Avoiding the Pain of Manuscript Rejection

Abstract

You’ve written an aesthetic paper about which you are really excited. Your study is a breakthrough. Your clinical results are phenomenal. You submit the paper for publication in Aesthetic Surgery Journal ( ASJ ), anticipating rave reviews. Then you receive a letter saying that the manuscript has been rejected or perhaps returned for substantial revision and resubmission. Your first reaction is surprise. What’s going on here? Your next reaction is indignation. Why can’t the reviewers appreciate the significance of your work? Perhaps they just don’t understand. ASJ , like other top journals, strives to enhance its quality through greater selectivity—meaning that, over time, a higher percentage of submitted manuscripts is being rejected. As this quality control process continues, it becomes increasingly difficult for authors to achieve publication unless they adhere to certain widely-accepted criteria for scientific manuscripts. Fortunately, many of the typical manuscript shortcomings that lead to rejection can be easily avoided or corrected. Addressing these shortcomings prior to manuscript submission, rather than in revision, can eliminate a lot of headaches for both authors and editors. For publication in ASJ , the most basic criterion is that the topic of your paper must be relevant to the practice and scientific investigation of aesthetic surgery or cosmetic medicine. However, even when that criterion is met, many Original Articles submitted to ASJ are rejected because reviewers determine that the material offers nothing substantially “new” to the literature. Furthermore, problems that are inherent in either topic selection or initial study design often cannot be “fixed” after the research has been conducted and may relegate your manuscript to the recycling bin. Flawed methodology is a serious problem. Study design depends on the type of research that you undertake and must be carefully considered during the planning phase. Obviously, prospective clinical research has demands that are quite …