Is there a consensus regarding the policy (still in use at some journals) to refuse to reconsider a manuscript that has been rejected, even if the authors have revised it and refuted some or all of the reviewers' criticisms that led the editor to reject the manuscript? I'm referring to manuscripts rejected after peer review, not to manuscripts rejected in the course of an initial screening to weed out submittals that look unlikely to meet the journal's acceptance criteria even after considerable revision.

Why would a journal use this seemingly unethical policy of "only one chance"? It would be easier for authors to accept the decision if the real reasons for this policy were explained somewhere.

Karen Shashok
Granada, Spain

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I'm sure journals handle this issue in various ways, but the phrase that caught my eye was "this seemingly unethical policy of "only one chance"? Perhaps you could explain why you feel this is unethical.

Rich Rothenberg

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Thanks for asking the question. Words, definitions, assumptions and interpretations are important.

I feel a "no appeals" policy is unethical because it seems inimical to the spirit of respect and dialog we'd like to see for this process.

Repeated resubmissions with little or no useful revision from authors who aren't able to see how far away they are from meeting the journal's acceptance criteria yet who have infinite time and energy to argue can eat up an editor's limited resources (time, patience, good will). So that's not a practical way for the system to work.

But what I meant to refer to was when the authors had legitimate, well-documented and well-argued refutations to offer the editor. Giving these reasonable types (who have thought carefully about the science and are able to write up a well-grounded refutation) the impression that the journal has a policy of "no appeals" sends the wrong message about journals, peer review, and science by aborting the give-and-take, dialoguing process that leads to better communication and—with luck—to better thinking and better articles. This is potentially damaging especially when the reviewers are wrong and the authors are right, but the editor chooses to reject without appeal anyway (perhaps not even realizing that the reviewers were off base).

It would also be discouraging to authors who are motivated to learn, able to understand how badly flawed their initially submitted paper was, and able to work hard to revise it thoroughly. Not allowing them a second chance sends the message that the journal, the editor and the reviewers are all-powerful and that the process is better understood as an exchange between supplicants (authors) and judges, rather than a process between peers (equals).

Karen

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We allow authors to rebut rejections. I can recall a couple of cases where we have published such rebutted and resubmitted manuscripts, in one case with an editorial. I personally have rebutted 2 rejections, one at a top 3 general medical journal, and both were reconsidered and accepted. Reviewers and editors can make mistakes.

Bill Tierney
Co-Editor-in-Chief, Journal of General Internal Medicine

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In the 2 journals that I manage (African Journal of Reproductive Health and the Journal of Medicine and Biomedical Research), we give authors an opportunity to re-submit if, and only if, they are able to re-work their papers. Our rejection letter gives authors an option of "re-pursuing the paper further" and we give them the reviewers comments to help them make necessary amendments. However, my experience is that most of them do not re-submit such manuscripts. In most cases the methodology or analysis is faulty and the author finds it difficult to re-work. There are instances that you can almost suspect that he/she just put down some figures that are not real and as such the analysis will not be correct.

If an author can go through the trouble of re-working on the manuscript and his/her study methods and yet be able to meet up with the journal's requirements there is no reason for not considering it the second time, but it must pass through fresh peer-review.

James Falaiye
Women's Health and Action Research Centre

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Your authors who do not re-submit may need guidance on how to interpret the reviewer's comments and transform their understanding of them into re-thinking and revision.

Inexperienced authors often have trouble grasping the implications of a reviewers' criticism or confusion. There may be nothing that can be done if design is poor, and certainly there is nothing to be done if data is fudged. But sometimes parts of poorly designed research can be saved and reported if their scope reduced—it's part of the learning process. And data that looks fudged may simply seem so because of lack of text management skills and unrealistic notions of how much pre-submission revision of a text and data tables is necessary. Some novice authors need to be reassured that data confusion happens to us all but that they need to go back to square one and figure out what happened. And as for overall writing and revision, novice authors may not realize that the troubles a reviewer had in a discussion might indicate that the objective was improperly or inadequately framed in the introduction; they need help seeing things from a reader's point of view and reassurance that we all had to learn this. A sense of how to revise a paper builds up over time and through good mentorship and that's not available to everyone everywhere—sometimes I think it's a miracle that some first papers ever get written at all!

May I suggest that authors belonging to local medical societies may benefit from pre-conference workshops on topics like how to draft and triple-check a scientific paper, what peer reviewers (should) look for in a paper, or how to interpret a peer review and revise a paper. I'm sure you can think of more! Another thing that would help novice authors with poor access to good mentoring would be some sort of critical review of project proposals before research actually starts. Possibly local scientific societies would publish lists of "reviewed and sponsored projects" even if stipends are practically nonexistence or consist simply in sponsoring help from a competent author's editor when the time comes-to encourage novice researchers to submit proposals for such review.

I know I'm dreaming, of course, but it seems to me that in some settings journal editors may want to take a proactive educational role in their communities. If they do so, long-term benefits might ensue in the form of better manuscripts. Marusic and Marusic (2004) have written on such an experience:

Marusic A, Marusic M. Small medical journals and the 10/90 problem: Educatione ad excellentiam. CMAJ. 2004;170:927-928.

Mary Ellen Kerans

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This free guide might also prove helpful:

Fathalla MF, Fathalla MMF. A Practical Guide for Health Researchers. Cairo: World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean; 2004. Available from: http://www.emro.who.int/publications/pdf/healthresearchers_guide.pdf (1.92 MB)

Maged N Kamel Boulos
Editor-in-Chief, Int J Health Geogr
Editor, NLH/NHS Informatics UK Health GIS SIG

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