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The most rejections you’ve received on a paper?

In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

What is the highest number of rejections you’ve ever received on a single paper? I have a paper that is now on its seventh rejection- not even an R&R. I’ve gotten some useful feedback. And I genuinely try to improve the paper in light of it. But I mostly find the reviewer comments to be trivial, misunderstand the paper, sometimes conflicting, or else unhelpful.

My record is 14 (it’s now one of my most-cited papers!). I’ve given up on papers before, but my recommendation is to keep at it until you’re convinced that a paper is hopeless.

What about the rest of you? What’s your record (and the paper’s ultimate fate)?

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27 responses to “The most rejections you’ve received on a paper?”

  1. Godwinian

    I’ve never gone past three or four rejections. At that point, I either give the paper up (maybe I’ll think about returning to it in a few years’ time) or it is accepted.
    I differ from Marcus in recommending – if I’d recommend to others what to do – to stop after, say, five rejections. If that many people are judging that my paper is non-publishable, then I defer to their judgement.
    Beyond clogging up the review system (surely there are too many papers being submitted that are simply not publishable), there is also the psychological impact of rejection. I really struggle with this and I suspect I’m better off ditching a paper than suffering ten more crushing rejections (it’s the hope, the hope…).
    Of course, Marcus’s paper is evidence that a paper can be rejected many times and still turn out to be a worthwhile contribution to the literature. If this is not an exception, then I guess I view things wrongly. I’d love some reliable stats on this (something like citations vs. number of times rejected before acceptance), but in their absence I’ll stick with my approach.

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  2. me?

    I cannot remember, but I am a bit more like Godwinian than Marcus. I give up after four rejections. Here is a different statistic that addresses a question Godwinian raises. My 10 most cited papers (all of which have been cited more than 50 times) were never rejected by more than two journals before being accepted for publication. In fact, I think 7 of them were published in the first journal that I sent them to. So I am reticent to draw an inference from Marcus’ one highly cited paper.

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  3. Earlycareer

    My most rejected paper (5!) is also my most respected. Odd how these things turn out.

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  4. 18

    My record is 18 (and no, it’s not one of my most cited). But after that it’s 7. That a paper has been rejected from a journal doesn’t mean they think it’s non-publishable; it just means the editor isn’t going to publish it. There could be all sorts of reasons: fit, space, overlap. And there’s no magic number for when a paper is hopeless. That will always depend on the paper and where you’re submitting it. Getting your paper rejected by Phil Review, JPhil, Mind, and Nous isn’t indicative of much of anything.

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  5. Anony

    I had a paper accepted after eight straight rejections.
    These rejections included:
    -Two desk rejections.
    -A rejection where a reviewer said that my argument offended them. I have never seen that before.
    -A rejection from a single reviewer who said that the issue I was discussing had already been solved a couple decades ago by a short, obscure article. I wonder who that reviewer could have been???
    -The rest were rejections of the standard variety. “Here are a bunch of objections that show why your position is wrong.” Almost all of these reviewers objected in different ways to different parts of my argument. Many of these objections were objections that I spent pages discussing in my paper.
    Accounting for all of these objections would have turned a 10k word paper into an unpublishably-long paper. So, after trying to tweak my paper to account for the first couple reviewers, I gave up on that and just started submitting the original version. Eventually, I got friendly reviewers, and my paper was published after an R&R.
    So, I recommend just mentally treating it as a crapshoot. If you are confident that your paper is of high-enough quality to get published, just keep rolling the dice. (I understand that some people view this attitude as part of the current publishing problem. I get that worry, but I think this is a collective action problem where we cannot demand one academic to take on the burdens of submitting less when no one else is.)
    Of course, if some of the objections cause you to re-think the viability of the paper, then it might be worth abandoning (or significantly altering). But I do not think that there is some magic number of rejections that should cause you to give up.

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  6. Dan Weiskopf

    I think my most-rejected is “Patrolling the Mind’s Boundaries,” which was rejected five times before being accepted. The earliest version of it is from 2004, and it reached print in 2007. Along the way it was revised once for a journal that later rejected it, but otherwise not substantially changed. Google Scholar says it’s been cited 90 times (take that with the usual caveats) and I know of a few direct replies to it. I’m not making any claims about the paper’s general importance here, just replying to the OP’s direct question, although I have papers that were accepted on the first submission with no revisions required that have been mentioned far less. It’s often extremely arbitrary what gets cited and discussed. I’m also definitely not advancing any claims about the wisdom of this approach. I was pre-tenure, hence motivated, but also just very stubborn.

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  7. Michel

    My record is 14 (but maybe it’s 15 on a technicality). It was finally accepted the other day.
    It’s a very good paper, and has been for years (it was always good, but it definitely improved over the first several rejections), but it takes a hard line that I guess rubs some people the wrong way. The other day I got word from the latest journal that they have a several-year backlog, but the editor, who does quite a bit of work in the subfield, was very excited about it and wondered whether I might be interested in submitting it for a collected volume he has put together instead. I agreed. So maybe that makes 15 on a technicality, since it won’t be out in that journal. But really, it’s 14.
    Before that, the record was 7 (and 5 before that). Both of those papers are out in very good generalist journals, but they’re in a subfield that doesn’t get much play in generalist journals, so that influenced their rejection rate, I think.

