When and How To Appeal a Rejection of Your Manuscript From a Scientific Journal

After spending time doing research, writing a manuscript, incorporating comments from your co-authors, formatting it and ultimately submitting it to the journal of your choice, receiving a rejection in return for all your hard work can be frustrating.

While you can always try to appeal the rejection, you should know that your chances are usually slim and that you should therefore weigh the decision carefully.

The first thing you should do after reading through the usual 'we receive so many great manuscripts that we just cannot publish everything' is to close the email, do other things for a while and preferably wait until at least the next day. There is no benefit to skimming through the reviewer comments in an anger-fueled frenzy. Also, waiting for another day (after the review process probably took about 2 months) won't harm you.  

 

Analyzing the decision letter

When you've calmed down, it is time to take a closer look: First look at what the editor has written. Is it just the usual phrases? Or does he actually give feedback? This is usually done by mentioning reviewer comments that the editor agrees with and that criticize certain aspects of your study which limit its value. While this is rare since most editors are very busy people and being a journal editor is not their full-time job, it is immensely valuable to you as the author.

If the editor has given you feedback, this is where you should stop and ask yourself: Can I address these concerns? There is no point in going through the reviewer comments and arguing about every tiny detail when you can't address the main things that caused the rejection. There are a few scenarios regarding the editor comments, where your chances regarding an appeal are very limited:

If the editor has mentioned something that you can’t change: Let’s say that you are a medical researcher and you have done a retrospective chart review of patients with disease X. The editor says that the number of patients is too low. However, you have already analyzed all the patients that your institution has treated.

If the editor thinks the methodology is sound but the story is just not important/big/impactful enough: This frequently happens with the more prestigious journals in a field. Those journals want to ensure that their papers continue being cited frequently and therefore reject good science if the results are not exciting or practice changing.

Sometimes you might think: 'My story is very important and even without that many patients, the science is sound. I will just write an appeal letter and try to convince the editor that he is wrong!'

This thought normally manifests itself a little more subtle but the main content remains the same: 'Even though I can't really disprove or address the reasons for the rejection, maybe I can convince the editor to at least allow me to revise my manuscript.'

Even though the chances of success are very slim, some authors write the editor anyway…and I think this is a mistake. An editor is normally a senior researcher who has read a lot of articles in his field and if he thinks an article is not interesting enough or the sample size is too small, a letter from some frustrated (junior) researcher is not going to change that. Even worse, you might put your reputation at the journal at risk which is particularly bad in small fields where you are likely to submit manuscripts to the same journal in the future.

But what if you are actually able to address the concerns of the editor? Then you can skip straight to 'writing the appeal letter'!  

 

Analyzing the reviewer comments

If the editor does not give you any real feedback which is frequently the case, you proceed to analyze the reviewer comments. Your first priority should be to highlight the comments that the reviewers emphasized. Sometimes reviewers will distinguish between major and minor issues. Sometimes you will have to look at the wording ('My biggest concern with this study is…'). You should ask yourself the same question as with the editor comments: Can I address the most important concerns?

If you are sure that you can address the most important concerns, you should also highlight any positive comments that you encounter. Those comments are like testimonials from a customer. If reviewers liked a concept you propose or an experiment you did, this is something that can help you later.

Lastly, highlight a few of the minor comments that you can easily address.

By the way: If your article was never sent for peer review (i.e. desk rejected), there are obviously no reviewer comments. In this case, the reason for rejection was most likely that the editor either encountered major flaws with your manuscript during a quick read or he did not deem your study important enough to warrant publication. In both cases, your chances of a successful appeal are limited and you should only write an appeal letter in exceptional cases.  

 

Writing the appeal letter

After thinking long and hard if you have a chance of success, you decide to write the appeal letter. Before you pick up your pen, you should decide between two options:

• Sending only the appeal letter to the editorial office to ask for a chance to resubmit.
• Sending the appeal letter together with a revised version of your manuscript and a point-by-point response to the reviewer comments. In this case you would submit a manuscript as you normally would and the appeal letter serves as the cover letter.

While both options are used, I favor the first one. I think it is more polite to ask for the opportunity to resubmit instead of just doing it. In addition, the chances of a successful appeal are never that great and before you dedicate the time to address possibly loads of reviewer comments, it might be better to ask if anybody will actually read what you write.

Before making the decision, you should also have a look at the author guidelines of the journal to check if they have any instructions on what to do in case you want to appeal a decision.

Assuming you chose option one, how should you structure your appeal letter?

1. Thank the journal/editor for considering your manuscript and the feedback. In addition mention what you liked about the peer review process (helpful feedback, fast process…whatever applies). In addition, mention positive comments from the reviewers (which you have already highlighted) and that you appreciate them.
2. Explain where the reviewers were wrong. Don’t waste time listing every single issue you have with the comments. Remember the most important concerns you highlighted? Now is the time to address them. Be concise, two or three sentences are enough. Remember that editors don't have much time. If you can prove that you’re right with a convincing reference, that's a plus.
3. Propose to resubmit a revised version and explain what else you could do to address other aspects that the reviewers criticized or how you could make your manuscript more valuable in general.
4. Thanks again and goodbye!

Whatever you do, don't judge the reviewers, call them biased or question their intelligence. If you really think that way, you should instead enable the editor to come to the same conclusion by himself. Focus on the science and explain how certain comments from the reviewers are incorrect or unjustified.

Good luck with conducting your research as well as publishing it! If you want to know how to get started with providing great reviews that no one will ever appeal, have a look at my series on how to write reviews! If you found this article helpful, let me know! If you disagree with some of the things I said, let me know as well!