Why papers get desk rejected

How editors screen a paper before review

At most journals the paper goes through two stages before it reaches review. First an editorial assistant does a technical check. All files should be there, the declarations should be there, and the similarity report should be acceptable. Suppose one file is missing, the office sends the paper back. That is a return, and different from a rejection. Still, a paper that comes back again and again makes poor impression on the journal office.

In the second stage the editor-in-chief or a handling editor reads the title, abstract and cover letter. Mostly they read the introduction and conclusions also. Some check the figures and reference list. The editor wants to know if the paper belongs in this journal and if it has a clear contribution. One more question is whether it can survive review. When any answer is no, the editor won’t trouble reviewers, and honestly that saves your time also.

For the editor, a quick desk rejection is a kindness. Otherwise you may get the same rejection after four months of review, for the same reason.

Common reasons for desk rejection

The first three rows are about the match between your paper and the journal. The remaining rows are about the paper as such. Many scholars think language is the main reason. Editors who write on desk rejection mention scope and contribution more times than language.

Scope, contribution and readership

Scope

Your paper can match the words on the Aims and Scope page and the editor can still call it out of scope. Take an engineering journal that lists “renewable energy”. It may be publishing device physics only, and no surveys about which households adopt solar panels. So the one test you can depend on is what the journal has really published recently. Our guide on how to choose a journal gives a method.

Contribution

Above everything, the editor is searching for what your paper adds that the reader did not know. A very common problem is a paper that takes a standard method and runs it on a new dataset, without saying why the new setting changes anything. Another one is a paper that repeats a well-known finding in a fresh sample. Such papers also get accepted when the author writes why the result is important in that new setting. Put this clearly in the last paragraph of your introduction. Our research gap guide helps you write the sentence that leads up to it.

The “too local” problem

Many thesis chapters study one place, like a district, a group of colleges, one company or a river basin. Nothing wrong in that. Many times it is what makes the work useful. Trouble starts when it goes to an international journal and never says why a reader elsewhere should care. You can handle it in one of two ways. Either show what your case tells about a bigger question, such as a mechanism, a comparison with other regions or a policy lesson. Or else send it to a journal whose readers care about that place itself.

Formatting, similarity and declaration problems

Not following the guide for authors

Suppose your paper is double the word limit. Or the references follow some other style, or the journal wants a structured abstract and yours is unstructured. The editor reads this as a paper prepared for some other journal. A few journals will send it back for correction. Busy journals may just reject it. Reformatting needs around one day only. Skip it and the paper may come back after some weeks.

Similarity

Many journals check submissions in iThenticate. This is Turnitin’s tool for publishers, and journals get it through Crossref’s Similarity Check (our iThenticate guide explains what the editor sees there). The editor is less worried about the total percentage. Where the matches come from is what they study. Say there is a big match to your own conference paper or thesis chapter and you have not disclosed it. That is a problem. A methods section copied from another paper is also a problem, and so is a discussion that follows one source too closely. Read your own report before the editor reads it. Our guide on reading a Turnitin report shows how to do that.

Missing declarations

If your study has human participants, you need ethics committee approval and consent. Work on animals needs an animal ethics approval. Most journals also want statements on funding, conflict of interest, data availability and author contributions. Now many journals also ask if you used AI tools for the manuscript. When one of these informations is missing, the paper mostly gets returned or rejected very fast. And it is fully avoidable.

Language

A few small grammar mistakes will not get your paper rejected by an editor. Many editors are handling papers every day from authors for whom English is a second language. The writing that gets rejected is writing the editor cannot follow. For example, an abstract that never says what was found. Or an introduction that goes round and round for three pages before coming to the research question. Clear writing counts for more than polished writing. Our guide on writing a research paper has the section order we suggest to scholars.

Pre-submission checklist to avoid desk rejection

Keep the journal’s guide for authors open next to you for this list. Every line connects to one of the reasons above.

