Writing and Publishing Scientific Articles
11-8
Responding to Rejection Letters
A letter of rejection should make it clear that the manuscript was unacceptable and that the journal will not review a revised manuscript. Following is an example of such a rejection letter. There are no instructions on how to revise the manuscript, and the editor points out that even some favorably reviewed manuscripts are rejected.
Dear Dr. X:
Thank you for submitting your manuscript to [name of journal]. The reviewers and I concur, however, that it is not suitable for publication, and we enclose pertinent comments for your records. Given the large volume of manuscripts we are currently receiving, we are now having to reject more manuscripts that report findings that are not of the highest priority. Therefore, favorable reviews are not always sufficient grounds for publication.
We appreciate your interest in [name of journal] and hope you will consider it for publication of your future work.
Yours truly, Editor-in-Chief
If the editor rejects your manuscript, you do not necessarily have to give up. Talk with your colleagues and look at the reviewers’ comments. Sometimes they can be very encouraging. If your paper is rejected outright, you will most likely decide to modify it and send it to another journal. Making the changes recommended by the first journal’s reviewers will generally improve your paper and increase its chances of acceptance by the second journal to which you submit it. The reviewers may indicate that you need to get more data. They may believe you have sent your article to the wrong journal. They may believe you need to redo some of the experiments because of concerns that the technique was flawed. The editor may believe that the findings are not of high enough priority for the journal. Every researcher has had a manuscript rejected — sometimes even ones that report very important findings.
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