how to get your paper rejected

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Pediatric Pulmonology 43:220–223 (2008) Original Articles How to Get Your Paper Rejected Victor Chernick, MD, FRCPC* Summary. This paper focuses on the main problems that authors of rejected papers have had in their submissions to Pediatric Pulmonology over the past 5 years or so. It is intended as a teaching tool for residents, fellows, allied health personnel, practicing physicians and even some academic physicians who need a refresher on what goes wrong and how they may avoid rejection of their labor. The approach is somewhat lighthearted but nevertheless the message is quite serious. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2008; 43:220–223. ß 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. I have presented the subject of ‘‘How to get your paper rejected’’ at several national and international meetings of pediatric pulmonologists and have been asked to publish the presentation as a paper so that program directors and research supervisors might use it to illustrate to their trainees what editors like and dislike about articles submitted to their journals. The general approach I took during the talks was to list, in reverse order, the top 10 reasons for getting your paper rejected, in the style of David Letterman who is host of The Late Show, a late night talk show broadcast on CBS, shown in North America, and whose Top Ten List is a popular segment of the show. A book also has been published. 1 So let us begin with how to ensure rejection!! NUMBER 10: You did not read the instructions to authors for the journal to which you are submitting your article. Every journal may have its own specific instructions for authors and these should be read and followed. In order to cut down on the variability in style or requirement between journals, many have adopted the Uniform Criteria for Journal Style, as recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and can be found at http://www.icmje.org. This group began in 1978 with an informal meeting of medical editors (known as the Vancouver group) and they have continued to meet and update their recommendations. An informal organization of a large group of medical editors that meets regularly, The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME or Whammy), has adopted the recommendation of the ICMJE. More recently many journals have endorsed the CONSORT statement of reporting clinical trials which can be found at www.consort-statement.org. The ICMJE has recommended that all clinical trials be registered with a data base that is able to be accessed by the public such as http://clinicaltrials.gov/. Registration is a trial prerequisite. The point is to read the ‘‘Instructions to Authors’’ for the journal of interest and to follow those instructions. Although style is ultimately less important than content there are some specific instructions that need to be followed. For example, WAME and ICMJE do not deal with the issue of electronic submission of figures. Pediatric Pulmonology requires that figures be in TIFF or EPS format (a requirement of the publisher and not the choice of the editor, who knows little about such matters!!). NUMBER 9: There is a major and undisclosed conflict of interest. Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, Winnipeg Children’s Hospital, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. *Correspondence to: Victor Chernick, MD, FRCPC, Editor in Chief, Pediatric Pulmonology, Professor Emeritus, Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, Winnipeg Children’s Hospital, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. E-mail: [email protected] Received 3 December 2007; Revised 7 December 2007; Accepted 7 December 2007. DOI 10.1002/ppul.20779 Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). ß 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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Page 1: How to get your paper rejected

Pediatric Pulmonology 43:220–223 (2008)

Original Articles

How to Get Your Paper Rejected

Victor Chernick, MD, FRCPC*

Summary. This paper focuses on the main problems that authors of rejected papers have had in

their submissions to Pediatric Pulmonology over the past 5 years or so. It is intended as a teaching

tool for residents, fellows, allied health personnel, practicing physicians and even some academic

physicians who need a refresher on what goes wrong and how they may avoid rejection of their

labor. The approach is somewhat lighthearted but nevertheless the message is quite serious.

Pediatr Pulmonol. 2008; 43:220–223. � 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

I have presented the subject of ‘‘How to get your paperrejected’’ at several national and international meetings ofpediatric pulmonologists and have been asked to publishthe presentation as a paper so that program directors andresearch supervisors might use it to illustrate to theirtrainees what editors like and dislike about articlessubmitted to their journals.

The general approach I took during the talks was tolist, in reverse order, the top 10 reasons for getting yourpaper rejected, in the style of David Letterman who ishost of The Late Show, a late night talk show broadcaston CBS, shown in North America, and whose Top TenList is a popular segment of the show. A book also hasbeen published.1 So let us begin with how to ensurerejection!!

