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When is it OK to submit a new paper to a journal that has just rejected a prior paper?

Brian Leiter

An untenured philosopher writes:

I have recently had a paper rejected from one of the most respected journals in my sub-field. Given the prestige of this journal, I am obviously keen to be published there. I am currently working on a different paper that falls within the journal's scope, and that ideally I would like to be considered there. However, I am guessing that it is too soon to send another piece to the same journal for consideration after having just had a paper refereed and rejected. But I'm not sure when would be an appropriate time to approach the journal again with a new piece. So my question is to editors of journals: how soon after rejection of one paper would it be acceptable to submit a new piece for consideration to the same journal? Anecdotally, I have heard that one should submit no more than one paper per year to any given journal–is that advice right?

Readers:  thoughts?  Is there a general norm at work here?  Does it vary by journal or sub-field?

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21 responses to “When is it OK to submit a new paper to a journal that has just rejected a prior paper?”

  1. Mohan Matthen

    As a one-time editor, I would say there is absolutely no reason not to submit another paper. Editors see a lot of papers, and they may not even register the new submission, but even if they do, I doubt they are going to give you a black mark. (For what, in any case?)

    Reply
  2. Lori

    If it is a different paper and there is blind review, then I can't see any reason why the fact that you had one rejected recently from this journal bears on the new submission. In graduate school, I was the Managing Editor at Ethics, and on at least one occasion, we accepted two independent papers from the same author that were then published in back to back issues of the same volume (i.e, one in October and one in next issue in Jan.). If the work is good, the work is good.

    Reply
  3. Kris mcdaniel

    The advice you've heard sounds wildly mistaken. Just submit the next paper and don't worry about it. People do it all the time. I'll be doing it myself tomorrow.

    Reply
  4. Kai von Fintel

    I know of no reason not to submit a new paper to the same journal after a rejection: it's not you as the author who was rejected. It was that particular paper.

    Reply
  5. Christopher Hitchcock

    Ditto what others have said. Some journals have a policy of not publishing more than one paper by the same author within a year. But there is no restriction on submissions.

    Reply
  6. untenured philosopher

    I am the person who asked the query. Thanks for the replies so far. The reason I ask the question is not because I thought that there would be a formal restriction on submissions. Rather, it is because I am aware that it can be difficult for editors to find reviewers, and so having had a paper refereed by the journal so recently, I thought I might have used up my fair share of this editor's time and scarce resources, at least for a while. Particularly because in the case of this journal, papers are not submitted using an online system, but must be emailed to the editor, so the editor in question is likely to remember my name and remember that s/he sent me a rejection with some very detailed referees' reports only a couple of weeks ago. I thought perhaps another submission, so soon after the last one, might be testing the editor's patience and goodwill! Am I worrying about nothing?

    Reply
  7. Michael Kremer

    As far as the titular question is concerned the answer is "always." In short I agree with everyone else.

    Reply
  8. Professor Plum

    I think there can be good reasons for a person to not send a paper to a journal from which s/he has had a paper recently rejected. The person should read the referees' comments carefully. They contain information about the specific paper, but also information about the author's writing and presentation style. If the author's current paper has some of the same faults as the recently rejected paper, then do not send it in. As a referee I have mentioned in referee reports that an author should NOT send such unfinished work to a journal. I hope the author got the message. Further, it is possible the author is over-reaching. Perhaps s/he is aiming to publish in a journal s/he is not yet ready to publish in. Perhaps later in her/his career s/he will publish in a higher tier journal.

    Reply
  9. Mohan Matthen

    Everything Professor Plum says is correct. The author may be terrible. His or her writing might be awful. S/he might be overreaching. S/he might be sending out stuff that is half-baked. (Have I missed anything?) Any of these is excellent reason for rejecting a paper; none of them is a reason specifically not to submit a paper to the same journal after an earlier one was recently rejected.

    And to untenured philosopher: Just do it!

    Reply
  10. Jamie Dreier

    Adding my voice to the consensus:
    Yes, just go ahead, have no compunctions, nobody (at any journal I've worked for) will think it's untoward, weird, etc.

    Reply
  11. another untenured philosopher

    I know of at least one journal (Australasian Journal of Philosophy) that does have a policy about this. After submitting three papers within the span of nine months, I was asked to wait a year before submitting again.

    Reply
  12. Eric Schwitzgebel

    I would recommend taking all these reassurances with a grain of salt. Editors would like to think that their judgments are influenced only by quality, but there are large variations between philosophical subcultures in matters of style, in what kinds of questions are considered important, and in what background literature is expected to be discussed. Likely, too, there are unintentional biases in editors' opinions based on their knowledge of your previous work (whatever the basis of that knowledge). Even if the editor defers entirely to referees, editors are more likely to send manuscripts to referees in their general circle of acquaintances and co-believers and they often have an inkling in advance how likely referees are to be soft or harsh toward the work. It is in your interest to submit to a diversity of journals.

