Desk Rejection and How to Avoid It

One of the biggest fears for researchers when submitting articles to journals for publication is desk rejection. Muñoz-Carpena et al. (2020) in their article “Editorial – Why it is a Blessing to be Rejected: Improving Science with Quality Publications” revealed that 70% of articles submitted to journals are rejected. There are five main reasons why an article is rejected.

Articles Not Relevant to the Scope and Focus of the Journal

Selecting a target journal that is irrelevant to your article can slow down the publication process. The relevance of an article to the journal’s scope can be determined by the suitability of the article’s topic to the journal’s interests. For example, an agricultural journal might only be interested in topics related to agricultural crops. Don’t submit an article about ornamental plants, plantation crops, or forest plants to that journal, even though they are all plants and all within the same agricultural discipline. These three crops are irrelevant to the journal’s research topic. However, if the article discusses rice, corn, and horticulture, it is highly relevant to the journal’s scope. Furthermore, the relevance of an article to the journal’s scope can also be determined by the type of article accepted by the journal. Some journals accept all types of articles, such as research articles and reviews, while others only accept one or the other. Therefore, avoid submitting a review article to a journal that only accepts research articles, as this will certainly result in desk rejection. In addition to being relevant to the scope, the article must also be relevant to the journal’s focus. Some journals are not universal, focusing only on specific regions. For example, the Asian Economic Journal only accepts economic research topics for Asian countries. Therefore, avoid submitting articles on the global economy to this journal. To avoid desk rejection, researchers need to understand the journal’s scope and focus before deciding which journal to publish to. This is certainly very easy to do, as researchers can find it on the journal’s official website.

Article is not formatted according to the journal template or guidelines.

As discussed in a previous post (see the post in question here), many articles are rejected due to formatting issues. Muñoz-Carpena et al. (2020) in their article entitled “Editorial – Why it is a Blessing to be Rejected: Improving Science with Quality Publications” revealed that 40% of articles rejected were triggered by formatting issues. Ironically, formatting issues are not substantive, but rather administrative. Many researchers ignore or underestimate this issue. To avoid rejection due to formatting issues, researchers must focus and be thorough in using journal templates and understanding writing guidelines.

Invalid Article Content

An article may be considered invalid by the journal editor, for the following reasons:

1. Poor writing style, grammar, punctuation, or quality of English.
2. Lack of novelty or lack of significant contribution.
3. Not properly contextualized.
4. Weak theoretical foundation.
5. Cluttered or confusing presentation.

To avoid desk rejection for this reason, before submitting an article to a journal, researchers should have the language and content proofread by several relevant colleagues or by using professional services. A fresh perspective from another party can highlight errors that the researcher may not have noticed themselves.

Unethical or Lacking Objectivity

Articles can be desk rejected for being deemed unethical or lacking objectivity. This occurs when the article is assessed or found to violate ethical guidelines, such as issues with claims of authorship, conflicts of interest, multiple submissions, falsification or fabrication of data, plagiarism, and copyright infringement.

Overly Simplistic Methodology

A methodology that is too simple or too general can trigger desk rejection, even if the researcher has done nothing wrong with it. For example, a research variable might consist of only one dependent variable and one independent variable (e.g., the effect of compensation on job satisfaction). There’s nothing wrong with this; the researcher may have built a very strong theoretical foundation. Furthermore, a data analysis model that is too simple can also trigger desk rejection, even if it has been implemented correctly. For example, a journal might value a data analysis model with ARIMA regression more than a linear regression model. Or a data analysis program that is too general can also trigger desk rejection, even if it has been implemented correctly. For example, for path analysis, a researcher might use SPSS Amos, but a journal might value LISREL or Smart-PLS more. Therefore, to avoid desk rejection for this reason, researchers need to read several articles published by the target journal in previous issues. This way, researchers can understand the methodology that the journal is interested in.