最近，生态学领域的重要综述性杂志《进化和生态学进展》 (Trends in Ecology Evolution) 发表了瑞典乌普萨拉大学（ Uppsala University ）生态学家 Gran Arnqvist 教授的一篇观点性论文，探讨了一个生态学与进化领域（我想也可以拓展到很多相关学科领域）科研工作者在发表论文时经常遇到的问题，或者苦恼：一些高排名的基础性研究杂志（ Highly ranked primary research journals ）在作者投稿初期的编委预审期不经外审就以“创新性”（ Novelty ）不足而拒稿。 Gran 教授认为这样一种文章评审标准是非常不合理的：首先，预审期一般都是基于负责该篇文章的编辑（通常是杂志社负责该领域的一位副主编 associate professor ）对该篇文章的初审后而决定的，事实上，这位编辑即使是大领域的牛人，在涉及到该篇研究论文所在的具体小领域方面，他未必就是非常精通的专家，以这样一种依其一家之言而枪毙一篇文章，未免有失公允；其二， Gran 教授认为研究人员和杂志编委对文章的偏好之间有一个协同进化的过程（ editorial machineries and authors ‘co-evolve’ ），杂志社越是对文章的创新性选择强烈，作者们越是善于投其所好，加大鼓吹自身的文章原创性，以至于创新性其实并不强的文章被作者们不顾一切的放大，从而降低了文章了整体质量；其三，也是他最为担忧的一点， Gran 教授认为当今的科学实践很难做到完全的基础性创新（ Very little in science is fundamentally novel ），大部分的研究都是基于前面同行的工作向前延伸，取得了新的进展，而正是这种进展，实实在在的成为了推动科学不断发展的基石（ a cornerstone of sound scientific practice ）。科学研究需要以前面同行的工作为基础，进行认真的比较和讨论，然而，盲目追求创新性的杂志导向却使得研究人员同前人工作比较而取得的进展看上去是那么的微不足道（ more or less incremental ），达不到所谓的完全创新（ entirely novel ），这样带来的后果就是研究人员在不知不觉间只顾着强调自身文章的创新性，而完全忽略或漠视之前研究工作者的贡献。最后， Gran 教授还提出了他针对这一现象的几点建议，他认为在文章投稿初期，可以选择文章话题是否符合杂志方向，文章的整体科学质量或方法是否合理等作为预审的标准，对那些排名非常靠前具有高淘汰性的杂志，仍然可以将文章创新性和领域推进性作为裁断参考，但这一阶段可以放到外审后，而且应由负责该文章审稿的小领域外审专家来决定。 说实话，我想大家应该都或多或少的遇到过类似的情况，此刻也许都会产生些或大或小的共鸣吧。在此补充一点，我还遇到过编辑将文章外审，而且外审专家同意修改发表，编辑仍然以 “ 创新性不足 ” 而拒稿了，在最后枪毙我的时候还不忘告诉我：这个杂志对文章创新性的要求是多么的高（ outstanding novel ），以至于必须拒绝我们的文章。我无法想象也不明白编辑口中的 outstanding 究竟需要创新到何种程度，也不明白为什么编辑早知创新性不足当初还要劳其神费其力的找专家外审？何不快刀斩乱麻呢？也许，不明白的事还多的呢，有些事真真的不需要明白，难得糊涂，如果真按照 Gran 教授所列举的三种途径而将文章吹着捧着发表了，这样的文章发表后又能有多强的生命力呢？只能说：创新性，一个既伤不起又惹不起的话题。 附参考文献链接及截图： http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534713001262
注：最近被一个国际会议拒稿了，在网站上登录后看到了审稿人的comments,有些感想，记在下面，提醒自己。 审稿人的主要意见中，需要接受并引以为戒的主要有以下几点： 1. Therefore it contains no new insight on the subject and is not acceptable as a technical publication. 2. Important steps of the PSHA are not described which are listed below: • The location of the site is not specified. • The scientific background of generating the seismic sources model is not discussed • Programs like FRISK and SEISRISK III are mentioned in the references while there are no clear explanation on how the hazard curve is obtained • Site response analysis is performed with programs like SHAKE. There is no citation to any site response analysis program and no explanation on the methods of obtaining the free-field time histories. 这一条中有些地方有些委屈，在参考文献中citation了相关计算program的文章，不过审稿人其他方面说的很正确。 震源模型的科学依据并未讨论，之前一直对此没有深入研究，只关注了数值计算过程。 除了上述两条外，还有语法和拼写方面的问题，使得文章有含混不清的地方，对于研究人员来说，这是很致命的缺陷。 而且文章的安排也有问题(把所有的图件都放到了文章最后面)，使得审稿人很难阅读。 其中有些comments确实很冤枉，所有的计算和分析工作确实是本人独立完成的，由于英文不是很过关， 不知道怎样具体表述，如审稿人说的没有specific。 总结 1. 提高英文论文写作水平，尤其是准确、具体的表达自己的工作。 2. 继续努力，不留空白，down to the earth，关键的方面一定要深入，至少要实践一次 3. 科研精神，严肃态度，向同行学习，谦虚谨慎，引用前人工作和成果时，要明确清楚。
前段时间投了一篇materials letter，没出意外被拒了回来。本来自己做的东西和结果都是很新的，但是正是因为比较新，还是没有被人认可，所以被拒也就可以理解了，但是收到了这么一个审稿人的意见确实很让人无语 Reviewer #2: The letter studied the transformation from crystalline to amorphous structure induced by HPT at different temperatures in ZrCu and ZrCuAl alloys. The fraction of the amorphous structure increases with increasing the deformation temperature in the alloys, which is great different from that in Ti-Ni-based alloys. Both ZrCu-based and TiNi-based alloys exhibit martensitic transformation. Their lattices should be unstable near the transformation region. So the anomalous behavior is explained by the lattice instability, which is not precise. The authors should perfect the explanation. I regret that I cannot recommend publication of this paper. In addition, there are a number of grammatical errors and instances of badly worded/constructed sentences, for example: 1. In the 2nd paragraph of the introduction "The tendency to form amorphous structure by HPT in TiNi is...". The sentence should be better "The tendency to form amorphous structure by HPT in the TiNi-based alloys is..." 2. The last sentence in the 2nd paragraph of the introduction "., but not lower than Ms.". The sentence should be "., which is higher than Ms." 3. The last sentence in the 2nd paragraph of the results and discussion "It can be seen that ., but saturates after 325K. " is not clear. 4. The sentence in the 3rd paragraph of the results and discussion "The SAED spots in fig. 3(a) from the martensite phases are stretched severely, implying the accumulative straining achieved. " should be "In Fig. 3(a), the SAED spots of the martensite phases are stretched severely, which implies that the accumulative straining is achieved". 5. The last sentence in the 3rd paragraph of the results and discussion "Similar results and tendency were." should be "Similar results were." 6. The sentence in the 4th paragraph of the results and discussion "The fA in both alloys increases with the increasing ." should be "The fA in both alloys increases with increasing ." 哎，可惜，可怜