    Reply
  13. Thom Brooks

    Let me add my voice to the chorus. I edit the Journal of Moral Philosophy and I've been in regularly communication with many journal editors through the Association of Philosophy Journal Editors that I co-chair. I would recommend trying your luck with the second paper: this shouldn't be a problem for any journal, or at least none I know.

    Reply
  14. Tad Brennan

    Eric Schwitzgebel offers an interesting reason to send your second piece to a different journal. But it is a reason that runs orthogonal to the earlier assurances, and so does not, I think, constitute a "grain of salt" (i.e. a reason to discount those earlier assurances).

    I take it that E.S.'s main point is this: if you want to figure the odds that a paper like your Paper 2 will be rejected by a journal, then the fact that your Paper 1 was recently rejected by that same journal gives you some evidence for raising those odds. (Background assumptions: your Paper 2 is generically similar to your Paper 1 in its style, in the kinds of questions and kinds of literature it discusses; acceptance rates are partially dependent on such generic considerations; etc.).

    It's an interesting proposal, and if it's right, then it is useful prudential advice about how to figure your odds of rejection (or one aspect of them).

    But it would apply to any two papers that are generically similar, whether they are submitted with the same author's name or not, and whether they are by the same author or not. And it would apply even if the journal's blinding system is working perfectly so that no editor or referee ever sees any names or any identifying info.

    So the earlier assurances stand undiscounted. Those assurances said:
    a) as to the normative question "when is it okay to resubmit?", the answer is "it is always permissible, never untoward, never selfish etc.."
    b) as to the question "will I suffer because editors see the same name twice?", the answer is "at quality journals, the blinding process makes it impossible for editors and referees to see your name at all."

    I want to stress this point: at quality journals, no one past an initial clerical worker sees anything other than "2011-385" or some other numerical identifier of this sort. I cannot say how it works at every journal, but the ones that I have been involved with as an editor, editorial board member, or referee, are very scrupulous in this regard.

    (I also can't tell to what extent E.S.'s mention of "unintentional biases in editors' opinions etc." is a suggestion that blinding sometimes fails, or is, again, a point about how a journal may react to generic features that would be equally present in a paper written by your like-minded collaborator.)

    So E.S. may be right about how to use your first rejection to adjust your credences about your next paper's odds at the same journal. But you should make the final decision with full assurance that it is normatively 'ok' to resubmit, and that, at least in well-run journals, no one in the refereeing chain will know that it is a resubmission.

    Reply
  15. gerald dworkin

    With respect to Tad Brennan's point it was the practice of ETHICS during the time I was the editor to have the initial screening by the editor not blind. This meant that I at least would be biased against a second submission by someone whose initial submission was 1) rejected by me and not sent on to reviewers and 2) was regarded by me as a very bad paper. Whether this practice of non-blind initial screening is bad for that reason or whether it is an efficient use of the editor's time in a journal whose acceptance rate was below
    5% is a separate question.

    Jerry Dworkin

    Reply
  16. A Graduate Student

    I had a similar situation with AJP as 'another untenured philosopher'. I submitted two papers 10 months apart and was asked to wait a year before submitting again. One of the papers found a home at a comparable if not better journal, so I doubt quality was the problem.

    Reply
  17. paper submitter

    I also have run into a problem with the Australasian Journal of Philosophy. I submitted two papers, one a few days after the other. The editor did not like this, and rather than to just ask me to choose which one I'd prefer to submit, the papers were both rejected out of hand and not sent to reviewers. One of the papers has since been accepted at a journal of comparable stature. I thought this policy of AJP was quite weird.

    Reply
  18. Chris Tucker

    In response to paper submitter, the AJP is very clear that they only consider one submission at a time. I suspect that this policy explains why the editor was so harsh with you. See the second bullet point: http://ajp.aap.org.au/editorial-policy.html. I'm guessing that most journals generally disapprove of an author submitting more than one article at a time. At any rate, I have this belief, but I've now forgotten where it came from.

    Reply
  19. Stephen Puryear

    Related question: What if the same person edits two journals of comparable stature, as in the case of Sosa (Nous, PPR), and one's paper is rejected by one of the journals. Would it be pointless to submit it to the other?

    Reply
  20. Neil

    Stephen, I doubt it would be hopeless to try again, though I think that it had better be from Nous to PPR rather than the other way round (given relative prestige). Eric's claims remain relevant though (unless I am badly mistaken, Tad Brennan has misconstrued Eric's claims: he was not claiming that editors may be biased against papers on the same topic and with similar approaches to a rejected paper, he was claiming that an editor who rejects paper a might be – unconsciously – biased against the author of a. Eric's claim should be qualified by noting that sometimes an editor might be positively disposed to the author despite the rejection, or at least not ill-disposed. It depends on the nature of the rejection. If your rejection suggested that your paper was hopeless, wait a good long time before submitting to that journal. If you think the editor was sincere in saying that space constraints do not allow acceptance, don't hesitate).

    Reply
  21. Ernest Sosa

    Each of Nous and PPR has its own reviewing process independent of any prior review at the other.

    Ernie Sosa

    Reply

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