How to handle a rejection. Teaching course presentation at the 21st European Stroke Conference, Lisboa, May 2012

Abstract

The rejection rate by scientific journals may be rather high, sometimes up to 70-90%. On receipt of notification of rejection, one may experience various stages of the Kübler-Ross grief cycle--denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, with an initial shock and an intermediate 'testing' stage. A paper may be rejected because of several reasons, such as the following: (1) it was submitted to an inappropriate journal, (2) journal format was not followed, (3) reading was not interesting or scientific/clinically sound, (4) topic was not current, (5) research was not novel, (6) low publication priority despite the absence of major flaws, (7) poor En-glish/writing style, (8) poor methods and statistics, (9) unbelievable results that were not properly discussed and (10) 'recycled' paper. Plagiarism is not tolerated. Simultaneous submission to 2 or more journals is not allowed. Outright rejection sometimes occurs in 70-80%; for 10-15%, the editor rejects without sending the paper to reviewers for obvious reasons as mentioned. For the majority, reviewers give feedback that leads to the editor rejecting the paper. On receiving notification of rejection, one should read the feedback and consider its contents prior to rewriting and submitting the paper to another journal (sometimes reviewers may see the same manuscript several times if asked by different editors). An invitation to resubmit 'de novo' occurs in only 1-5% of submissions; it requires substantial revision before resubmission. Being rejected but invited to resubmit a revised version occurs in 5-20% of submissions--it indicates a good chance of acceptance; one should carefully read the feedback and respond/comply with all suggestions. Papers rejected repeatedly may have 'fatal flaws' and are best abandoned.