Demystifying the Publication Process, Part 2

In first installment of "Demystifying the Publication Process," I put together a list of ten tips for getting published. This information was gleaned from an ASA Student Forum Workshop "Demystifying the Publication Process: Editors of Sociology Journals Speak With Students," with panelists Gary Alan Fine (Social Psychology Quarterly), Dana M. Britton (Gender & Society), and Karen Cerulo (Sociological Forum). For this post, I focus on what to do if your paper is rejected.

Typically, there are four decisions an editor can make regarding your submission: reject, revise & resubmit, conditional accept, and the mythical accept. These can be further broken down into subcategories. There are two types of rejections.

REJECT WITHOUT REVIEW: What this means is that the editor didn't want to waste the time of the reviewers, since it was already quite obvious from the get-go that your paper is NOT acceptable. As many as 60 percent of journal submissions fall into this category, depending on the journal. If this happens to you, you should be notified within 1-2 weeks of submission. But why, might you ask, would such a thing happen to you? Well, there are many reasons, and it is not always simply that your paper sucks. You can avoid many of the common manuscript killers by following the tips in my first installment of this series. The most cited problems the editors gave were:

• The paper did not follow the journal guidelines for submission. Perhaps it was too long (I once made the mistake of submitting a 45 pg. manuscript to a journal. Luckily, they accepted it, with the first R&R including a note that "45 pages is a bit long"). Ah, rookie mistakes.
  
• The paper was not a good match for the journal. Really, it is a good idea to read the journal's mission statement and review a few of its most recent issues before sending something out. If you are submitting a structural equation modeling analysis to a journal entitled, say, Qualitative Methods, you need to reevaluate some things.

REJECT WITH REVIEW: The other type of the feared reject comes after a blind review process. All three editors cited a turnaround time of about 60 days, and none objected to being emailed if your paper has been under review for longer than three months. The most important thing I learned from this workshop is that there really can be benefits to getting a rejection. It is NOT the end of the world. In fact, one of my favorite quotes came from Dr. Fine, who likens the editorial process to a pedagogic process:

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What kind of profession do we live in that 80-90% of our work products are considered unworthy? Think about that; it's a tough reality, and so you have to be in the position as an author of saying to yourself "I'm smart. I know what I'm doing. But I didn't quite get it right this time, and I have to learn from the advice of my colleagues." We have to say, "I'm a bright person, and these reviewers are bright people. Why was I not able to communicate my good ideas to these smart people? What was the problem--either in the research or the writing--that prevented that communication from occurring?" And I think that is the central issue.

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Along with your rejection, you will get back the comments of your blind reviewers, and the comments of the editor. If it is a good editor, these comments will include advice on how to proceed, often including a suggestion for which journal to try next. Here's a summary of what the editors suggested:

1. Start by allowing yourself a few hours to be angry and upset. Might I suggest venting your frustrations on a blind reviewer doll? This phase should be temporary, however. Especially if you want to make any progress.
2. Once you have settled down, get out those reviews and read them. Closely. What problems did the reviewers have, and how can you fix them? I suggest going through the comments point-by-point and addressing each, as if you were doing an R&R.
   
3. HAVE SOMEONE READ THE REVISED PAPER. Get their feedback, then incorporate it into your draft. This is an easy step to skip, since so many people have looked at the paper already at this point. But do it. This is the stage where you are especially vulnerable to losing sight of the forest of your manuscript due to an inordinate focus on pruning all the trees within.
   
4. If the editor suggested a journal, look it up. Do your research on it, even if you think you know what you are facing. Make sure that your revised paper targets the next journal. If you did not get a suggestion for a next journal, find one.
5. Cross your fingers, knock on wood, present an offering to the sociology gods, and sent the paper out for a second time. And remember, writing is a process. Be arrogant enough to believe that your first draft is a masterpiece, but humble enough to realize that you're deluding yourself.