Q: Can you recommend journals where my rejected manuscript has a high probability of getting published?

Detailed Question -

I submitted a manuscript that was edited by Editage, but it was rejected because “the contents are not academic enough.” The manuscript is about behavioral change of pharmacists after attending seminars. Can you recommend journals where my manuscript has a high probability of getting published?

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

Sorry to know that your manuscript was rejected, especially as Editage had edited it. Based on the editor’s comment, it may seem that this wasn’t a scientific paper, in the truest sense. If so, you may consider converting it into a letter to the editor. These are usually written in response to a published article, but they can at times be independent pieces offering opinion or commentary. In this case, you could write to the editor if this would be possible. Sometimes, editors themselves suggest doing this. If this journal doesn’t accept it as a letter to the editor, you may consider sending it to some other journal. You may find out more about writing a letter to the editor in this resource: Should I withdraw my manuscript if the journal editor recommends it to be submitted as Letter to Editor?

Now, in case you believe the manuscript does qualify to be a scientific paper, you would need to submit to a journal with a better scope match. While we cannot directly suggest any journals, we can provide pointers for suggesting and submitting to a target journal. Based on the information you have provided, your document would seem to fit better with a journal around pharmacy/pharmacists, behavioral psychology, or a multidisciplinary field. In an online database such as DOAJ, you could look for papers with similar topics or themes and find out which journals they have been published in. This will help you narrow down to a few target journals. Once you have a shortlist, you could consider sending each a presubmission inquiry, providing details about your topic/paper along with the details/outcome of the previous submission. For ways to better identify target journals and to minimize/avoid rejection, you may refer to the following resources:

There is one more thing we could possibly do. As we’re feeling bad that a manuscript we edited was eventually rejected, we can suggest uploading a revised version of the manuscript to our new AI-powered platform, R PubSure. The platform aims to help you minimize desk rejection. It does this by performing machine-based checks on your manuscript, allowing you to improve it for submission. Once your manuscript is ready, you also have a chance to showcase the improved manuscript to several editors on the platform, one of whom may consider it for publishing with their journal. However, R Pubsure is presently available only in English. So, if your manuscript is in Japanese, it may not be useful. Nevertheless, you may make a note of it for the future. You may learn more about the platform here: R Pubsure

Hope this helps. And hope you are able to successfully revise/modify and submit your manuscript to a more suited journal or in a more suitable form. All the best!