诸位看到这篇博文的题目，禁不住要问，博主是不是脑子进了 一氧化二氢了，怎么退稿还成了好事儿了？ 最近一篇发表在《 科学 》(Science)上的文章发现，稿件如果被退了，然后 重投 给同一领域里的其他杂志，那么引用率要高于一次投稿就成功的文章。以下是对这个研究的简单总结。（有兴趣的话请看博文最后附件里的原文） 这个研究的题目是《稿件在学术杂志之间的流动揭示了隐性的投稿规律》 ( Flows of Research Manuscripts Among Scientific Journals Reveal Hidden Submission Patterns ）。 研究问题和办法 ：以法国研究者Calcagno为通讯作者的研究团队通过电子邮件做了八万多个问卷调查。问题很简单，就是你的稿件是否在发表前被别的杂志拒过，以及这个杂志是什么。 研究的结果 ：75%的文章第一稿就被接受了。25%的文章经过了多次投稿，而且一般会投给影响因子低一点的杂志 （看下面图一)。 最有意思的结果 ：如果更换的杂志在同一个领域内的话，那么这些经过多次投稿的文章的引用率比在同一杂志里发表的一次投稿就接受的文章的引用率要高（看下面图二）。 讨论和解释 ：第一，这些经过重复投稿的文章也经过了多次的审稿和修改，文章的质量会提高，导致引用率提高。第二，稿件被拒，有时候是因为研究内容和观点比较新颖，不容易被守旧的同行接受。但是一旦发表出来以后，这些文章会得到很多的关注和引用。 我的一点意见 ： 现在的学术杂志和评审体系是不利于学术交流的 。虽然评审和修改（一般来说）是必要的、积极的，但是由于杂志档次、影响因子的不同，而导致稿件重投，不管其结果如何，都是对于人力和物力的浪费。最有利于学术交流的平台应该类似于wiki百科、网站论坛、或者是博客，让研究者可以及时地，广泛地，互动性地交换意见，同时改进自己的研究和稿件。这样的体系也可以促进研究者摒弃一些消极的、非研究性的成分，譬如 被迫为了影响因子而做研究 。 摘用其中的两个图片： 图一 左图(A): 杂志作为投稿的首选的次数和杂志的影响因子成正比。右图(B): 稿件的最终发表杂志的影响因子和之前尝试投稿的杂志的影响因子的差别成偏态分布（均值向左移）。 （Journal impact structures resubmission patterns. ( A ) The number of times a journal was first chosen for submission increases with impact factor. The average trend is shown as a red curve (±2 SE) ( 16 ). Multidisciplinary journals are highlighted in blue. One top journal per community is also highlighted (same color code as in Fig. 1 ). ( B ) The difference in impact factor between the publishing journal and the one previously attempted is strongly skewed to negative values ( N = 18,078). Mean difference in log impact factor: –0.23, representing a 42% reduction on the natural scale. This differs from random graphs where the previously attempted journal was selected uniformly (dashed line) or in proportion to the values in panel A (solid line).） 图二 左图(A): 第一稿就被接受的文章的引用率低于经过多次投稿的文章。右图(B): 如果稿件重投的杂志不是同一个领域的，引用率会降低。 (Submission history affects citation counts. ( A ) First-intent articles were less cited than resubmissions. ( B ) Resubmissions were less cited if resubmitted between rather than within journal communities. Log transformed citation counts shown as box-whiskers plots (median/quartiles/range). P values from permutation tests controlling for year and journal) 研究摘要原文： The study of science-making is a growing discipline that builds largely on online publication and citation databases, while prepublication processes remain hidden. Here, we report results from a large-scale survey of the submission process, covering 923 scientific journals from the biological sciences in years 2006–2008. Manuscript flows among journals revealed a modular submission network, with high-impact journals preferentially attracting submissions. However, about 75% of published articles were submitted first to the journal that would publish them, and high-impact journals published proportionally more articles that had been resubmitted from another journal. Submission history affected postpublication impact: Resubmissions from other journals received significantly more citations than first-intent submissions, and resubmissions between different journal communities received significantly fewer citations. 原文附件 Calcagno_etal_2012_Flows of Research Manuscripts Among Scientific Journals Revea.pdf
