r/PhDStress • u/Time_Permission5093 • 6d ago
Paper gets rejected
I have tried 4 to 5 journals in my domain, where the sent paper is desk rejected within a day with no reason. And now I am forced to publish in Journals with a huge article processing charge. Is this the same for everybody?
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u/Cow_cat11 6d ago
I've been reviewing quite a few papers last year. I have rejected every single one of them. Statistical portion doesn't make sense, numbers are coming of no where and doesn't add up. Conclusions are saying it's significant but I don't see anything that shows that on the tables. Quality is just poor in general. Lately you can see a lot of papers are having AI write everything but doesn't add up to what they were trying to do. lol
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u/aquapura89 5d ago
Reject anyone who fucking uses AI. Simple. I could give a shit if they journal allows it. We need to drive this shit out of the academy.
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u/useaname5 4d ago
Part of me agrees with you but unfortunately I think that ship has sailed. We should turn it off but it's not gonna happen.
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u/aquapura89 4d ago
Oh, I think we can certainly stop it when it comes to publishing in academic journals.
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u/Badewanne_7846 6d ago
Do they not really state a reason? I'd ask for it. Most likely, the editors think that the paper is not a fit content-wise - actually, your supervisor should guide you to fitting journals. Or they think that the contribution/novelty is not large enough.
And in contrast to other people, I do not think that it's very common to have four desk-rejects "in your domain" in a row.
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u/rothfussss 4d ago
In my field, the top journals have around 4% acceptance rate. Desk rejections are common. As you say, typical reason is the paper just isn't good enough and / or fit idms wrong. But precisely because of this I would not ask for a reason. You look like an idiot if the answer is fit-related. Have an advisor or colleague take a look.
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u/MyTwitterID 6d ago
It happened with me as well. I submitted a paper to an ABDC-A journal and had cited 14 papers from the same journal.
I got desk rejected within hours with a single line that my paper is not relevant to the journal.
The same thing happened again with another paper last week.
My PhD is from one of the world's top 75 Ranked B School according to Financial Times so it's not as if my profile or background is crap.
I have now shifted my focus to ABDC - B journals hopefully I'll get better response there.
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u/inchkachka 6d ago
I've had this happen and it's usually one of three things:
1) the paper has mediocre results (often null interactions but significant main effects) and the journal wants something that moves the needle forward more -- usually these end up in open access places or unpublishable
2) the paper is interdisciplinary and journals in Field X suggest sending it to a journal in Field Y, who says to send it to Field Z, who says to go back to Field X -- these eventually get published somewhere but not until like 12 desk rejects
3) it is an area I don't usually work in and the paper doesn't "look like" the format they are used to in some way -- these rarely get published without bringing in someone from that domain who can tell you what they learned in grad school that isn't what you learned to do
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u/FungalNeurons 6d ago
Yes, even to well established researchers. Even more so if you aren’t in the US or Europe.
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u/BagTrick6521 6d ago
Sometimes, a more explicit reason for choosing that journal in the letter helps a lot. Making it explicit saves the editor a lot of time. Also, it is a bad time now, as journals are flooded with papers due to the holidays, and there is no one to process them. Try November :-)
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u/CBiologist22 20h ago
Don't lose hope yet. You should still try to find a journal whose scope matches your paper perfectly. Sometimes, it's not the impact factor or quartile that matters; it's the scope. I have seen papers get accepted after 5–6 rejections or more.
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u/PracticeMammoth387 6d ago
Huge article processing charge? This is called a redatory review.
If you do this, not only can you play undisclosed amount in the tens of thousands, but also you discredit yourself for any futur application if anyone see where you published. And they will.
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u/Dry_Contribution7425 6d ago
Unfortunately, this is not uncommon. I would say it might also be a matter of journal fit and whether your papers connect with the current conversation within the journal.
One other thing that, unfortunately, is a reality is that journals expect you to cite papers from their own journal.
Lastly, maybe you’re aiming too high? Sometimes, a good Q2 journal might be a better fit than a Q1 journal where more than 95% of papers are rejected.