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While working as a peer reviewer, I recently recommended rejection for three papers. I want to share the problems I
spotted in the three papers to help other authors avoid rejection .
1. Similarity in paper titles and content: I rejected one of the papers as two papers by the same author had almost
identical titles. When I began reading the submitted paper, my initial impression was good. However, the journal asked
me to compare this paper with another paper published by the same author as the two papers appeared to have too many
similarities. I checked both papers and found that there was in fact a difference of only one word in the titles of both the
papers. For example, both titles had the same construction:
was conducted and how the study was concluded. The paper I was assigned for review had good content, but it was
discussing different topics in each section, and they were so disparate that each of them could have been used to create a
standalone paper. The author seemed to have squeezed them into one paper without any logic, to maintain the papers
length.
A good paper does not need to have a lot of content; it needs to have a logical flow of ideas so that the research is
communicated as a seamless, reasonable thought. Adding irrelevant details to a manuscript to make it look longer may
result in rejection.
4. Mistaken research result: The biggest difference between scientific papers and blog articles is the specialized
terminology and professional knowledge scientific papers offer. However, if there are basic mistakes in terminology in a
manuscript, reviewers are likely to reject it. For example, in my field of engineering, there are two distinct terms: stress engineering strain curve and true stress - true strain curve. Both the terms have certain commonality, but are not
identical. Interchanging stress - engineering strain curve with true stress - true strain curve would be a very basic
mistake.
Peer reviewers do not want to reject a manuscript unless they have a strong reason to do so because they know that
getting published is any researchers dream. But if an author is too careless with his/her manuscript, it leaves reviewers
with few options. If any of the problems I have discussed exist in your manuscript, you should take time to rectify them
before submission, to increase your chances of acceptance.