论文有可能被拒。谁都被拒过稿。只字不改就接受的论文极少，即使是最优秀的科学家，最漂亮的研究，也照样可能被拒或者被要求修改。不要消极对待目标期刊拒稿和退修要求，而应把它视为发表过程的一个环节，其目的是为了让你的论文在科学上尽可能更健全，以便将来被录用为科学文献，并成为“集体知识”的一部分。 期刊拒稿有各种原因，大多数在本系列讲座的前文中已经提及。 比如，如果对拟投期刊的选择不当，就有可能不送去审稿便直接拒稿。期刊定位恰当才能增加稿件获得同行评议的机会(参见第六讲“选择合适的目标期刊”中的注意事项)。同理，拙劣的投稿信也可能造成不经审稿便直接拒稿(参见第三讲“如何写出吸引读者的‘cover letter’”中的注意事项)。违反目标《稿约》的规定可能被期刊编辑认为不尊重对方，从而造成拒稿，当然更可能的是被要求修改格式后再投。其他拒稿原因包括研究设计有缺陷、论文写作语言水平不合格、研究方法或统计检验选择或解释不当、结果叙述不当或夸大其辞、引言和/或讨论不客观公正或缺乏细节；或者就是缺乏新颖性(比如你的研究只是简单重复别人已发表的工作) 、重要性或相关性。投稿之前严格分析你的论文，考虑审稿人会着眼的所有要素，你就可能提前发现这些问题。照着本讲座系列中的经验来做，就能加快从初投到录用的进度，并让其间的各个阶段相对顺利。所以，在投稿前值得尽全力完善文稿质量，以减小拒稿的可能。 关于同行审稿和如何应付，可以考虑一下审稿人会如何处理你的稿件。不同的期刊对审稿人的要求各不相同，但是他们基本上都会要求审稿人审查你的稿件是否满足如下这些良好科研和写作的要素；如果你的稿件不满足其中某项，审稿人还要写出相关评语。 重要性 • 结果对该领域的重要性是什么？ • 结果是否对会受到相关和更广范围的研究者关注？ 新颖性 • 文中的主张是否足够新颖、因此值得发表？ • 研究是否在已有发表工作基础上取得进展？ 引言 • 是否提供充分的背景信息，让非本领域读者能理解研究问题/假说？ • 研究的理由是否定义清楚？ • 为论证本研究工作所引文献是否充分恰当？ • 研究目的是否定义清楚？ 方法/技术严谨性 • 所用方法对研究目的是否适当？ • 叙述的实验信息是否完整，能让其他研究者重复？ • 是否另需实验来验证该研究结果？ • 补充实验是否能显著提高该文质量？ • 对于已确立的方法，其引用文献是否适当？ 结果/统计 • 结果解释是否清晰，表达方式是否恰当？ • 图表信息是否必要，是否更易于用文字表达？ • 插图和正文内部或二者之间数据有无重复？ • 图表是否易于解读？ • 是否需要补充插图以增加清晰性？ • 有否使用适当的统计学方法来检验结果的显著性？ 讨论 • 有否考虑数据的所有可能解释，是否存在也能解释数据的备择假设？ • 有无在现有文献背景基础上适当说明结果？ • 满足上述标准同时是否引用了适当的参考文献？ • 有无讨论研究局限性？ 结论 • 研究结论是否有适当证据支持，有无夸大？ • 是否清楚讨论了结果的重要性/应用性/意义？ 文献引用 • 所引文献是否全面客观，有无遗漏重要研究，有无过分引用某些研究？ 期刊选择 目标期刊是否恰当？ 语言 稿件行文是否清楚、因此能被该领域以外的研究者理解？ 当你收到退修信和审稿意见时，应仔细研读其中所有评语(包括编辑评语和审稿人评语)，根据需要在稿件中作出相应调整，然后撰写一份详细的回复函。通常需要返回修改稿和回复函(回复函和再投稿信可分为两个文件)，并且需要在规定时间之前返回，否则修改稿将被作为新稿处理。编辑和/或审稿人的所有意见都必须回应，即使你不同意其意见。若你对某点持反对意见，应该礼貌并有理有据地反驳。在反驳时，可以引用某论文来支持你的说法(如该文不在参考文献中，可以考虑将其收入参考文献列表)，可以解释为何某个实验是以某种特定的方式开展的，也可以是解释为何你不按照审稿意见去做补充试验。但无论如何，不要不理睬或忽略审稿意见，因为这只会导致延迟。只有所有意见都妥当回应之后，你的论文才有可能发表。 回复函最好的格式是把编辑和审稿人的意见复制下来，然后在各条意见下面逐条回应。审稿意见和回应要用不同字体加以区分(如正体和斜体)。当提到文中的改动时，给出页码和行号以便迅速查找。把修改前后的文字都复制在回复函中，让人一目了然你如何修改回应审稿意见。通常要在文中标记出主要改动之处以便查找，比如用黄色高亮和/或使用下划线/删除线。最后，若编辑或审稿人要求补充分析或者实验，你应该照办并把数据加入稿件；这会让稿件更富有说服力并增加发表的机会。 实例 清单 1. 不要带着个人情绪去看待拒稿；拒稿的目的是使你的论文更有力和更可靠。 2. 修改稿件来回应编辑和/或审稿人提出的全部意见，并在回复函中说明这些修改。 3. 按要求补充实验或分析，除非你认为这样做意义不大(在这种情况下，需要给出反驳意见)。 4. 对于你不同意的审稿意见,礼貌而地提出有根据的反驳。 5. 用不同字体区分审稿意见和回应。 6. 为回应审稿人意见而在正文中所作的主要改动之处要予以标记，可以用黄色高亮、加下划线，或加删除线等方式。 7. 按期返回修改稿和回复函，以免被当作新投稿处理。 Responding to peer reviewers: dealing with rejection Your papers will be rejected. It is inevitable. The percentage of papers that is accepted and published without the need for any revisions is very small, and even the best scientists, writing up the best science, will face rejection from journals or the need to make revisions before their paper is considered acceptable for publication. Rather than thinking of rejection from your target journal and requests for major revisions as a negative experience, it is important to realize that this is an integral part of the publication process that exists to make your paper as robust and complete as possible before it joins the ‘collective knowledge’ as part of the literature. There are many different possible reasons for rejection from a journal, and most of these have been described in previous tips in this tips series. For example, if you submitted your manuscript to an inappropriate journal it is likely you will receive a rejection letter without the paper even being sent to review. By selecting an appropriate journal (see tip on journal selection) you will increase the chances that your manuscript will be sent out for review. Similarly, a poor cover letter might result in immediate rejection without review, so submitting your manuscript with a good cover letter is essential (see tip on cover letter development). Failure to follow the instructions set out in the target journal’s Guide for Authors is another possible reason for rejection and considered insulting to the journal editors, although it is likely that you will simply receive an invitation to resubmit in the correct format. Other reasons for rejection include flawed study design, poor written language, inappropriate or incompletely explained methodology or statistical tests, incorrect description or overstatement of results, lack of balance or detail in the introduction and/or discussion, or simply a lack of novelty (for example, if your study simply repeats something that has already been done before), significance or relevance. By critically analyzing your paper prior to submission, and considering all of the items that peer reviewers will look at, you will hopefully be able to identify any problems in advance. By following the advice in the tips in this tips series, you will speed up the process from initial submission to publication and make the stages in between considerably less stressful. Therefore, it is worthwhile getting your paper into the best possible form before