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  8. go figure

    Interestingly, my most-rejected paper (four rejections) is also my most-cited, now cited in the bibliographies of a few SEP entries.

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  9. no hard-and-fast rule

    I had a paper get rejected (outright, not after an R&R) 5 times, accepted at the 6th journal I tried. It’s now my most-cited paper by a factor of 10.
    A few of the first journals I tried were long-shots, and the paper is on a topic about which there is excessive gatekeeping among experts (imo). So there’s an explanation of why it didn’t get published for a while. Since those sorts of things make a difference to how long it is reasonable to keep trying, I don’t think there can be a rule like “stop after 5 rejections.”

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  10. Daniel Weltman

    My most rejected paper that has not been published has been rejected 15 or 16 times, depending on if you count a revise and resubmit as a rejection or not. My most rejected paper that has been published was rejected 6 times, 7 if you count an R&R as a rejection.

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  11. keep going!

    I have a paper that landed in Philosophical Quarterly. That was the eighth journal I sent it to. Of course, I was making improvements throughout those many submissions — ignoring most reviewer comments, which were often conflicting, trivial, or even downright nasty, but trying to respond to the ones that seemed helpful. With how many good journals there are, I can’t imagine giving up after only four rejections, especially if you’re early career and need to build a publication record. The repeated rejection does sting, but that’s the business – and of course it’s nothing compared to the repeated rejection one gets on the job market.

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  12. Trevor Hedberg

    “Appraising Objections to Practical Apatheism” (which I coauthored with Jordan Huzarevich) was rejected many times before landing an R&R in Philosophia and eventually being published there. I wrote about that experience a while back: https://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2016/09/long-journeys-into-print-part-2-trevor-hedberg.html
    I mentioned in that writeup that Jordan and I were approaching double digits in rejections. When I went back and looked at my notes, I could confirm at least 7 rejections. I think we sent it to Religious Studies after that (where it was also rejected) and then sent it to Philosophia. If that’s correct, that would make 8 rejections in total.
    Regarding how many rejections to endure before abandoning a project, I think that’s a very difficult question. Jordan and I had discussed it after the 7th rejection, but I think we had earmarked at least 5 more journals to submit to. I definitely think stopping after 5 rejections would be way too hasty in most cases, though. Most good journals have 90%+ rejection rates, which means you could accumulate quite a few rejections in a row even if your paper is very good.

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  13. Modernist

    12

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  14. East Coaster

    Thanks for this! I have a paper I feel good about that’s been rejected 6 times (2x desk, 2x split, 1x reviewer reject, 1x R&R). It’s on its seventh journal, and I really like the paper but wasn’t sure if I should give up. It’s been presented twice at prestigious refereed conferences and people always like it, so the difficulty placing it has been frustrating. This gives me hope!

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  15. Overseas Tenured

    I have a few papers that were rejected 8 or 9 times. They all ended up in top-20 and sometimes top-10 journals. Some of them are reasonably well-cited.
    If I become convinced that the argument is completely unsalvagable, then I abandon the paper irrespective of how many times the paper was rejected (this happened only once, and it was a paper that I never submitted anywhere in the first place). But otherwise I never give up after any number of rejections. I don’t defer to the judgments of any number of reviewers if their reasons for rejecting the paper strike me as poor. I’m probably lucky because rejection doesn’t have any negative psychological effect on me. I just move on to the next journal, making whatever revisions I judge necessary, with the absolute certainty that eventually patience will overcome bad luck.
    If you are convinced that you have a good point and a good argument for it, I’d recommend not giving up after any number of rejections (unless you run out of journals where you’d be happy to see the piece published, but for me that would take around 40 rejections).

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  16. Assistant Prof

    12 rejections. It’s my second most-cited paper.

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  17. Ten

    “Political vandalism as counter-speech” was accepted after 2 years since first submission, 5 desk rejections, 1 rejection after R&R. It was my primary writing sample until I got a job.

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  18. haven’t practiced my own philosophy

    I agree that there is no magic number that should stop you from submitting a paper that you believe to be decent enough. But! If I have to give a magic number, I would say 20. It is partly grounded in the comment section where no one exceeds that number, partly just a taste in numbers.
    Of course, if the faith in the paper is lost along the way, then… sure.

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  19. me?

    I am a bit concerned when people suggest that it is a crapshoot. That is not quite right. I would bet that any paper that was submitted 6+ times was either (i) submitted prematurely, and/or (ii) submitted to the wrong journals. There needs to be more reflection and response to the “feedback” we are getting from journals. It really is a strain on the system to be sending a paper to 6+ journals.
    Consider this. Why do some journals have a 90% rejection rate? Because they are getting many submissions that (i) are not yet ready for any journal, and (ii) are not suited to their journal. If these issues are addressed, then the rejection rates will go down of course. And this is not just a collective action problem – an individual philosopher gains nothing from sending manuscripts into journals that are unfinished or inappropriate for the journal.

