We are joined by Dr. Jane Jones of UpIn Consulting (@JaneJoanne) to talk about 5 reasons that your article manuscripts might be getting rejected, drawn from Kel and Jane’s Art of the Article program. Here’s the list: 1) not finishing out of fear [of reactions, reviews, etc.]; 2) submitting to the wrong journal [meaning a journal that is a poor match for your work, discipline, or level]; 3) not demonstrating the import/significance of your work in relation to the field or fields prioritized by the journal [separate from “nobody has studied this before”]; 4) Clear and precise signposting of topic, methods, theory, questions, analysis and conclusion [this includes you, humanities folks!]; 5) an excellent abstract, that in about 6 crisp sentences sketches topic, methods, conclusion and import [that you write first, but then revise as you complete the mss.]. On the way we remind you that publishing requires strategizing, that you are allowed to refuse some reviewer comments, that outlining works, and that abstracts are far from an afterthought–they matter! The upshot is: article-writing is a skill you can gain with training and practice, and rejections are not proof that you don’t belong in academia–they just mean you might not yet have mastered all the skills you need to get your work accepted.

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