28/02/2022
How do you deal with a paper rejection from a major scientific journal?
I find rejection â and even negative review comments associated with major revisions â very difficult. I have put months or years of my best work into a project, spent days or weeks writing it up, submitted it to a journal, pinned hopes on it, and waited for months for a response. And then they say it is not good enough! I can totally understand why you are feeling so unhappy.
I have papers from my younger days that were never published because I took a rejection (or in one case, major revision request) too hard, buried the paper, and never submitted it anywhere else. This is a terrible example, a terrible waste and certainly did not do my career any favors!
I am happy to say, however, that dealing with this has become much, much easier over time, as I have become more experienced. A big part of the reason for this is that I am an editor myself, for a mid-ranked journal. Because I see so many papers submitted and so many reviewer comments come back, I now understand that:
Most papers are rejected. My journal rejects around 80% of submissions. These are almost all reasonable work by competent professionals. Some have methodological flaws, others are just not right for our journal. Rejection of a paper is normal, to be expected, and certainly does not mean you are incompetent or not good enough.
Everyone has papers rejected. The most productive researchers accept this almost without blinking, turn it around and submit their papers very quickly somewhere else.
Most reviewer comments are lukewarm or critical. Even for accepted papers, it is uncommon for reviewers not to have criticisms, or to be notably enthusiastic about a paper.
Thereâs a lot of luck in the process. What one reviewer finds marginal, or fails to appreciate, another will find exciting. Take all the comments on board and make revisions as reviewer comments really do help to improve manuscripts, but also keep in mind that you might well just have better luck with another set of reviewers.
So now when I hear back from a journal and the news is not what I had hoped for, I read it through once, put it aside for a day or two until my mood clears, and then come back to it in a calmer frame of mind. I copy the reviewer comments into another document, deal with the easy ones first, then the harder ones that I agree with and can address, and by the time I get to any comments that are making me cringe or making my blood boil, I am already starting to feel happier about it, as I have already addressed most of the other comments. I recolor the comments that I have already addressed in green so I can see my progress.
I try to step back and think dispassionately. If the reviewer hasnât understood the work properly or hasnât seen the point, I take this on board: yes, maybe the reviewer didnât read carefully enough or doesnât know my field well enough, but if it gets published, most readers wonât read it very carefully and many wonât be exactly in my field, so I need to rewrite it so that it makes sense to someone who is only skimming through it. Maybe a good figure will help, or clearer writing.
If the reviewer thought it was too dull and incremental, I think hard about what is really interesting about the work and what generalizable take-home messages I can make that will make my results useful from another perspective. (I have got pretty good at this with practice, so I donât usually get this sort of comment these days, but it is something that affects many if not most papers).
If the rewiewer thinks there are methodological flaws, often it is enough to write about the limitations of your method and what it means for interpreting the results in the paper itself â you donât necessarily need to redo your work.
Finally, it does sometimes happen that the reviewer is just wrong. If you are certain this is true and can convincingly prove it, have the confidence to politely argue your point with the editor. This is especially true for major revisions, but I have even managed to turn around rejections on this basis.