NUMBER 10: You did not read the instructions toauthors for the journal to which you are submitting yourarticle.

Every journal may have its own specific instructions forauthors and these should be read and followed. In order tocut down on the variability in style or requirement betweenjournals, many have adopted the Uniform Criteria forJournal Style, as recommended by the InternationalCommittee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and can befound at http://www.icmje.org. This group began in 1978with an informal meeting of medical editors (known as theVancouver group) and they have continued to meet andupdate their recommendations. An informal organizationof a large group of medical editors that meets regularly,The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME orWhammy), has adopted the recommendation of theICMJE.

More recently many journals have endorsed theCONSORT statement of reporting clinical trials whichcan be found at www.consort-statement.org. The ICMJEhas recommended that all clinical trials be registeredwith a data base that is able to be accessed by the publicsuch as http://clinicaltrials.gov/. Registration is a trialprerequisite.

The point is to read the ‘‘Instructions to Authors’’ forthe journal of interest and to follow those instructions.Although style is ultimately less important than contentthere are some specific instructions that need to befollowed. For example, WAME and ICMJE do not dealwith the issue of electronic submission of figures.Pediatric Pulmonology requires that figures be in TIFFor EPS format (a requirement of the publisher and not thechoice of the editor, who knows little about suchmatters!!).

NUMBER 9: There is a major and undisclosed conflictof interest.

Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, Winnipeg Children’s Hospital,

University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

*Correspondence to: Victor Chernick, MD, FRCPC, Editor in Chief,

Pediatric Pulmonology, Professor Emeritus, Department of Pediatrics and

Child Health, Winnipeg Children’s Hospital, University of Manitoba,

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]

Received 3 December 2007; Revised 7 December 2007; Accepted 7

December 2007.

DOI 10.1002/ppul.20779

Published online in Wiley InterScience

(www.interscience.wiley.com).

� 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Page 2: How to get your paper rejected

For example, you submit a paper that clearly shows thatDrug A is more efficacious for asthma than Drug B. Whatis not disclosed is that you are the owner of the companythat makes drug A; you designed the study and did all ofthe statistical analysis of the results. These are three majornon-disclosure items. Although the study may have beenwell designed and the statistical analyses above board, it isthe non-disclosure that makes the editor highly suspiciousabout the validity of the results.

There are other types of non-disclosure that are equallyas serious. Suppose you have previously submitted a studyfor publication and now submit a similar study to anotherjournal. The new paper has an expanded number ofsubjects but you come to similar conclusions. So far, sogood! However, the paper is submitted without disclosingto the editor that you have a similar paper in press or thathas already been published. A reviewer writes to the editorthat he/she has seen a similar paper which is now in presswith another journal. The editor has not been advisedof this fact by the author of the paper. The editorwonders why the author(s) have tried to bamboozlehim/her and is likely to put a very low priority onor even reject the new paper which may containsome new information or be useful to publish for theparticular readership of the journal. The author shouldhave been candid and up front with the editor and not onlydisclosed the presence of another paper in press but alsoshould have included a copy of the manuscript or at thevery least the abstract of the paper, so that the editorand the reviewers may have all of the information.Many times the author(s) are trying to get morepublications from data than they are worth and thisnon-disclosure approach is highly suspect.

NUMBER 8: The manuscript was NOT checked fortypographical errors (typo’s), spelling or grammar beforesubmission.

Some large journals have copy editors on staff that cango through a manuscript and make suitable corrections(although this is sometimes aggravating to authors whentheir meaning gets changed). Most journals do not havethis luxury and editors simply do not have the time to actas copy editors. We have experienced an increase insubmissions from countries where English is not theprimary language and often suggest that the paper bechecked by a native English speaker before submission ofthe initial paper or a revision. We now include in ourinstructions the names of several professional servicesthat will check manuscripts for grammar and English.In addition, there are commercial software programsdesigned to improve spelling and grammar (see: http://www.studygs.net/spelling.htm).

