01 The rejection rate of Frontiers reached over 70% in seconds
It is normal for articles to be rejected. But recently, it seems that there are especially many people who have been rejected!
Recently, someone said: Frontiers’ recent submissions are always rejected in seconds. They are not submitting to the same article, but they still reject each time in seconds. I don’t know what I did wrong.....
Under normal circumstances, after a manuscript is rejected, the editor of the journal will generally give some comments. Like what the friend said, I don’t know where I didn’t get it right, but it’s just been rejected all the time, and the phenomenon of not giving any review comments of course also exists. ...It's just that if you are always rejected after receiving review comments or substantive suggestions, then you have to be clear that this is a high probability of Desk Reject , which means that the journal editor did not send the article to the Reviewer, but directly rejected the manuscript.
Indeed, at the end of March, someone posted a warning on the Lilac Garden Forum: They said that they were too busy, referring to the recent SCI rejection incident, so there may be many desk rejections in the near future.
Based on everyone's discussion, I found that there are indeed a lot of instant rejections in the Frontiers series recently, and the instant rejection rate is as high as 70% . Some people also said that articles in external review may also be rejected in seconds!
Some time ago, a pheasant anonymous academic website made the Frontiers series popular. In addition, the Provincial Hospital and Zhejiang Gongshang University blocked the entire Frontiers series... It is not difficult to see that under the background of current public opinion, the submission requirements for the Frontiers series are getting higher and higher .
02 How to Avoid Article Desk Reject
[1] The article may not match the scope of the target journal (Aim and Scope)
Solution: Carefully study the collection scope (Aim and Scope) of the target journal; search whether the target journal has published articles similar to your own in the past 3 years.
[2] The format of your own article may not meet the format requirements of the target journal
Solution: Download the manuscript submission guidelines/instructions from the journal’s official website, study them carefully, and revise them in strict accordance with the journal’s official website submission guidelines/instructions, and then submit after revision.
Things to pay attention to include: whether there is a lack of documents (such as ethics statement, Highlights, Graphical Abstract, Cover Letter, etc.), chart format (whether there is a requirement for the number of charts, the size of the chart, resolution), reference format, article word count requirements, etc. .
【3】It may be related to the amount of manuscripts submitted to the current journal
If the target journal receives a lot of submissions, it is very introverted and it is difficult for your own article to stand out. The editor of the journal is busy or chooses to reject the manuscript directly due to the limited space of the journal, but it has nothing to do with the content of the article itself.
Solution: Choose journals carefully and avoid hot journals. There is an Acceptance rate on the homepage of some journals. According to the number of papers published each year, the number of manuscripts submitted to the journal can be inferred.
[4] The innovation of the article is insufficient, and the research significance is not great
Solution: Clearly explain the innovation and significance of the research in the Cover letter; downshift to submit;
Carefully study the important literature and the latest literature in this field (in the past 3 years), explore the research gaps and innovations in this research field; consult experts, discuss your idea with colleagues, but pay attention to confidentiality
[5] There are serious flaws and errors in research design or demonstration or data analysis
Solution: Study the literature with similar scores (IF), and learn from its research design and argumentation logic; you can refer to various research norms + consult experts;
Double-check the content of the manuscript and review whether the experimental research steps are clearly described; in the discussion section, the limitations of this study can be discussed.
03 Frontiers Series Submission Guidelines
【1】Under the current public opinion background, can the Frontiers series be cast?
1. Unless peer review is manipulated, SCIs that follow normal procedures are not easy to publish. Especially for popular journals with rich sources of manuscripts, as mentioned above, the rejection of Frontiers manuscripts is a high-probability event, rather than the so-called payment that is rumored to be published.
2. Some people question that Frontiers is too friendly to students, but 99% of the fake retracted papers come from experimental papers. In contrast, Shengxin does not need to falsify, it pursues the mutual verification between big data, and then uses experiments to prove the accuracy of predictions.
3. As for why some units began to block the Frontiers series? If you have been hanged and beaten when you enter the unit, you know that there is no money to give rewards...
Therefore, if the target journal has not been excluded from SCI by Clarivate Analytics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has not or has not issued an early warning, and there is no red-headed document in the unit clearly stating that it will not be reimbursed, why can't you submit to Frontiers?
【2】Can articles rejected by Frontiers be resubmitted to other journals in the Frontiers series?
You can vote instead.
Soon after submitting your manuscript, you will receive a journal resubmission request, indicating that your manuscript has been rejected by Frontiers journals. Please provide a detailed explanation to prove that the quality of your manuscript has been greatly improved, and then submit again.
After preparing these, submit again. If the quality of the paper does not improve significantly, the fate may be worrying. Still give it a go if the quality goes up a bit!
【3】How to predict the fate of manuscripts in advance from the Frontiers review system
The Frontiers review system includes 7 review stages of manuscripts, and the status of Frontiers system in different review stages has different meanings:
In the EA stage, you can see the Review is ongoing status in the review system , indicating that the academic editor has recommended rejection suggestions to the editor-in-chief, implying a high probability of rejection. The reason for this status is often the wrong forum and topic. If you maintain this status for too long, request to reject the manuscript or issue a rejection notice to save time.
In the RF stage, the review is ongoing status appears again in the review system, which also prompts a high probability of rejecting the manuscript. If you maintain this status for too long, you can also write directly to the editorial department to request rejection or a rejection notice.
In the IR stage, if the system shows that the number of rejection votes of the reviewers exceeds the number of acceptance votes, and the editor gives a rejection suggestion, the system will prompt the contributor to upload the revised manuscript or reply to the review comments within 7 days. This is the modularization of the system. For informal rejection letters, you don't need to waste time preparing for resubmission at this time .
In the IR stage, the system displays review is ongoing, indicating that the reviewer is reviewing the manuscript, and multiple Review is ongoing indicates that multiple reviewers are reviewing the manuscript.
In the IR stage, the system displays Review of Reviewer 1 is finalized, indicating that the first reviewer has completed the review and recommended acceptance to the editor.
In the FV stage, a √ mark appears, indicating that the manuscript must be accepted.
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