Table 4.

Process of re-submission after rejection.

Step 1: Learning from the rejection

If the paper was rejected by the editor without peer review, then read the editor feedback. Carefully. If the editor thought it was their type of paper but not of sufficient quality or innovation then consider re-submitting to a similar type of journal. Or if the editor thought it was not their type of paper, then re-consider the type of journal you are submitting to.

2.If the paper was rejected after peer review, then this is good news; the editor thought it worth considering for their journal so you are in the zone both in study quality and in choice of journal. Read the peer reviewer comments. Carefully and non-defensively. Their comments will inform your decision about the next journal. If they identify issues you can fix then fix them and learn from their feedback for your future writing endeavours. If they identify issues you cannot fix, e.g., sample size is too small, then ensure these limitations are noted in the manuscript and consider aiming lower down the journal impact factor food chain. 3.Sometimes editors offer transfer to an associated, generally lower impact factor, journal. Aspects to consider are: (a) how does the impact factor of the proposed journal differ from the planned next target journal? A big difference may mean that accepting the transfer would be aiming too low. (b) Can you afford the Article Processing Charge for the proposed journal? (c) Although it might initially seem like the easy option not involving any manuscript editing, sometimes there is significant re-writing into the new journal style requested of the author immediately the journal is transferred, so review the proposed new journal author guidelines before accepting the transfer.

4.In any event, and especially if the editor rejects without giving any useful feedback, re-read the components which the editor will skim in order to come to an initial view: cover letter, title, abstract and any journal-specific preface sections (e.g., What was known before and what this study adds; implications for practice). Are these in the right scientific voice, and as clear and interesting as possible?

Step 2: Identify the new target journal

Journal Impact Factor: although there are many issues with this metric (see the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) [40]), impact factor currently reigns supreme in evaluating your research profile within health research, so aim high. Ensure you are using the Journal Citation Report (JCR) two-year metric [41] published by Clarivate Analytics (previously by Thomson Reuters), not the JCR five-year metric, not other credible but not-yet-accepted metrics such as Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) (Www.scimagojr.com) (accessed on 10 April 2021), Altmetric (www.altmetric.com) (accessed on 10 April 2021) or Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP)/CiteScore (www.scopus.com/sources) (accessed on 10 April 2021), and definitely not the bogus impact factor metrics used by predatory journals.

2.Audience: are you targeting the right type of journal readership? Will the take-home messages from your paper be both relevant and informative to this audience? 3.Article Processing Charge (APC): increasingly (with the Berlin Declaration [openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration], Plan S [www.coalition-s.org] (accessed on 10 April 2021) and hybrid and Transformative Journals) journals levy APCs on authors—do budget limitations restrict your new target journal choices?

4.Academic discipline: if you plan to change from e.g., a psychiatry journal to a social sciences journal then that requires a different writing voice, with different assumptions about audience knowledge, which will be more work to revise than for a target journal from the same discipline.

5.Specific journal: identify a possible new target journal, if needed using advice from colleagues. Scan some recent paper titles published by that journal. Are they close enough in focus to your paper that the editor might assess your paper as in scope? Are they using the same language or will targeting the journal involve significant revision?

Step 3: Revise the manuscript

Read the journal author guidelines and scan recent papers to identify what needs to be edited, which might include

1.Voice: what disciplinary or professional voice does the journal publish in? Can you write in that voice? If not, consider drawing in a new co-author to support.

2.Structure: some journals want very short Introductions, others very long. Make the manuscript feel to the editor like ‘one of our papers’.

3.Fully follow the author guidelines. Delete any sections no longer needed. If there are new sections to complete (e.g., ‘What does this study contribute?’) then give them the same attention as the rest of the text received in its initial development.

4.Spelling: ensure to use British English (‘randomised’) or US English (‘randomized’) as per journal style, and consistently throughout. To supplement your careful proof-reading, set Language in Microsoft Word to ‘English (United Kingdom)’ or ‘English (United States)’ and check spelling.

5.Title: ensure your title looks like other recently-published titles from the target journal.

6.Abstract: this is central, and is the main component that many editors will read before deciding whether to reject or send for review. Ensure it reads like other abstracts of recent papers in the target journal.

7.Examples: ensure you know what country the journal is based in, which might be obvious from title (e.g., Canadian Journal of Psychiatry) or might not (e.g., Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences is Italian). Ideally include some examples relating to your topic from the journal’s country, or as a minimum if there are several examples ensure they do not all come from the same different country.

8.References: some journals have a maximum, which might involve significant re-shaping of the content. Ensure references are formatted per journal requirements, which is why you should be using bibliographic software. For the previous submission you may have included some tangentially-relevant references to papers in that journal—delete these. Ensure you have at least three references, including ideally the first citation, to papers published in the target journal in the last two years.

9.Document name: Ensure all traces of the previous journal submission are expunged—do not submit a file named ‘Study for BMJ.docx’ to the British Journal of Psychiatry! Ensure revised cover letter is specific to the new journal.

Step 4: Re-submit to the new target journal