Now that you’ve grieved over your rejected manuscript, you’re ready to move forward and consider how to get your study published. You have several options moving forward, here are three of them:
- Submit the manuscript in its current form to a different journal
- Perform additional experiments and submit to the same journal
- Perform additional experiments and submit to a different journal
This is arguably the most straightforward option. However, note that most journals require submissions to be in a particular format. This means you may have to reorder the various sections of the manuscript, change the style of bibliography or, worst of all, change the dimensions of the figures. Word limits are another major bugbear when transferring a manuscript to another journal, and as if to test your skill at summarizing text, some journals will require you to include the entire materials and methods section in the main article. The challenge is real when it comes to writing clearly and concisely.
Some journals do comment on the quality of the work even when they reject it outright. Such feedback could help you identify weaknesses in your study and understand why the editor was hesitant to publish your manuscript in its current form. This means you have a good chance to address these deficiencies and argue your case under appeal. Of course, some of the criticisms could extend beyond the scope of the present study, so you’ll have to be strategic and selective in your response to the ‘review.’ It also helps if your supervisor is willing to staunchly defend the merits of your study against unreasonable reviewers.
If you get the sense that the additional time and effort spent on the manuscript may make it worthy of publication in a higher impact factor journal, then why settle for less? There are thousands of scientific journals out there, so you should (hypothetically) be able to find at least one with greater prestige that sees value in your work. Be aware, however, that there is no guarantee the extra effort you’ve made will get you any closer to being published. Publication isn’t a game of chance, but it certainly isn’t a game of chess either.
Having said this, the process of grieving, then picking yourself up again after rejection is all part of a career in science. If you learn nothing else from grad school, you would at least have learnt resilience.
This article is from a monthly column called Hacking a PhD. Click here to see the other articles in this series.
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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine; Photo: Shutterstock.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
