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Journal referees declining because they’ve read your paper drafts: what to do?

In our May “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

It has become more and more apparent I think a major speed-bump for my papers is that they are getting sent out to referees who have read them as drafts, and so (rightly) decline. Is there any way to circumvent this? For example, can you sometimes say to an editor, don’t send it to so-and-so since they’ve read it already? Any other advice?

Well, there’s at least one way to avoid this: don’t expose drafts to potential paper referees (this is my approach)! Alas, I recognize that one wants to do the best work one can, and getting feedback (either by sending drafts out to people, or presenting them at conferences or colloquia) can be part of that–in which case the OP’s quandary may arise. Most journal submission sites have “letter to the editor” step where I suppose one could write to the editor about this–but I’m not sure how that would go.

Do readers have any helpful tips to share?

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3 responses to “Journal referees declining because they’ve read your paper drafts: what to do?”

  1. Anonymous

    As Marcus notes, you can usually provide a note to the editor when you submit a paper to a journal. “The following people have read a draft of my paper …”
    Incidentally, as a referee, I have said to the journal editors I have read this paper before (or know who the author is). In some cases the editor did press me to write a review anyway. In fact, if I believe I can be impartial, and the editor asks for a report knowing I have heard or read the paper before, I usually do supply a report.
    On a related note, you can also sometimes list people who you do not want to review your paper, with an explanation. There is a real @hole who works in some of the areas I work in, and I think they are very unprofessional … so I have listed them as a non-referee (with an explanation). And, in another case, after first round revisions, I recently asked that a particular referee, R1, not review the revised paper, as he (or someone) had asked in his report for me to address a number of papers and a book written by him. In fact, I searched the book, which I happened to own, and found but 16 mentions of the relevant term, and none discussing the issue of my paper. This person is a obsessive self-citer. I think the journal honored my request, which seemed to delay the refereeing process substantially. But the paper was ultimately accepted for publication.

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  2. Anonymous

    As a reviewer I have been utterly shocked by the number of high ranking journals who tell me it is no problem if I tell them that I not only know who the author is but have already given the author comments on the paper directly.

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  3. Anonymous

    Send them to journals that are not explicitly double-blind. But also, because many journals are not double-blind, reviewers don’t have to decline refereeing for those journals simply because they have seen it in draft/ know who its author is. So a further thing (if you can predict this) is send it only to colleagues who would be keen to review it even if they’ve already read an earlier version.

    Fwiw: I’m convinced that a great many articles published in top 5 journals get in by being reviewed by people who have already seen a draft or the author presenting it, etc. (subfields are too small, as is the set of qualified reviewers to invite). Sometimes this can seem shady, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that in most or even many of those cases it gets published because it’s a friends-helping-friends situation where a reviewer shirked the rules. In many cases the reviewer might already think the paper is amazing, but also has helpful feedback, and they can evaluate the paper on its merits. I’ve often had a journal request to review something where (i) I’m one of the very few qualified reviewers out there (in the sense of having published on the exact topic), and I realize I may be the only one of those who will accept the request. And (ii) I happen to know who wrote it because they’ve sent it my way for feedback or something (which I might’ve had time to give them; but at other times I didn’t have time to do so, and refereeing it would be a way for me to provide such anonymously)… in these cases, if the journal doesn’t mind it (and usually I’d flag for the editor before accepting the request that I think I know who the author is, but insist I can evaluate it objectively), I try to referee it. Editors are so short on decent referees these days that it matters more to get a reviewer who is qualified and whom they trust (and who was honest in that way) than to move on and look for someone else.

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