submitting it anywhere to minimize the likelihood of rejection. In considering peer review and how to address it, it is helpful to think about how a peer reviewer would have approached your paper. Different journals will ask different things of peer reviewers, but in general they will be checking for the following aspects of good science and scientific writing, and asked to comment whenever any of these criteria are not satisfactorily met in the submitted manuscript: Significance • What is the importance of the findings to researchers in the field? • Are the findings of general to interest to researchers in related and broader fields? Novelty • Are the claims in the paper sufficiently novel to warrant publication? • Does the study represent a conceptual advance over previously published work? Introduction • Does the introduction provide sufficient background information for readers not in the immediate field to understand the problem/hypotheses? • Are the reasons for performing the study clearly defined? • Are sufficient and appropriate references cited to justify the work performed? • Are the study objectives clearly defined? Methods/Technical rigor • Are the methods used appropriate to the aims of the study? • Is sufficient information provided for a capable researcher to reproduce the experiments described? • Are any additional experiments required to validate the results of those that were performed? • Are there any additional experiments that would greatly enhance the quality of this paper? • Are appropriate references cited where previously established methods are used? Results/Statistics • Are the results clearly explained and presented in an appropriate format? • Do the figures and tables show essential data or are there any that could easily be summarized in the text? • Is any of the data duplicated in the graphics and/or text? • Are the figures and tables easy to interpret? • Are there any additional graphics that would add clarity to the text? • Have appropriate statistical methods been used to test the significance of the results? Discussion • Are all possible interpretations of the data considered or are there alternative hypotheses that are consistent with the available data? • Are the findings properly described in the context of the published literature? • Are appropriate references cited in meeting the above criterion? • Are the limitations of the study discussed? Conclusion • Are the conclusions of the study supported by appropriate evidence or are the claims exaggerated? • Are the significance/applicability/implications of the findings clearly discussed? Literature cited • Is the literature cited balanced or are there important studies not cited, or other studies disproportionately cited? Journal selection Is the target journal appropriate? Language Is the manuscript clearly written so as to be understandable by researchers not in the immediate field? When you receive a letter of rejection and peer review reports from the journal editor it is important that you carefully study all of the comments (from the editor as well as the reviewers), address these in your manuscript as appropriate, and prepare a detailed response. It is usual to return a revised manuscript and response letter (it is also acceptable to separate the cover letter and responses into different files), and these normally need to be returned within a set period of time or the revised manuscript will be considered as a new submission. It is essential that you respond to all of the points made by the editor and/or reviewers, even if you disagree with them. If you do disagree with a point that has been made, you should provide a polite and scientifically solid rebuttal. This might take the form of a reference to a particular paper that supports your statement (such a paper might need to be added to the reference list of your manuscript if it isn’t already cited), an explanation of why an experiment was performed in a particular way, or an explanation of why you didn’t perform additional experiments recommended by the reviewer. Whatever you do, do not ignore or overlook comments, because this will only lead to delays. Your paper will not be published