Journals’ Classical Reasons for Rejection of Manuscripts
Journals generally reject manuscripts for the following reasons:
A reasonable explanation for this case could be that rejected manuscripts are rewritten and improved in line with the reviewer and editor comments in the first peer-review and thus become more effective studies. Another explanation could be that the greater the time span between the submission and the publication, the more the relevant study is mentioned in conferences. Lastly, it could also be argued that studies which contradict the status quo are generally rejected at first. An example of this is when studies involving Nobel prize-winning discoveries are rejected in the first submission. Ground-breaking studies of over 20 Nobel prize winning researchers are reported to have been rejected in the first submission try. Considering that even Nobel prize-winning discoveries are rejected in the first submission try, it is not surprising that other studies that contradict the status quo are rejected.
- Incompliance with the Aims and Scope of the journal
- Simultaneous evaluation by another journal
- Not written in an easily understandable form
- Non-compliance with the writing style of the journal
- Make no contribution to the journal
- Make no contribution to advancement in the field
- Lack a clear or new hypothesis
- Failure to include supportive evidence in achieving results
- Include weak analyses
- Written using a wrong or outdated research methodology
- Include inconclusive findings
- Failure to answer the questions proposed by the hypothesis
- Violate the research ethics
- Manuscript is too long or too short
- Lack the qualifications of a scientific manuscript
- Language inadequacies
- Failure to introduce any innovation regarding the relevant topic
- Non-compliance with the standards of the journal and, in general, with academic writing
- Theoretical weaknesses
- Poor presentation
Peer-review is affected by many other factors apart from those given above, such as the obligation to accept a certain number of manuscripts, which means many qualified studies have to be eliminated due to this restriction. Furthermore, studies are generally less likely to be accepted on the first submission try. In addition to these, fundamental errors in terminology can also lead to the rejection of a study. The use of consistent, clear, and explicit terminology in long studies will reduce the possibility of criticism in this respect.
