Reject Without Review: Dealing With Upset Authors

Most journals operate an editorial "triaging" system for newly submitted papers: rejecting without review or sending out for review. One of the most difficult tasks in editing is when authors are disappointed at being rejected without review and  often write long letters variously requesting, pleading, or demanding that their paper be sent out for review. We have been using slight variations of the letter below in replying to such authors. We mainly get silence, occasionally more heat and abuse, but also a good few instances of authors saying they had not thought of it like this before.

What do others do? Feel free to cannibalise this one.

Dear [author],

Thank you for your letter. Your paper was discussed by our senior editors at our editorial conference and the decision made that we would not send it out for review. I'm sorry, but our decision stands. Let me try and first explain the background context, and then make some specific remarks further to [the senior editor's] comments to you.

All good journals (and I trust we are one) receive far more papers than they can ever publish. As of 1 June, we have received  214 papers in 2007 --  nearly 49 a month, meaning that  we are on track to get  514 submissions this year -- a growth of  16% from last year. Our publisher's budget allows us to publish approximately 60 original articles, meaning that this year we are likely to have an acceptance rate of around 12%. Big journals can accept less than 5%.

The tyranny of limited space and growing submissions forces all editors to make decisions about "triaging" papers that are submitted. Reviewers and authors are not in any informed position to appreciate this problem.

If we sent all papers submitted out for review, and also acted entirely on the recommendations of reviewers, we would rapidly face a burgeoning acceptance list which would cause longer and longer delays in publishing and much anger among authors. Until the publisher's business model for the journal changes to on-line only (and this is not being planned), we therefore believe it is irresponsible for us to send out many more papers for review than we have reasonable cause to believe have a strong chance of being published.

Authors do not appreciate how their papers sit in comparison with other papers that have been submitted. As I pointed out in a recent editorial on this issue (http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/16/1/1) all authors believe their papers are wonderful and ought to be published. But a major part of the editorial process is exercising group judgement about  the relative merits of  the large number of papers we get sent. I hope this assists you in understanding our decision.

We wish you all the best in getting it published somewhere else.

--

Simon Chapman
Editor, Tobacco Control
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This is indeed a sensitive issue.

We discussed the problem in CMJ. Some disliked my stand, but I still say the truth to the authors. In other words, I tell them concretely why I reject the paper (without the extramural review).

The key reason for this policy is to teach the authors to do better next time.

This may look unpleasant, but my experience is surprisingly good: People prefer to know concrete reasons for rejection of their manuscripts. When the answer is general (ie, talking "lack of space and too many manuscripts, which requires setting priorities...") the authors have the right to say “my paper is good, and if not, tell my why you even did not send it for reviews...” Besides, both as the editor and as author, I sense a dose of hypocrisy in the "general wording" of rejections.

Please mind that the authors from less developed environments deep in their hearts feel discriminated. Many believe, and more, on irrational or even "unfounded defense" grounds, think that the great western journals are biased when their manuscripts are considered. I do not know of any research on this issue, ie, whether this notion has any concrete basis, but the editors should not forget about this rumor/feeling!

In short: omitting the concrete reasons for rejection may be counterproductive.

Matko Marusic
CMJ
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At our journal, the primary reason for "reject without review" is a fatally flawed study, or an underpowered study, etc.

Doesn't matter how much page space we have: The article isn't going to be publishable. In such a case, it would be a complete waste of the peer reviewers' time to send it out for review, so the primary role of our decision editors in screening these papers is to determine which ones are worth the efforts of our peer reviewers. Of course, it is hard to say this gently in the rejection letter...

David C Cone
Senior Associate Editor, Academic Emergency Medicine
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I was shocked at the number of 'declined' manuscripts I responded to when I first began editing. It had never happened to me, and I never knew it was so frequent.

I write a standard four paragraph letter that gets a remarkably high number of 'thank yous' from rejected authors. That surprised me even more than the number of declines!

The first paragraph says I read the manuscript carefully and decided to reject it without external review. The second begins "I know this news will be disappointing to you." Then it goes on to talk about how we engage in a very stringent pre-review process and that it is our hope that by providing authors relatively quick feedback when we do not believe review will result in eventual publication, they will be able to move on with their work more quickly and productively. In the next paragraph, I detail the major problems with the manuscript that led to the rejection. As Dave said, the reason is usually obvious, because most of these manuscripts have multiple fatal flaws. If the paper might be salvageable and might appeal to a more specialized journal, I might recommend that journal as a potential place to submit.

Together, all of those probably takes me 15 minutes after the manuscript is read (much less time than it takes me to review a manuscript or to assign reviewers).

Many of the longest thank you's come from inexperienced authors who had no idea what was wrong with their manuscript and use that as a starting place. More experienced authors often just thank me for getting back to them so quickly (my goal is always within 4 weeks of receipt) with a clean rejection so they can move on rather than be rejected after interminable review.

My own worst experiences as an author have been going through multiple rounds of review with eventual rejection at the end when I was up for tenure and needed quick resolution.

Nancy Darling
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It's always relatively easy to reject without review an obviously flawed paper, but by far the greater number we reject are papers which are just profoundly dull, of little consequence to any policy or practice implications, or go over ground that dozens have also gone over many times. It's hard to explain to people that their paper is dull...

Simon Chapman
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I am in complete agreement with David. Much as I admire Simon's letter and approach, the fact of the matter is that some journals (ours is one) do not have the luxury of having a committee agonize over what to send for review, so in our case it is usually done by me, the editor. I try to screen out material that is seriously flawed scientifically or simply not relevant for our journal, and when I am in doubt, I seek a second opinion.

IB Pless