until all comments are appropriately addressed. The best format for a response letter is to paste in the comments made by the editor and reviewers and write your response beneath each comment. Use different font styles (for example, normal and italics) to differentiate comments from responses. When referring to changes in the text provide the page and line numbers so that these changes can quickly be identified. Copy the new or modified text into the letter so it is immediately clear how your changes address the comment. It is also usual to distinguish major changes in the text in some way, for example, with yellow highlight and/or underline and strikethrough fonts, to make them easy to identify. Finally, if additional analyses or experiments are required to satisfy the editor or reviewers, you should perform them and add the data to your manuscript; these serve to make the final paper stronger and will increase the chances of eventual publication. Example Checklist 1. Don’t take rejection personally; the object is to make your paper stronger and more reliable 2. Address all points raised by the editor and/or reviewers by revising the manuscript and showing the changes in your letter 3. Perform any additional experiments or analyses requested unless you feel that they would not add to the strength of your paper (in which case you should provide a rebuttal) 4. Provide a polite and scientifically solid rebuttal to any points or comments you disagree with 5. Differentiate comments and responses in the letter file by using different font styles 6. Identify major revisions in the text, made in response to peer review comments, with highlight, underline and strikethrough fonts 7. Return the revised manuscript and response letter within the requested time period to avoid your paper being treated as a new submission Dr Daniel McGowan 分子神经学博士 理文编辑学术总监
最近读到一条有意思的社论，与大家分享一下： 众所周知，向期刊投稿的稿件数量要远远超出刊物有限篇幅内可以刊登的文章的数量，为了确保送交同行评审的稿件是达标的，审稿过程就显得尤为重要。ACS Nano 副编辑Jillian M. Buriak在最近一期(2010年9月28日) 的一篇 社论 中介绍了如何避免稿件在进入同行评审前被拒稿。第一，你的文章中是否有亮点足够吸引住读者的眼球。其次是新颖性、原创性，这与第一点紧密相关。有趣的是，这篇社论里面提到了编辑会通过网络搜索来判断文章的新颖性。第三，也是所有作者最容易实现的，就是使稿件的语言符合期刊的投稿要求。文章语言的好坏直接影响到读者对你工作的评价，评论中的一句话就提到如果稿件读起来就很松散，那么读者会自然而然地认为其科学性也同样松散。因此，提交语言过关的稿件以避免在进入同行评审前就被拒稿是至关重要的。有很多方法可以帮助你的稿件顺利进入同行评审，例如，在写作中使用简单易读的句子，让一位同事（两位更好）帮助通读全文，格外注意稿件是否符合期刊的投稿须知。语言清晰简洁、没有语法错误的稿件将为你争取到更多的机会让审稿人对文章的学术价值和作出正确的判断。 原文： As we all know, the number of manuscript submissions to journals vastly outweighs the amount of space journals have to publish. To handle this process and ensure that appropriate manuscripts are sent for peer review, the editorial process has become more important than ever. The editorial in a recent issue ACS Nano (Sept 28 2010) http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/nn1022318 by associate editor Jillian M. Buriak describes rejecting without review and how to avoid it. There are three points that editors use to select the best papers for peer review. First, does your manuscript have the wow factor, will it grab the attention of the journals readership. Second, which is closely related to the first, is novelty, is the work original. Interestingly, editors use internet searches, described in the editorial, to evaluate a manuscripts novelty. The third, and arguably the easiest to achieve for all researchers, is submitting a well-written manuscript that follows the journal requirements. The way a manuscript is written directly affects what people will think about your work, quoting from the editorial If your manuscript looks sloppy, then everyone will assume that your science is equally sloppy. Thus, it is imperative to only submit manuscripts of a high quality language and avoid being rejected without peer review. There are many ways to make sure your manuscript is not rejected prior to peer review including, write the manuscript in simple and easy to read sentences, have a colleague (or two!) read the manuscript and pay close attention to the journals guidelines for authors. By ensuring the manuscript is clear, concise, and free of grammatical errors will give the journal editors the best opportunity to judge your work on the scientific value and suitability for their journal.
