: The Multiple Submission

Deadly Sins of Publishing: Submission of a Paper to Multiple Journals

This is a periodic column I plan to write that outlines some of the worst things you can do as a prospective author. These are things that might get you “watchlisted” if not blacklisted (no joke, I used to have a whiteboard up in my office with a list of names to watch for).  A journal’s reaction to them will vary – some will just tell you how you are wrong, others will chalk it up to a rookie mistake, and then there’s the ones that will simply not engage with you in the future. I plan to do another column of “Lesser sins and misdemeanors” that will outline what we more or less file under rookie mistakes and hope they aren’t repeated. But this column is for the ones that are more serious than that. 

And so here is the launch of my “Deadly Sins” category:

DEADLY SINS 101: THE MULTIPLE SUBMISSION

Other than more obvious sins such as plagiarism (diatribe about that planned for the future), this is one of the most serious, unethical issues that you can possibly perpetrate. Usually, it is done by early career researchers who simply don’t know how bad it is.

What do I mean by multiple submission of an article?

I mean you’ve taken a paper and submitted it to multiple journals at the same time.

Why would anyone do this?

It’s pretty simple really. The best way I’ve had it described is as a “scattergun approach” with the misguided argument that if you submit a paper to, say, six different journals, then you’ve instantly increased your chances of someone accepting it.

What’s wrong with this?

There is so much wrong with this that I don’t even know where to start. Mainly, you have wasted the time of multiple administrators, reviewers, and editors with absolutely no intention of publishing a paper with that journal. As I’ve said in previous posts, reviewers are not paid for their contribution; they do it as good citizenry and part of their wider academic duty. If you have six journals using a minimum of two reviewers each, you’ve wasted the time of at least twelve reviewers and six editors (and possibly six administrators).  Editors have to contend with a major balancing act to avoid what I’ve seen called reviewer fatigue. That’s when reviewers are used too extensively and  simply don’t have much time left in their days to do any more reviews. Simply put, they stop taking our calls (well, more accurately, our emails).  That means they aren’t available to other scholars who may submit their work because you have wasted their time. 

How are you supposed to know this?

It’s a general rule in academic publishing. But more than that, if you have submitted a paper, chances are, you have confirmed that this is the only active submission of this paper that you have.  In pretty much all submission systems there is a box you must tick that confirms this; or, alternatively, you are required to submit a cover letter that clearly states that the paper is not currently under consideration in any other journal. So basically, if you have submitted to six separate journals, then you have violated the submission policies of six separate journals, and they have every right to reject your paper (and most likely keep a close eye on anything else you submit in the future, because, hey, copyright rules).

What else is wrong with this?

What happens if all six papers agree to publish your paper and send it automatically to the publisher after the final acceptance? Most online portals do it like this. You obviously can’t publish the same paper in different journals, so you must then confess to the editor what you’ve done and ask that your paper not be published. This will leave five out of six very unhappy editors, and chances are that the editor of the journal you want it published in will reject the paper out of principle.

So in other words, the efforts to increase your paper’s likelihood of being published will do the exact opposite.

When CAN you submit a paper to another journal?

When it is released by the journal. This means once a decision has been made, whether that be a rejection or one of the “needs revisions” decisions. If you decide you wish to submit to another journal whilst it’s still in process, you need to write to the editor or administrator and request to withdraw your paper from consideration.

So basically, one journal at a time. This is also better for you because even if you get a rejection from Journal A, then your submission to Journal B will be built upon reviewers’ and editor’s comments to improve your paper. 

Have I ever seen cases of this?

Yes, unfortunately. It never really ends well. Usually a reviewer responds with a “decline” and a comment that s/he has JUST reviewed an identical paper for X journal.  This is when alarm bells start going off.

I have known a case in which the Editor sent a paper to Reviewer A and Reviewer B. Reviewer A returned the review, but Reviewer B got in touch. As it turns out, Reviewer B is also an editor of a journal that had just reached a decision on an identical article. This is how you get simultaneously rejected from two journals and a very stern email from both editors (assuming both editors are nice people and feel you simply aren’t aware that you can’t do this).  Keep in mind how relatively small the world of publishing is - whilst you think no one will ever find out, it’s actually high risk, especially if you are in a specialised field.

And that is the end of my first Deadly Sins post. I do hope it was helpful. Thanks for all your lovely, lovely emails and tweets so far! Please, keep them coming. Remember, if you have a question or an idea for something you think I could shed some light on, then by all means, get in touch either via email or Twitter.

Now for some pumpkin bread, methinks.

-theAdmin

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