Dealing with Rejection

Dear Author,Thanks for writing to us.The answer depends on what was the reason for rejection from Journal A. If Journal A rejected the manuscript due to it not meeting the journal’s aims and scope, then we would not advice you resubmitting to Journal A, even after revisions. However, if the reason was rejection was due to low priority or with reviewers’ comments or due to high similarity index, then you can consider resubmitting to the journal A again after making significant revisions. 

Dear Author, thank you for your query.Most journals have a set similarity index and if that index for your manuscript is higher than the limit set by the journal, the journal will outright reject the paper. There are several ways of dealing with plagiarized text:Ensure copied text is clearly identified and the source acknowledged.You should always cite the source when you are borrowing a concept or an idea from another paper, even if you have summarized it in your own words.If you are using the same words as that of the source material, you should always use quotation marks.Remember that even if you are using a concept or idea from one of your own previously published papers, you have to cite the source; else, this will be considered as self-plagiarism.Once you have revised the paper, ensure that you run through a plagiarism software and then consider submitting it to another journal.

Thank you for your question. You should be able to suggest the same peer reviewers to the next journal you plan to submit your paper to unless these reviewers actually reviewed your paper for the previous journal and recommended rejection. In case the previous journal used different reviewers, it is also advisable to understand the reason for this (availability and/or time constraints or any other reason) because your suggested reviewers may not then review your paper this time round either.In general, you can use the Reviewer Recommender in Editorial Manager for Elsevier journals or the reviewer database of any journal to which you wish to submit to identify and select reviewers for your paper.

It is an unfortunate situation to have your paper rejected for a lack of available reviewers. In fact, it is widely acknowledged that journals are increasingly facing a reviewer crunch. If your list of reviewers is different from the original list you had provided, you can try resubmitting your manuscript to the same journal. First, you could contact the journal editor and provide some background about the situation. If the editor agrees, you can surely go ahead and resubmit your manuscript with the new reviewer suggestions. If the editor does not agree, you can submit it to a new journal. However, if you are planning on resubmitting the manuscript with the original reviewer list, I am not sure if their availability would change (irrespective of the journal you choose).* Please check that your paper is up to date in terms of literature and novelty of your findings, given that 6 months have passed since the last submission. It is a good idea to revisit the manuscript and ensure that it is polished for language and clarity as well.

Thank you for your question. We’re sorry to hear that your paper was rejected. Here, it seems that while the editor did not notice that you had already replied to the peer reviewers’ comments, he/she believes that the paper is out of the journal's scope. Given that you had received some positive feedback after two rounds of evaluation, you can write to the editor asking them to reconsider the decision given this past feedback and the revisions made to the manuscript. If the editor, unfortunately, decides against reconsideration of the paper, you will need to identify another journal for submission; do pay special attention to the aims and scope of the journal to ensure they match the objective of your paper not just in terms of the broad subject area but also the specific aspect of the subject being dealt with. The following article describes how you can go about choosing a journal for your article: How to choose journals for submitting your paper.

Welcome to the Editage Insights Q&A Forum! Thank you for your question on writing a problem statement.   We have quite a few resources on writing the problem statement on the forum, site, and a related platform, R Upskill. We have linked a few of these below. For more help, you may look up the forum, site, and platform using the relevant keywords.  How to write a problem statement for my research?  The basics of writing a statement of the problem for your research proposal  How to write a statement of the problem  Hope that helps. All the best for your study! 

Welcome to the Editage Insights Q&A Forum! Thank you for your question on writing a problem statement.   We have quite a few resources on writing the problem statement on the forum, site, and a related platform, R Upskill. We have linked a few of these below. For more help, you may look up the forum, site, and platform using the relevant keywords.  How to write a problem statement for my research?  The basics of writing a statement of the problem for your research proposal  How to write a statement of the problem  Hope that helps. All the best for your study! 

The situation you have described seems peculiar, and we wonder if that’s because of the terminology. What we mean by this is that ‘withdrawal’ is typically done by the researcher (for issues such as delay in consideration/review by the journal or selection of a wrong target journal), not by the journal. A journal can only ‘retract’ a published paper, but that’s a very serious issue and only for published papers. As yours was rejected, this is a non-issue.Now, you could mean the ‘withdrawal’ of a preprint, if the journal also uploaded your manuscript to an associated preprint repository. Some journals have tie-ups with preprint servers, where they upload a submitted manuscript within a few days of receiving the manuscript. Researchers may not always be aware of these associations, so it may come as news to them later that their submitted paper is available for the perusal of all interested readers. If this is the case, the journal, after rejecting the manuscript, may have pulled out (or ‘withdrawn’) the manuscript from the preprint server. If this was indeed the case, the journal actually did the right thing. (For the opposite of such a scenario, and its attendant issues, you may refer...

Sorry to hear that your paper has been rejected. However, you seem to be handling the disappointment pretty well, as you are already thinking of how to improve it. That’s a great sign. It helps to be resilient as a researcher. :-)Coming to your query, based on the information you have provided, it’s not entirely easy to determine what the issue could be. Of course, it could also be a combination of issues. You say that it was because of “poor writing skills,” but add that it was probably due to “unnoticed errors.” Then, you say that you “used a normal method with some novelty,” which suggests that your method (and perhaps your research/question too) wasn’t novel, but you tried to bring in some novelty, perhaps through some modification in the method and then maybe in the analysis.If it’s due to the writing, you would need to identify which parts need improvement.If it’s due to unnoticed errors, that suggests that you need to a careful check before submission. If it’s due to the actual research question, you may need to revise/revisit your research from the research question stage, beginning with a question or problem that is novel to begin with.There...

Thanks for your very detailed query. We absolutely understand the reason for writing such a long query. A rejection decision after 5½ months since submission, a major revision, a minor revision after a major revision, and comments by five reviewers can be very frustrating and even agonizing. Before we continue though, note that for reasons of brevity, we have removed the editor’s mail to you, and also because you have already shared in your query the basic content of that mail.So, you actually have two main queries. Let’s take them one by one.Do situations like this – multiple reviewers and a final decision based on a new reviewer – happen often?To get straight to it, while this is not very common, it does happen. This typically happens when the Associate Editor (AE), the Editor-in-Chief (EIC), or both are not entirely sure of some aspects of the paper after the peer review (or even a revision), and especially a key aspect. So, they refer the paper to further reviewers. Some papers are even known to have been referred to eight or nine reviewers, and some papers have received rejection decisions three years after submission! That may possibly help you feel just...