Page 124 - How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 8th Edition 8th Edition

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new manuscript and try again, but in a different journal.

Cheer up. You may someday have enough rejection letters to paper a wall with them. You may even begin to
appreciate the delicate phrasing that is sometimes used. Could a letter such as the following possibly hurt? (This is
reputedly a rejection slip from a Chinese economics journal.)

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We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us
to publish any work of a lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that, in the next thousand years, we shall see its
equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook
our short sight and timidity.

Editors As Gatekeepers

Perhaps the most important point to remember, whether dealing with a modify or a reject, is that the editor is a
mediator between you and the reviewers. If you deal with the editor respectfully, and if you can defend your work
scientifically, most of your "modifies" and even your "rejects" will in time become published papers. The editor and
the reviewers are usually on your side. Their primary function is to help you express yourself effectively and provide
you with an assessment of the science involved. It is to your advantage to cooperate with them in all ways possible.
The possible outcomes of the editorial process were neatly described by Morgan (1986): "The modern metaphor for
editing would be a car wash through which all cars headed for a goal must pass. Very dirty cars are turned away; dirty
cars emerge much cleaner, while clean cars are little changed."

Having spent the proverbial "more years than I care to remember" working with a great many editors, I am totally
convinced that, were it not for the gatekeeper role so valiantly maintained by editors, our scientific journals would
soon be reduced to unintelligible gibberish.

No matter how you are treated by editors, try somehow to maintain a bit of sympathy for members of that benighted
profession. H. L. Mencken, one of my favorite authors (literary, that is), wrote a letter dated 25 January 1936 to
William Saroyan, saying, "I note what you say about your aspiration to edit a magazine. I am sending you by this mail
a six-chambered revolver. Load it and fire every one into your head. You will thank me after you get to Hell and learn
from other editors how dreadful their job was on earth."

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