Three lessons I learned from rejections

10 December 2018

By Anisa Pinatih

My experience publishing my MSc’s dissertation was formative. I picked a journal with the highest impact and recommended an established member of academia to review my paper. I built my research upon her findings, thinking that she would be interested to see how my findings go against hers. She got back to me with six pages of comments. The first line goes like this, “The problems for me began in the first sentence of section 1, the introduction.” and the remaining was basically constant roasting.

I revised the manuscript addressing all the comments and resubmitted it with a carefully crafted letter to thank the reviewer, but it was, quite unsurprisingly, rejected. I talked to some people with more experience and below are some lessons to learn from the rejections.

Lesson #1: Seek allies, not enemies

A colleague said that we should seek allies, not enemies. If you happen to be involved in a debatable argument, the last thing you want to do is to ask the person with the opposing view to comment on your article, especially if they are more experienced. Find someone who would probably agree with you instead.

In most cases though, journals appoint the reviewers and it’s a double-blind review process so we don’t get to choose who the reviewers will be. The question is, how did I know that it was the person I recommended who actually reviewed my article? Because I cited her works so much that I got familiar with her written discourses.

Lesson #2: Keep it short and simple

In the case of adapting a dissertation, it is important to sustain the focus and that to decide what to retain and what to leave out. Guidelines everywhere state what the word limits are and it is crucial to follow the requirement.

More seasoned researchers will know how to slice a big project like a PhD thesis into several articles, but the principle is the same: keep it short and simple. Most quantitative papers range between 3000 and 4000 words. Qualitative papers are usually longer, but if we can make a point in fewer words, then why not?

Lesson #3: Persevere and edit your work

As a rookie author, it is easy to take offence at everything. I think, at the end of the day, what makes authors reach the finish line is not just the academic underpinning of the paper, but the attitude to keep going and the ability to stay positive when facing a setback. Leaving reviewers’ comments for a little while and get back to them when you feel more energized usually works.

Lastly, edit your work and minimize the grammatical errors. It’s better to take time perfecting the presentation than revising multiple times just because the language is problematized.