前阵子本人将一篇论文投给一个杂志（级别不高，IF2点多），本来抱有一些希望的，没想到外审后被拒，下面是编辑部Decision Letter的部分内容: Dear Dr Zhan, In addition to myself, two expert reviewers in the field have evaluated your manuscript. I regret to inform you that based on this assessment, we are unable to accept your manuscript for publication in******. This is clearly an area of great interest and potential importance, we are looking for analyses such as you have attempted. Unfortunately, as articulated by both reviewers, there are flaws with the approaches of your design. I thought it easier to reject thisarticle in its present form as you may wish to submit elsewhere. On the other hand, if you want to do a major rewrite and perhaps reanalysis on the topic, I'd be prepared to consider itas a completely new article .************************* Prof. ****** Editor-in-Chief 遵照编辑的意见，我按照两位reviewer的意见将论文进行了大修，再次投到原杂志，没想到这次连初审都没通过，请看编辑部回复： Dear Dr Zhan， You previously submitted this ms to****** in a different format; it was reviewed and rejected. I regret to inform you that based on this assessment and earlier fair decision, we are unable to accept this particular version for publication in ************. It is unusual to handle a resubmission of a rejected article; kindly do not send it to us again . 回复的是同一个编辑，他之前的意见并不反对我将文章大修后重投的，而后来我真这么做时却直接拒稿了。 看来是文章的内容实在太次，编辑部都懒得处理了。 一声长叹。。。。。。
Dr. Daneil McGowan论文写作系列第十讲 —— Responding to peer reviewers: dealing with rejection Dr. Daneil McGowan 论文写作系列的中文版本终于与大家见面了，希望大家继续支持！译文见下方。 Your papers will sometimes be rejected. It is inevitable. The percentage of papers that is accepted and published without the need for any revisions is very small, and even the best scientists, writing up the best science, will face rejection from journals or the need to make revisions before their paper is considered acceptable for publication. Rather than thinking of rejection from your target journal and requests for major revisions as a negative experience, it is important to realize that this is an integral part of the publication process that exists to make your paper as robust and complete as possible before it joins the ‘collective knowledge’ as part of the literature. There are many different possible reasons for rejection from a journal, and most of these have been described in previous tips in this tips series. For example, if you submitted your manuscript to an inappropriate journal it is likely you will receive a rejection letter without the paper even being sent to review. By selecting an appropriate journal (see tip on journal selection ) you will increase the chances that your manuscript will be sent out for review. Similarly, a poor cover letter might result in immediate rejection without review, so submitting your manuscript with a good cover letter is essential (see tip on cover letter development ). Failure to follow the instructions set out in the target journal’s Guide for Authors is another possible reason for rejection and considered insulting to the journal editors, although it is likely that you will simply receive an invitation to resubmit in the correct format. Other reasons for rejection include flawed study design , poor written language , inappropriate or incompletely explained methodology or statistical tests , incorrect description or overstatement of results, lack of balance or detail in the introduction and/or discussion, or simply a lack of novelty (for example, if your study simply repeats something that has already been done before), significance or relevance. By critically analyzing your paper prior to submission, and considering all of the items that peer reviewers will look at, you will hopefully be able to identify any problems in advance. By following the advice in the tips in this tips series, you will speed up the process from initial submission to publication and make the stages in between considerably less stressful. Therefore, it is worthwhile getting your paper into the best possible form before submitting it anywhere to minimize the likelihood of rejection. In considering peer review and how to address it, it is helpful to think about how a peer