Manuscript rejection comes as a setback for aspirants research scholars and marks as a hurdle to accomplish higher education or promotion in their respective fields. This is a more heart-wrenching situation in the case of young researchers who have attached high expectations from their work or heading towards the “1st published work” of their academic career.
However, one should take manuscript rejection as a stepping stone towards success and with an optimistic attitude should bounce back with the clarity of vision in terms of the steps to be accomplished for successful publication.
- Let’s have a look at few tips to overcome rejection:
Understanding the type of rejection: Have a thorough look at the communication to assimilate the logic behind the rejection. It implies ascertaining whether it was 1st stage rejection from the editor’s table itself or was done in later stages. Rejection at the early stage implicates poor English language usage, lack of clarity with respect to content, failure to implement author guidelines, and reference formatting errors. All these aspects of rejection can be easily solved with some assistance and the manuscript can be resubmitted.
- Non-alignment with the journal: The article is rejected as they don’t match the aims and focus of the journal. In such a case opting for other journals should be useful. Some journals mention as “insignificant advancement to current knowledge” means that the article is not adding extra information to the existing database. This needs the author’s clear retrospection and improvisation to get the content published.
- Reviewer comment: It is a piece of advice in order to address the pitfalls or gaps in the understanding of the manuscript. You can write a detailed response or execute the needed experiments ( if any)to supplement the manuscript with the needed insight.
The technicality of the Manuscript: Error in data collection and method writing, copying with other’s work( text or data), improper heading which affects the flow of paper, ambiguity in hypothesis formation or its implementation in text. Revision in gross scale is needed to address the above mentioned and still, the chances of successful acceptance are low.
- New journal submission: Rejection often brings emotional turmoil. New submission involves the entire set of preparation all again and seems to be very hectic. Therefore, such a situation should be taken in a practical mindset and in the light of the present situation.
- Language and content editing services: Once the author is clear about the reason for rejection then he should bounce back with full force and try taking the help of service providers to speed up the submission process all over again. It not only helps the author to address the pitfall of the manuscript but also gives a feel-good factor of not being alone in the journey to publish his hard accomplished work. Clear planning at the end of the author combined with the assistance of editing services certainly promises for in-time article publication.
Conclusion: Clarity of vision, the thriving force to publish and the selection of write assistance can go long way to realize the dream of getting his hard accomplished work published.