We realize that some latitude is necessary when wereceive a paper from an area where English is not theprimary language, but it is extremely aggravating to

receive a manuscript from a country where English is theprimary language and yet it is full of errors in grammar,errors in quoting references and typos. In other words,sloppy. If the written record is sloppy this always makeseditors and reviewers suspicious that the entire studywas carelessly done and not worth publishing. All authorsshould check for grammar, typos and other errors beforethe paper is submitted. The following paragraph is anexample of what NOT to submit:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, itdeosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in awrod are, the olnyiprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghitpclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed itwouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos notraed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe ! ! *

* Source unknown—I received this via the internet.

NUMBER 7: The manuscript consists of the 19th casereport of ‘‘syndrome obscuritas’’ and contains no newinformation or insight about the abnormality.

The case may be the first to occur in Borneo per se butthis is hardly of international interest. Some editors arereluctant to accept case reports and some do not publishcase reports at all because they are rarely cited and thushave an adverse effect on the journal’s impact factor (IF).The IF is calculated by dividing the number of papersquoted from a particular journal over a 2-year periodby the number of papers published in that 2-year period(including case reports). The ‘‘first case in Borneo’’ maybe of interest for a local publication rather than one thatis international in scope. If it is to be published anywhereit still should contain new information that is notavailable in the existing literature, which is overlycluttered as it is.

NUMBER 6: The paper has been rejected by the editorof a journal and it is now submitted to another journalwithout substantive changes.

The editor of the second journal sends the paper to areviewer who comments: ‘‘I have rejected this paper foranother journal and provided an in depth review of theproblems with the paper. They have now submitted thispaper to your journal without making any significantchanges. Why do they think its good enough for yourjournal?’’ This makes the editor angry and personallyoffended (PO’d)!!

A variation of this theme, for example, is when theeditor of Pediatric Pulmonology gets a letter accompany-ing a submitted article which states, ‘‘Dear Dr. Chernick,I am very pleased to submit this paper to your prestigiousjournal, the American Journal of Respiratory Disease andCritical Care Medicine. It is not under consideration forpublication elsewhere.’’ I wonder why!! Obviously it hasbeen rejected by the AJRDCCM and is now being sent tothe second (or maybe, a third) choice.

Pediatric Pulmonology. DOI 10.1002/ppul

How to Get Your Paper Rejected 221

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Editors (at least this editor!) like authors to be candidand forthcoming. There is nothing the matter with statingin a covering letter that the paper has been rejectedelsewhere but that there have been substantial changesincorporated into the paper which is now submitted to yourjournal (e.g., new data added to the paper, or a re-analysisof the results, etc.). The corresponding author might evensubmit (and we encourage this practice) a list of potentialreviewers who are experts in the field and who wouldprovide an unbiased review. There is the possibility of anepotism factor in a list of suggested reviewers and thiseditor always tries to find an expert reviewer that is not onthe list submitted by the author(s)!

NUMBER 5: There is no hypothesis mentionedanywhere in the text.

The readers (including the editor, reviewers and otherinterested parties) need to know as quickly as possible justwhat idea or notion you are testing and why you are testingthis idea. This is called a hypothesis and needs to be clearlystated in the Introduction section of the manuscript. Whydid you do this study? Armed with this information thereader is then better able to assess whether or not yourstudy design was adequate to appropriately test thehypothesis.

NUMBER 4: Author(s) plagiarize other authors orthemselves, misquote or omit pertinent references.