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  20. grymes

    I’ve had three articles rejected from 4 or 5 journals before acceptance, about ten articles accepted at the first or second journal I sent them, and two articles (at least temporarily) abandoned after rejection from 3 journals. I became convinced that the latter two need serious rewrites, though I still believe in their core ideas.
    ‘me?’ writes: “Why do some journals have a 90% rejection rate? Because they are getting many submissions that (i) are not yet ready for any journal, and (ii) are not suited to their journal. If these issues are addressed, then the rejection rates will go down of course.”
    I don’t think this is true. Journals have limited space, and benefit from the prestige that follows from low acceptance rates. Top philosophy journals don’t have lower acceptance rates than Science and Nature because they receive a higher percentage of half-baked or unsuitable submissions. They have lower acceptance rates because that’s how they manufacture prestige. (Clearer and more widely accepted methodological standards provide science journals with ways of manufacturing prestige that are harder to come by in philosophy.)

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  21. Circe

    “-A rejection from a single reviewer who said that the issue I was discussing had already been solved a couple decades ago by a short, obscure article. I wonder who that reviewer could have been???”
    I often find myself writing in reports how an author’s argument should take account of existing literature. So I wish people wouldn’t be so quick to draw the above kind of inferences. If I write in a report something like “Author should look at S’s paper” I now always write in the report “BTW, I am not S.” I don’t know if I am believed, of course. Either way, IMO being scooped by an older paper is not something to complain about in this manner.

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  22. anon

    Given acceptance rates, I’m happy to keep going indefinitely with a paper I believe in.
    I only give up when a referee report actually gives compelling enough, and negative enough, feedback. Usually they are very negative, but very uncompelling. But I have been convinced to give up on one paper over the past seven years of manuscript submissions.

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  23. AEO

    This is another instance of how individual and collective goals can clash violently. Based on the comments above, an individual’s goal seems to be to see their paper published, regardless of the number of rejections. The collective goal is that the publication process be efficient and quick – which requires unpublishable papers to not clutter up the system. The individual will win, because there is no way to enforce decluttering. The individual then should not simultaneously complain of long delays in publishing.

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  24. Overseas Tenured

    A thought in response to AEO: I was one of the people who advocated for continuing to submit indefinitely, and I agree that those who advocate for that shouldn’t complain that the journal system is clogged up.
    But I indeed don’t complain that it’s clogged up, and I don’t think it’s a big deal that it’s clogged up. Academic competition is zero-sum, so if the system routinely forces you to wait 6-12 months for a decision over a submission, it likewise forces your competitors to wait this much. Unclogging the system wouldn’t give you any competitive edge.
    The other argument against clogging up the journals is that it creates too much refereeing work. But to my mind, a) editors should just use desk rejection more liberally (I often get papers that should have been desk rejected), and b) it just means that the more you submit, the more refereeing work you should take on. I’m extremely stubborn with my submission practices, but I also take on a lot of refereeing work – and in terms of the amount of work I do myself vs. impose on others, I strive to leave a net zero footprint.
    For what it’s worth, I think that things would be worse if the journals weren’t clogged up, because it would mean less competition for journal space and probably somewhat weaker papers getting published.

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  25. grad student

    I currently have a paper that has been rejected 18 times (many times because of one reviewer who copies and paste the more or less the same reject comments).
    The paper has won 2 “best paper” awards at 2 different conferences, I’ve gotten lots of positive feedback, and a number of reviewers have recommended publish as is. So, I’m not giving up hope yet, although I’m almost out of venues to submit.

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  26. Andy

    I think my record is 13 or 14. It was a weird one. Everyone who read the paper unanonymously was enthusiastic about it. I used it as a writing sample a few times and search committees were enthusiastic about it. It was sent out to review by the editors at Phil Review, Nous, PPR, Mind, J-Phil, Ethics etc. I got plenty of enthusiastic referee feedback. But whenever I got an enthusiastic referee I also got an unenthusiastic one. No two referees ever had the same gripe (some of the critical comments were admittedly very helpful – others not so much).
    To be fair, the paper was a bit of venture out of my core area of expertise, so that probably made a difference. Still it was pretty frustrating. Even more so given that after many years, when I finally managed to find a home for it, a couple of more well known people published a paper arguing for a pretty similar idea, and their paper obviously garnered a lot more attention.
    I think whether or not you keep submitting should really depend on the paper, and the signals you are getting from elsewhere. In my case I had good reason to think it was a strong paper even though it was rejected a lot. But I have given up on papers after a single rejection when I thought the reasons for rejection were good. I think that persistently re-submitting bad papers is bad practice and clogs up the system. I also think that rejecting good papers for lazy reasons is bad practice and clogs up the system since those papers will be (& ought to be) re-submitted elsewhere.

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  27. Yao

    Doesn’t this all depend on where you’re sending your papers? If people like Godwinian and Me?, who abandon a paper after 4 rejections, are submitting to Phil Review, Mind, JPhil and Nous, then based on the survivors they must have very impressive CVs indeed.

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