reviewer would have approached your paper. Different journals will ask different things of peer reviewers, but in general they will be checking for the following aspects of good science and scientific writing, and asked to comment whenever any of these criteria are not satisfactorily met in the submitted manuscript: Significance What is the importance of the findings to researchers in the field? Are the findings of general to interest to researchers in related and broader fields? Novelty Are the claims in the paper sufficiently novel to warrant publication? Does the study represent a conceptual advance over previously published work? Introduction Does the introduction provide sufficient background information for readers not in the immediate field to understand the problem/hypotheses? Are the reasons for performing the study clearly defined? Are sufficient and appropriate references cited to justify the work performed? Are the study objectives clearly defined? Methods/Technical rigor Are the methods used appropriate to the aims of the study? Is sufficient information provided for a capable researcher to reproduce the experiments described? Are any additional experiments required to validate the results of those that were performed? Are there any additional experiments that would greatly enhance the quality of this paper? Are appropriate references cited where previously established methods are used? Results/Statistics Are the results clearly explained and presented in an appropriate format? Do the figures and tables show essential data or are there any that could easily be summarized in the text? Is any of the data duplicated in the graphics and/or text? Are the figures and tables easy to interpret? Are there any additional graphics that would add clarity to the text? Have appropriate statistical methods been used to test the significance of the results? Discussion Are all possible interpretations of the data considered or are there alternative hypotheses that are consistent with the available data? Are the findings properly described in the context of the published literature? Are appropriate references cited in meeting the above criterion? Are the limitations of the study discussed Conclusion Are the conclusions of the study supported by appropriate evidence or are the claims exaggerated? Are the significance/applicability/implications of the findings clearly discussed? Literature cited Is the literature cited balanced or are there important studies not cited, or other studies disproportionately cited? Journal selection Is the target journal appropriate? Language Is the manuscript clearly written so as to be understandable by researchers not in the immediate field? When you receive a letter of rejection and peer review reports from the journal editor it is important that you carefully study all of the comments (from the editor as well as the reviewers), address these in your manuscript as appropriate, and prepare a detailed response. It is usual to return a revised manuscript and response letter (it is also acceptable to separate the cover letter and responses into different files), and these normally need to be returned within a set period of time or the revised manuscript will be considered as a new submission. It is essential that you respond to all of the points made by the editor and/or reviewers, even if you disagree with them. If you do disagree with a point that has been made, you should provide a polite and scientifically solid rebuttal. This might take the form of a reference to a particular paper that supports your statement (such a paper might need to be added to the reference list of your manuscript if it isn’t already cited), an explanation of why an experiment was performed in a particular way, or an explanation of why you didn’t perform additional experiments recommended by the reviewer. Whatever you do, do not ignore or overlook comments, because this will only lead to delays. Your paper will not be published until all comments are appropriately addressed. The best format for a response letter is to paste in the comments made by