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Blind Manuscript Submission to Reduce Rejection Bias?

2014; Springer Science+Business Media; Volume: 21; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/s11948-014-9547-7

1471-5546

Khaled Moustafa,

scientometrics and bibliometrics research

High percentages of submitted papers are rejected at editorial levels without offering a second chance to authors by sending their papers for further peer-reviews. In most cases, the rejections are typical quick answers without helpful argumentations related to the content of the rejected material. More surprisingly, some journals vaunt their high rejection rates as a ‘‘mark of prestige’’! However, journals that reject high percentages of submitted papers have built their prominent positions based on a flawed measure, the impact factor, and from a long and favorable historical context. Their shareholders may think that they are allowed to have a large margin of rejection rates without affecting their sponsorship or funding sources thanks to an extended anchorage since tens, or in some cases hundreds, of years compared to unknown or new journals that struggle to pave a way in the scientific publication world. Historical anchorage of some journals also makes it unfair to compare old and new journals in term of whatever ‘‘popularity’’ or any ranking system. It will thus be unfair and biased appraisal to compare a journal that was launched in 2000 with a journal that was established in 1950 or 1900 or earlier. Rejecting a high percentage of papers became an objective per se for elitist journals to take pride in an artificial elitist club, arguing strangely that a high rejection rate is a gauge of quality. Worse, sometimes rejection decisions are made after long months of waiting, upwards of a year in some cases without giving information about why the paper is rejected or how to improve it, for at least to compensate authors by useful advices for their wasted time in waiting the journal’s negative decision. Doing so, they corrupt science and give negative images of their journals. Elitism is an attitude incompatible with science and knowledge dissemination.