This is a real can of worms and is a big NO-NO inscientific writing (or any kind of writing for that matter).The issue of plagiarism has recently been dealt with byWAME and ICMJE. Here is what they have to say: ‘‘Yousee it’s okay for me to use their words because I amquoting them verbatim and acknowledging the source ofthe quote. If I gave you my thoughts on plagiarism an usedtheir precise wording then that would be plagiarism!’’Almost as bad as plagiarism is the deliberate or even not sodeliberate misquote of an already published paper. Believeme, this happens and in the former case it is totallydishonest and in the latter case it is very sloppy to say theleast. The majority of us (editors, reviewers, and readers)are trusting folks, and we want to believe that what we arereading is an original and accurate treatise on the subject athand and dishonesty, even blatant dishonesty, may be hardto pick up. I include in this the blatant use of fictitious datathat some have been tempted to use because of thecertainty that their ideas must be correct or for othernefarious reasons (e.g., academic promotion, salaryissues). Luckily, this degree of dishonesty, I believe, israre and when discovered it is dealt with harshly by editorsand academic institutions.

NUMBER 3: Failing to do a power analysis before thestudy begins and/or completely misusing statistics.

Type 2 errors are particularly common because ofinadequate numbers of tests or subjects for comparison.This error occurs when you falsely conclude that nodifference exists between two sets of data when in factthere is a significant difference. You just do not haveenough numbers for a proper comparison.

The blatant misuse of statistics is found in the followingscenario. In the Methods section of the paper you acceptthe 5% level as being statistically significant (P< 0.05).Everything else is supposed to be non-significant.However, you report a ‘‘trend’’ towards statistical signi-ficance when the P-value is <0.07. This is another big NONO; something is either statistically significant or it is not.You cannot have it both ways!! You either reject the nullhypothesis or you do not, but you cannot only slightlyreject the null hypothesis! Additionally, one shouldalways remember that the fact that something is statisti-cally significant does not mean that it is biologicallysignificant.

NUMBER 2: The paper as written is rambling andunfocused and is full of senseless abbreviations making itvery difficult to read. The Results and Discussion sectionsare totally confusing to the reader.

The novice writer of a scientific paper needs to have anappropriate mentor who is familiar with the publicationprocess and is well versed in writing scientific articles.Even seasoned writers often have their papers reviewed‘‘in house’’ to make certain it is understandable andwritten in a non-confusing manner.

NUMBER 1: You ask a very uninteresting question thatis not going to advance the field at all, and then submit aboring paper that contains unsubstantiated data.

What should you do when you are trying to do ascientific study? If you have an idea you want to pursue,particularly in clinical research, get statistical adviceabout the study design, number of subjects and statisticalanalysis before you start the study. Once the study iscompleted and you are ready to write your paper, read theinstructions to the authors of the journal to which you wishto submit your paper. The final draft of the manuscriptshould have been read and critically reviewed by all of theauthors and carefully checked for spelling, grammar,typographical errors, and references before it is submittedto the journal. You should also read the paper by Hoppin2

which gives tremendous insight into the review processand what a skilled reviewer is looking for in a scientificpaper. If you want to learn more about this subject in greatdetail from the editor’s point of view I can recommend abook by Hames.3

Finally, if despite you best efforts your paper getsrejected, do not take it too hard. It has happened or willhappen eventually to any author including me!

Pediatric Pulmonology. DOI 10.1002/ppul

222 Chernick

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Dr. Hans Pasterkamp for his criticalreview of this paper and to Carlene Rummery (ManagingEditor, Pediatric Pulmonology) and Jessica HolbrowRRT for their helpful suggestions regarding danglingparticiples, split infinitives and other important mattersrelated to my writing skill.

REFERENCES

1. Letterman D. David Letterman’s Book of top ten lists. New York:

Bantam Press; 1995.

2. Hoppin FG Jr. How I review an original scientific article. Am J

Respir Crit Care Med 2002;166:1019–1023.

3. Hames I. Peer review and manuscript management in scientific

journals. Guidelines for good practice. Malden, MA: Blackwell;

2007.

Pediatric Pulmonology. DOI 10.1002/ppul

How to Get Your Paper Rejected 223