the editor and reviewers and write your response beneath each comment. Use different font styles (for example, normal and italics) to differentiate comments from responses. When referring to changes in the text provide the page and line numbers so that these changes can quickly be identified. Copy the new or modified text into the letter so it is immediately clear how your changes address the comment. It is also usual to distinguish major changes in the text in some way, for example, with yellow highlight and/or underline and strikethrough fonts, to make them easy to identify. Finally, if additional analyses or experiments are required to satisfy the editor or reviewers, you should perform them and add the data to your manuscript; these serve to make the final paper stronger and will increase the chances of eventual publication. Example Checklist Don’t take rejection personally; the object is to make your paper stronger and more reliable Address all points raised by the editor and/or reviewers by revising the manuscript and showing the changes in your letter Perform any additional experiments or analyses requested unless you feel that they would not add to the strength of your paper (in which case you should provide a rebuttal) Provide a polite and scientifically solid rebuttal to any points or comments you disagree with Differentiate comments and responses in the letter file by using different font styles Identify major revisions in the text, made in response to peer review comments, with highlight, underline and strikethrough fonts Return the revised manuscript and response letter within the requested time period to avoid your paper being treated as a new submission 回复审稿人：冷静应对拒稿 论文有可能被拒。谁都被拒过稿。只字不改就接受的论文极少，即使是最优秀的科学家，最漂亮的研究，也照样可能被拒或者被要求修改。不要消极对待目标期刊拒稿和退修要求，而应把它视为发表过程的一个环节，其目的是为了让你的论文在科学上尽可能更健全，以便将来被录用为科学文献，并成为“集体知识”的一部分。 期刊拒稿有各种原因，大多数在本系列讲座的前文中已经提及。 比如，如果对拟投期刊的选择不当，就有可能不送去审稿便直接拒稿。期刊定位恰当才能增加稿件获得同行评议的机会(参见 第六讲“选择合适的目标期刊” 中的注意事项)。同理，拙劣的投稿信也可能造成不经审稿便直接拒稿(参见第三讲“ 如何写出吸引读者的‘cover letter’” 中的注意事项)。违反目标期刊《稿约》的规定可能被期刊编辑认为不尊重对方，从而造成拒稿，当然更可能的是被要求修改格式后再投。其他拒稿原因包括 研究设计 有缺陷、论文写作 语言水平 不合格、研究方法或 统计检验 选择或解释不当、结果叙述不当或夸大其辞、引言和/或讨论不客观公正或缺乏细节；或者就是缺乏新颖性(比如你的研究只是简单重复别人已发表的工作) 、重要性或相关性。投稿之前严格分析你的论文，考虑审稿人会着眼的所有要素，你就可能提前发现这些问题。照着本讲座系列中的经验来做，就能加快从初投到录用的进度，并让其间的各个阶段相对顺利。所以，在投稿前值得尽全力完善文稿质量，以减小拒稿的可能。 关于同行审稿和如何应付，可以考虑一下审稿人会如何处理你的稿件。不同的期刊对审稿人的要求各不相同，但是他们基本上都会要求审稿人审查你的稿件是否满足如下这些良好科研和写作的要素；如果你的稿件不满足其中某项，审稿人还要写出相关评语。 重要性 结果对该领域的重要性是什么？ 结果是否对会受到相关和更广范围的研究者关注？ 新颖性 文中的主张是否足够新颖、因此值得发表？ 研究是否在已有发表工作基础上取得进展？ 引言 是否提供充分的背景信息，让非本领域读者能理解研究问题/假说？ 研究的理由是否定义清楚？ 为论证本研究工作所引文献是否充分恰当？ 研究目的是否定义清楚？ 方法/技术严谨性 所用方法对研究目的是否适当？ 叙述的实验信息是否完整，能让其他研究者重复？ 是否另需实验来验证该研究结果？ 补充实验是否能显著提高该文质量？ 对于已确立的方法，其引用文献是否适当？ 结果/统计 结果解释是否清晰，表达方式是否恰当？ 图表信息是否必要，是否更易于用文字表达？ 插图和正文内部或二者之间数据有无重复？ 图表是否易于解读？ 是否需要补充插图以增加清晰性？ 有否使用适当的统计学方法来检验结果的显著性？ 讨论 有否考虑数据的所有可能解释，是否存在也能解释数据的备择假设？ 有无在现有文献背景基础上适当说明结果？ 满足上述标准同时是否引用了适当的参考文献？ 有无讨论研究局限性？ 结论 研究结论是否有适当证据支持，有无夸大？ 是否清楚讨论了结果的重要性/应用性/意义？ 文献引用 所引文献是否全面客观，有无遗漏重要研究，有无过分引用某些研究？ 期刊选择 目标期刊是否恰当？ 语言 稿件行文是否清楚、因此能被该领域以外的研究者理解？ 当你收到退修信和审稿意见时，应仔细研读其中所有评语(包括编辑评语和审稿人评语)，根据需要在稿件中作出相应调整，然后撰写一份详细的回复函。通常需要返回修改稿和回复函(回复函和再投稿信可分为两个文件)，并且需要在规定时间之前返回，否则修改稿将被作为新稿处理。编辑和/或审稿人的所有意见都必须回应，即使你不同意其意见。若你对某点持反对意见，应该礼貌并有理有据地反驳。在反驳时，可以引用某论文来支持你的说法(如该文不在参考文献中，可以考虑将其收入参考文献列表)，可以解释为何某个实验是以某种特定的方式开展的，也可以是解释为何你不按照审稿意见去做补充试验。但无论如何，不要不理睬或忽略审稿意见，因为这只会导致延迟。只有所有意见都妥当回应之后，你的论文才有可能发表。 回复函最好的格式是把编辑和审稿人的意见复制下来，然后在各条意见下面逐条回应。审稿意见和回应要用不同字体加以区分(如正体和斜体)。当提到文中的改动时，给出页码和行号以便迅速查找。把修改前后的文字都复制在回复函中，让人一目了然你如何修改回应审稿意见。通常要在文中标记出主要改动之处以便查找，比如用黄色高亮和/或使用下划线/删除线。最后，若编辑或审稿人要求补充分析或者实验，你应该照办并把数据加入稿件；这会让稿件更富有说服力并增加发表的机会。 实例 切记 1. 不要带着个人情绪去看待拒稿；拒稿的目的是使你的论文更有力和更可靠。 2. 修改稿件来回应编辑和/或审稿人提出的全部意见，并在回复函中说明这些修改。 3. 按要求补充实验或分析，除非你认为这样做意义不大(在这种情况下，需要给出反驳意见)。 4. 对于你不同意的审稿意见,礼貌而地提出有根据的反驳。 5. 用不同字体区分审稿意见和回应。 6. 为回应审稿人意见而在正文中所作的主要改动之处要予以标记，可以用黄色高亮、加下划线，或加删除线等方式。 7. 按期返回修改稿和回复函，以免被当作新投稿处理。 在这里还需提请各位注意，Dr. McGowan 的母语是英语，无法阅读中文，因此请大家尽量使用英文回帖，如有任何需要与他沟通的学术和语言问题也请使用英语，Dr. McGowan 会及时回复大家的。 Dr. Daniel McGowan 曾任 Nature Reviews Neuroscience 副编辑，负责约稿，管理和撰写期刊内容。于2006年加入理文编辑（Edanz Group） 并从2008年起担任学术总监。Dr. Daniel McGowan 有超过十年的博士后和研究生阶段实验室研究经验，主要致力于神经退化疾病、分子及细胞生物学、蛋白质生物化学、蛋白质组学和基因组学。
标签: 拒稿