• Fit: I can name two papers from this journal, published in the last two years, which are close to my topic.
• Contribution: What is new is written plainly in the last paragraph of my introduction. The abstract also says it.
• Readership: My discussion tells a reader from outside my study area what they can take from this work.
• Methods: The sample, design and analysis are enough for the claims made in my title and abstract. Limitations are written down.
• Guide for authors: I have matched the word count, abstract length, structure, reference style, figure format and file types.
• Language: One more person, other than me, has read the full paper only for clarity.
• Similarity: I went through the similarity report itself, beyond the percentage, and every large match is fixed.
• Declarations: Wherever the journal asks, I have given ethics approval, consent, funding, conflicts of interest, data availability, author contributions and the AI-use disclosure.
• References: I have cited recent work, and also relevant papers from this same journal if there are any.
• Cover letter: Editor name and journal name are checked twice, and the letter says in plain words why my paper fits this journal.
• Files: Figures are readable at print size. Tables are in editable form and every supplementary file is labelled.

A good cover letter takes care of the first two lines, because writing it forces you to put the fit and the contribution in simple sentences. If you are not able to write those sentences, the editor will also not find them in the paper.

What to do after a desk rejection

First read the editor’s mail slowly. A standard one-line rejection gives you little. Some editors add a line about scope, novelty or some specific problem, and that line is advice you got for free. Pay attention to it.

Appeal a desk rejection only when the editor has made a clear factual mistake, for example misreading your study design. An appeal that just says the paper is good rarely works, and it spends the editor’s goodwill.

Next, be honest about which reason applied. Sit with your guide and discuss about it. If the reason was scope, take the next journal on your shortlist, reformat and submit within a week or two. Suppose the editor wrote that the contribution is weak or the method has a gap. Uploading the same file to the next journal won’t help, as that editor will catch the same problem and you will lose one more month. Fix the paper first along with your supervisor, and only then submit.

Some publishers offer to transfer the rejected paper to another journal of theirs. This can save you time. The suggested journal still has to pass the same checks you use for any journal, and that includes indexing as per your university’s rule.

Want an outside reader to check your manuscript on these points before submission? Our manuscript preparation service does that review.

What should you do after a rejection: reformat, transfer or appeal?

You face the same choice when a paper is rejected after peer review. Then you have more material, because the reviewers’ reports are also with you. Either way there are three routes, and for most papers only one is sensible.

Read the decision letter for its reason

Before deciding, sort every comment in the letter and in the reports into two piles. In the first pile goes everything about fit, such as the topic, the readership or the type of paper. Whatever is said about the work itself goes in the second pile. A missing comparison group, an old baseline or a claim the data cannot support all go there. The fit comments help you choose where the paper goes next. The comments on the work show what you must correct before it goes anywhere.

Appeal only when the decision rests on a factual error

In an appeal you ask the same journal to reverse its decision, and publishers keep this door quite narrow. Elsevier’s editorial decision appeals policy is one example. As per that policy, an appeal is looked at only when the manuscript had gone for peer review. A paper rejected at the desk cannot be appealed there. An appeal arguing only about interest, novelty or suitability is not heard. The time limit is one month from the decision. In the subject line you write “Appeal” along with your manuscript number. Only one appeal per submission. Till it is decided, Elsevier wants no submission elsewhere and no transfer. Other publishers have their own rules, so check your journal’s.

When a reviewer has clearly misread your design or your data, a short and polite letter can work. Name the comment with the error and quote the part of the manuscript that answers it. Attach your evidence also and ask the editor for a second look. Don’t try to argue that the paper deserves to be published. Write it like a good response to reviewer comments, going point by point with evidence and without complaining.

Accept a transfer offer, after checking the journal

The big publishers have services that shift a rejected paper to another of their journals without a fresh submission. In Elsevier’s Article Transfer Service the offer to transfer comes to your email after rejection. Elsevier says that in many cases reformatting will not be needed. Springer Nature’s Transfer Desk is free of cost and it recommends journals to you. As per Springer Nature, a manuscript is never transferred without your approval, and a transfer does not guarantee publication. The earlier reviewer reports are not passed on by this desk. Wiley’s Refer and Transfer gives either an editor’s referral or up to eight suggested journals from its Transfer Desk Assistant. Available peer reviews go with the paper. Whichever service you use, the receiving journal takes its own decision.

Reformat for the next journal

If you are picking the next journal yourself, pick it from the shortlist you prepared before the first submission (choosing a journal explains how to make one). Finish all the corrections from the second pile before anything else. After that, reformat the paper properly as per the new guide for authors. Look at the word limit and abstract structure. Change the reference style and redo the declarations. Write the cover letter fresh with correct journal and editor name.