How to Avoid Rejection of Your Article(Part 2)

Try to view your article from the editor’s point of view. You spend so much time researching and preparing your article. Then you submit it and wait for the journal’s decision. Finally, you receive an email from the journal and get excited, but when you read it, you see that your article is rejected.

Why?! Well, the editors reject 30-50 % of the submitted articles to journals before reaching the peer review stage and one of the major reasons for the rejection is their poor English.

Here are 5 ways to look at your article from the editor’s point of view. These tips will help you prevent the editor from rejecting the article:

1. Unorganized Text

What the Editor Sees: The spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and poor writing. Of course, mistakes do happen, but frequent linguistic errors make it difficult to read the text. These mistakes can be so confusing that they can hinder the understanding of the content. Recurrent errors indicate that the necessary precision is not taken into account and that not enough attention has been paid to the text.

How to Avoid Rejection: Be careful and think carefully about what you are writing. You can edit your article yourself or ask someone else to do it for you. You can use DoNotEdit English editing service to have your text edited by professionals. It is a good idea to ask someone who has never read the article – who may be your classmate, friend or colleague – to check it for language and typographical errors before submitting it.

2. Vague Message

What the Editor Sees: Have you put any effort into stating what you have researched? Is your message clear or ambiguous?

The editor will follow your message, especially in the abstract. The results you share are important, so do not undermine them with bad writing.

How to Avoid Rejection: If you want to convey your message clearly, try to break it down into smaller pieces. Short sentences can clarify the meaning by eliminating ambiguity in your message. Ask one of your classmates who has not contributed to the research, read the article and say what they think your message is. This will give you an idea of ​​how the message is understood by the readers.

3. Contradiction and Inaccuracy

What the editor sees: The contradiction creates the feeling that the text – and your research – is not very accurate. The editor will notice if the statistics in the findings section do not match what you talk about in the discussion.

How to Avoid Rejection: Review the article several times carefully. Before you start writing, make a list of important points – where you might make a mistake. Go into the details of the text, review all the places you made reference to the data, and check out the important points. You can use the shortcut ctrl+F in Word to find words and numbers. In addition, a professional proofing service will also help. If you want to make sure that your article is mistake-free, our proofreading service will help you!

4. Incompatibility

What the Editor Sees: The editor will quickly find out if your article is in the scope of ​​the journal or not. Many journals have specific sets of rules and regulations, based on which, the editors reject articles without reviewing it.

How to Avoid Rejection: Before submitting the article, check that it is within the scope of ​​the journal. To find the most appropriate journal for your article can read the scope of ​​the journal’s activity or use our journal selection service. If the article was within the scope of the journal, read the authors’ guide (usually available on the first page of the journal). And if it was not, try to find another journal.

5. Impact and Novelty

What the Editor Sees: The editor wants to know what is new in your research and how it affects the subject area of the study. The journal will look for a clear statement as to why your article is important and why they should accept the article for publication in their journal.

How to Avoid Rejection: State your findings, clearly. Think about what you are adding to the body of knowledge in that field. Also, think about the impact of your research. The title is a good place to start: Is your title attractive? Does the main point of the article represent what you want to say? Be careful because exaggeration of the impact and incorrect generalization of results can have a worse impact on your chances of success.