Establishing Sensible and Practical Guidelines for Desk Rejections

Abstract

Publishing has become, in several respects, more challenging in recent years. Academics are faced with evolving ethics that appear to be more stringent in a bid to reduce scientific fraud, the emergence of science watchdogs that are now scrutinizing the published literature with critical eyes to hold academics, editors and publishers more accountable, and a barrage of checks and balances that are required between when a paper is submitted and eventually accepted, to ensure quality control. Scientists are often under increasing pressure to produce papers in an increasingly stringent publishing environment. In such a climate, timing is everything, as is the efficiency of the process. Academics appreciate that rejections are part of the fabric of attempting to get a paper published, but they expect the reason to be clear, based on careful evaluation of their work, and not on superficial or unsubstantiated excuses. A desk rejection occurs when a paper gets rejected even before it has entered the peer review process. This paper examines the features of some desk rejections and offers some guidelines that would make desk rejections valid, fair and ethical. Academics who publish are under constant pressure to do so quickly, but effectively. They are dependent on the editors' good judgment and the publisher's procedures. Unfair, unsubstantiated, or tardy desk rejections disadvantage academics, and editors and publishers must be held accountable for wasting their time, resources, and patience.

Conflicts of Interest Arising from Simultaneous Service by Editors of Competing Journals or Publishers

“…They thus often have responsibilities associated with that work, and stress or pressure caused by severe time and other constraints. Effective, dedicated and timely editorial handling may be compromised by excessive tasks, overburdening editors and ultimately victimizing authors, e.g., in manuscript mishandling, excessively long editorial decisions [57] or unfair desk rejections [58].…”

The importance for journals to publish commentaries and letters to the editor in the age of COVID-19

“…25 Finally, the acceptance or desk rejection of a L2E should be swift since they are usually limited to a few hundred words that can be screened within a few hours or days, at most. 26 A message needs to be sent to biomedical journals that do not publish L2Es and commentaries: rethink your editorial policies to accommodate these forms of scholarly dialogue and expression to allow for an equal-minded open and transparent approach to commentary and critique, even more so when critical analysis is needed, not only of COVID-19 literature, but all social, biomedical and healthcare papers. Authors should also be aware that under the current flood of COVID-19-related papers, that editors are also under pressure, and even L2Es, despite their brevity, can compound the pressure to effectively process information in their journal.…”

Other Voices: International Manuscripts Published in The Family Journal: Calling for a Mentor

“…The issues included in Table 1 guide editors of scientific journals in making decisions regarding the course of the review process. While there is controversy regarding whether the conflict of interest or bias of the editor may systematically block publication, especially in resistance to new ideas, there is a general agreement that it is desirable for desk editing to speed up processing and release authors to submit to other journals (Teixeira et al, 2018).…”

“…Desk editing is a common practice in scientific journals used to improve the flow in the review process and the overall quality of published manuscripts (Teixeira et al, 2018). As many as 50% of articles are desk rejected in medical and scientific journals, raising ethical questions related to conflicts of interest and contributing to concerns regarding the accuracy (or bias) implicit in systematic reviews and meta-analyses of published articles (Topper & Boehr, 2018).…”