Don't Take It Lightly, Many Articles Are Rejected Due to Formatting Reasons

Many researchers underestimate the process of article formatting. However, more than 40% of outright rejections, also known as desk rejections, are triggered by incorrect formatting, as reported by Muñoz-Carpena et al. (2020) in their article entitled “Editorial – Why it is a Blessing to be Rejected: Improving Science with Quality Publications.” The large number of articles submitted to a journal and the limited publication slots per issue force journal editors to be highly selective, even for non-substantive matters. Imagine, for example, 100 articles have been submitted to a journal, while the publication slots for that journal are only 10 articles per issue. The journal editor will only review a maximum of two publication slots (20 articles), and the remaining 80 articles will be rejected outright without any review process at all (desk rejection). It certainly wasn’t difficult for the journal editor to find errors in the 80 articles he rejected, and one of the reasons was formatting issues.

Each journal has a different format. Journals typically provide templates for researchers to follow. However, many journals don’t provide templates, only guidelines. If a journal doesn’t provide a template, authors must design their own layout and writing style, following the guidelines. This often leads to formatting errors.

In this post, we present a general format for scientific journals.

Article Title

The title is the first thing a journal editor looks at. Some journals require titles that are normative, formal, and reflective of their content. However, many journals prefer titles that are non-normative, informal, and emotional to attract readers. For example, an article discusses the bankruptcy risk of Islamic corporations, with findings indicating that more than 75% of Islamic corporations are likely to go bankrupt within the next 2-3 years. A normative, formal title that reflects the article’s content might be “Bankruptcy Risk Analysis of Islamic Corporations,” while a non-normative, informal, and emotional title might be “Will Islamic Corporations Soon Fall into Bankruptcy?”. Therefore, in the article formatting process, researchers need to understand the journal’s preferred title. In this case, whether the journal prefers a title that is normative, formal, and reflective of its content, or vice versa.

Author Structure

The majority of international journals do not value single authors and collaborative authors from the same discipline, institution, and nationality. International journals value international collaborative authors more because they are associated with increased research quality, impact, and global visibility. Therefore, in the article formatting process, researchers need to understand the journal’s preferred author structure. If a journal values ​​international collaborative authors more, researchers should change their target journal for publication. Do not try to force a response, as articles can be rejected outright without any review process (desk rejection), even if the article is of excellent quality.

Abstract

The abstract provides a brief overview of an article, including its objectives, methods, results, and conclusions. Generally, abstracts should stand alone, free from abbreviations, footnotes, and references. The ideal word limit for an abstract is 150-250 words. Some journals do not allow specific research findings to be included in the abstract, while others require it. On the other hand, some journals require the novelty, originality, and limitations of the research to be included in the abstract, while others do not. Therefore, structure your abstract according to the journal’s requirements.

Introduction

In the introduction, some journals tend to be long-winded in describing the research background. However, others prefer a more to-the-point introduction, containing only 4-5 paragraphs. Some journals focus the introduction on the background and objectives of the research, but many require the methodology and data analysis results to be included concisely in the introduction. Furthermore, some journals combine the introduction with the literature review. Therefore, when formatting an article, researchers need to understand the journal’s preferred introduction structure.

Literature

As mentioned above, some journals combine the introduction with the literature section. Generally, articles from applied research do not require extensive formal literature like pure academic research. Therefore, when formatting an article, researchers need to understand the journal’s desired role in the literature.

Methods

Similar to the introduction, some journals prefer a more to-the-point methodology. Some journals also prefer to have research variable statistics and classical assumption test results presented directly in the methodology section. Therefore, researchers need to be aware of this when formatting their articles.

Results and Discussion

Some journals separate the results and discussion sections, while others prefer to have both sections integrated. Therefore, when formatting an article, researchers need to understand how the journal requires them to present the results and discussion sections.

Conclusion

The conclusion section is the final section of an article, containing conclusions, recommendations, and limitations of the research. Some journals prefer short, concise, and clear conclusions that simply answer the research question, while others prefer the opposite. Therefore, researchers need to understand the journal’s preferred conclusion structure.

Data Availability Statement

A data availability statement (DAS) is generally requested by international journals as part of the transparency of their research process. This statement is important, and please read our article on this topic here.

References

There are many commonly used referencing styles, including APA (social sciences and education), MLA (humanities), Chicago (multidisciplinary), Harvard (business), Vancouver (health), and IEEE (engineering and computer science). Understand the referencing style specified by your target journal when formatting your article.

In addition to the general formatting above, researchers also need to understand text formatting and layout, such as font size and typeface, spacing, margin and paper size, and justification. Overall, researchers should not take article formatting lightly. Journals with low acceptance rates will often consider one or a few formatting errors as a reason to reject an article.