The Nuts‐and‐Bolts of Publishing in the BJIR III: Reasons for Rejection and Concluding Words
本文总结了BJIR期刊常见的拒稿原因，如叙事混乱、数据薄弱、理论空洞等，并给新学者提供投稿建议，帮助提升发表成功率。
the paper is not within the journal's purview, nor can it be readily brought within this purview, the paper is not sufficiently relevant, nor can it be readily made to be, the analysis is of insufficient quality, and cannot be readily “fixed”, the paper's contribution is too limited, and cannot be readily strengthened, the paper is not sufficiently compelling or convincing, nor can it be readily made to be. These reasons are very general, and often encompass more specific problems commonly identified as reasons for rejection. The present editorial identifies a number of these. It then concludes with general advice for new scholars in particular. All or most of the following have been alluded to in the previous two editorials, but it is always useful to state them more clearly. If a paper meets one or more of them, its chances of making it past even the desk reject stage are likely to be lessened substantially. 1) Poor or confused narrative, with poor grammar, spelling, or organization. This can always, perhaps, be fixed at the revisions stage, but it does not instill confidence in the author's seriousness or ability, and the editor may consider it an embarrassment to send the paper to referees. Inexperience or language difficulties are generally not acceptable excuses. It is the job of neither editors nor referees to serve as surrogate writing instructors. 2) Weak data and analysis, especially if the author does not seem to really understand the weaknesses in his/her data set or the basic methods needed to analyze it. This is often a major problem in qualitative as well as quantitative work. In the latter, however, issues having to do with causality and method bias are especially common reasons for rejection if they have not been convincingly addressed. 3) Results that do not seem to be grounded in the author's actual research. This often happens for qualitative papers, when an author fails to establish how the story told in the results section is specifically informed by the research reported in the methods section. 4) Pure (abstract) theory or theory for theory's sake. Unless the paper has some sort of empirical grounding or addresses a major question, its potential contribution is likely to be too weak to warrant consideration. 5) Descriptive literature reviews. Too often, literature reviews simply summarize the literature and, possibly, draw conclusions for policy or for future research. This is not sufficient for publication in the BJIR. Rather, such papers must go beyond the literature and make an intellectual argument that influences how readers are likely to think about the subject matter in question. 6) Analyses that seem to have no real purpose other than to get published. This is sometimes the case for analyses of large scale secondary data sets, which can seem like little more than exercises in data mining or specification searches in an effort to find something – anything – that the author might get a publication out of. Yet it also occurs for many smaller studies, where data appear to have been collected and analyzed for little reason other than because they could be. Qualitative case analyses can also suffer from this problem. 7) Unduly descriptive analysis, with little by way of theoretical content or generalizability. There are exceptions to this rule, provided that the analysis addresses a well-established question in the literature and, ideally, is able to shed new light on this question. 8) Unduly technical papers, seemingly designed to demonstrate methodological prowess rather than yield meaningful results. These papers often include pages of mathematical formula or multiple statistical “checks” of the results, most of which are better left to an appendix if they are worthy of inclusion in the paper at all. 10) Unduly micro or managerial orientation, with no meaningful implications for the economy and society. For example, whether workers with particular personality characteristics perform better at certain tasks, and whether this is mediated by leadership style, may matter to HR managers, but it really does little to address broader questions of relevance to the readership of the journal. As such, it is better sent to an HR or applied psychology journal. 11) More suited to a discipline-based journal by topic, orientation or method. “Disciplinary pluralism” means that we publish papers from a variety of disciplines. But papers also need to be generally accessible to a multi-disciplinary audience. Papers that do not meet this requirement are generally not suited to the BJIR. This and the preceding two editorials contain a large number of dos and don'ts. The new scholar in particular may as a result find the prospect of publishing in the BJIR not just arduous and uncertain, but also daunting and even intimidating. It can be. This is the case for all journals of any quality. Yet the following can greatly enhance the likelihood of success – not just in publishing but also in making publishing worthwhile. First, do work that you have a strong intrinsic interest in and even passion for. As long as the work you are doing is meaningful to you, the struggle to get it to publishable form is likely to be less painful. Without such an interest or passion, you are in any case less likely to do much that is of consequence or be productive over the long term. Scholars need to make compromises, especially early in their career, but even if the work they are doing falls short of what they would like to be accomplishing, it should at least serve as a stepping stone on the way to getting there. Too often, young scholars explode out of the starting block only to run out of gas and never be heard from again. These scholars have typically been excellent, high achieving graduate students, and have managed to both impress their professors and get great first jobs, based on research done under their professors’ guidance. But they have failed to develop any intrinsic purpose and find themselves lost soon after leaving graduate school. Second, do not let misguided and often ephemeral external standards and measures of performance guide your decisions – at least, any more than you have to in order to stay alive as an academic. Refrain from trying to do research for, or sending your research to, a particular journal merely because it is high on some organization's rankings list or has a high impact factor. Such criteria can represent crude distortions of the scholarly endeavor. More important, publishing in such journals may actually detract from the real impact of your work. All journals, including the most highly “ranked”, publish many articles that are scarcely if ever noticed or cited. So if you wish to publish in such journals simply to demonstrate that you can do work of sufficient quality, this is fine. But if you are concerned about doing work that matters to you, and ensuring that it in fact makes a difference, try to find the “home” for which it is most suited. Even if this home is not as highly ranked, the process of getting published is likely to be less arduous – not because the journal is necessarily “easier” to get published in, but rather because your work is more suited to it. Because it is, your work is also more likely to be noticed and cited. Finally, make the BJIR your journal of choice for work that you think may fit within its purview. The BJIR is unique from other journals. We have strong quality standards, but tend to be less concerned with technique than with substance, and more open to a plurality of methods and perspectives than are many journals. We serve as the premier journal for publishing industrial relations research in Britain and, arguably Europe, and as one of the three premier journals globally. We are also more institutionally aware and international (especially European) in orientation than most journals in our area, and we tend to give more weight to issues of economy and society and ultimately of societal relevance. The BJIR's mission is to be a leading journal for scholars seeking to locate high quality, meaningful work in our subject area. But it is also to serve as a top outlet for authors potentially able to produce such work. This and the preceding two editorials have been intended to provide prospective authors with a more comprehensive understanding of how to succeed in this endeavor. The author thanks Andrew Dickerson, Carola Frege, Edmund Heery, and Gregory Jackson for their comments on earlier versions of these editorials.