Frustrated!

[Cybergeek]

I am really frustrated! My productivity is a joke. Right now, I am stuck with a (rejected!) paper. I try to figure out how to "reinvent" this paper, so I am back to literature review. I have been doing this for weeks, focusing only on this paper. Haven't started the next project!

I just want to vent! Oh! By the way, I have not heard anything back from these two R & Rs and this journal has yet given me any feedback. Just want to vent! :(

[Wahoo Redux]

I feel'ya, my droogie.

This is part of the writing life.  I have a good idea for a monograph that I have been working on since before life first crawled out of the ocean...and I can't get out of first gear.  And then I have to remember that every project develops this way.  And it always seems that summer should be a Elysium of productivity.

I too am waiting on multiple manuscripts.  There's that first surge of empowerment when you submit...then months of waiting.

My advice on the rejected paper is first to vent and then maybe to put it down for a while. 

Keep the faith.  This too shall pass.

[research_prof]

I am in the same boat. My NSF proposals are not moving forward (other than receiving a rejection every once in a while) and I am waiting on various papers under submission as well. My productivity has also been impacted over the last couple of weeks, since I have been staying at home over the last 4 months. However, I am trying to push through...

So many things seem to have gotten stuck due to COVID. I guess we are lucky to be alive at this point.

Stay calm. Things will be better hopefully soon.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Hang in there OP.

Also, not always a good idea to reinvent a paper after rejection.  If the basic premise is solid, make a few edits and send it back out.  Next set of reviewers will have their own ideas about what the final product should look like.

[Cheerful]

I am really frustrated! My productivity is a joke. Right now, I am stuck with a (rejected!) paper. I try to figure out how to "reinvent" this paper, so I am back to literature review. I have been doing this for weeks, focusing only on this paper. Haven't started the next project!

If possible, let that paper sit for a month or two and come back to it with a fresh perspective.  Work on other things now.

[Parasaurolophus]

I am really frustrated! My productivity is a joke. Right now, I am stuck with a (rejected!) paper. I try to figure out how to "reinvent" this paper, so I am back to literature review. I have been doing this for weeks, focusing only on this paper. Haven't started the next project!

If possible, let that paper sit for a month or two and come back to it with a fresh perspective.  Work on other things now.

I agree! Doing something new will help you feel like you're on a roll, and that's its own kind of writer's unblocker.


For my part, I saw awhile ago that the referee reports were in on a (very positive) R&R I turned around at a fancy journal. The editor's been sitting on those reports for two months now. Then yesterday evening I got an email from the journal, skimmed to the verdict, and saw 'accept'. I jumped for joy, added the forthcoming line to my CV, and then tried to log in to see the comments. That's when I discovered the email wasn't about my paper. It was to let me know that they'd accepted a paper I refereed a little while ago. And, incidentally, they got my referee report a while after I turned my own R&R around.

Sigh! (But my partner and I had a hearty laugh about it.)

[Cybergeek]

Thank you for the kind words! It's been a pain in the rear so far.

[profjackster]

Hi, quite new here.

I do not think you need to "reinvent" your paper if you feel the rejection has a poor rationale. Moreover, I think you should proceed onward to another journal if you feel your arguments have merit. Reviewers tend to sometimes get too enthusiastic about giving manuscripts the hatchet job, but they are so minute a group that I am certain there are other reviewers who will find the ideas as worthy as those who deem them critical. However, if after three rejects, perhaps do a ctrl-alt-del on your paper.

A few years ago, I was held up by one of three reviewers for a paper I had written about the increasing IT influence in curriculum design. At the time, universities had found "MOOCs" (massive open online courses) all the rage. One of the reviewers--and if I can guess was *perhaps* one of the originators of Canada's first MOOC platform--definitely unleashed a lot of vitriol on the tenets of the paper. Although name-calling wasn't used, it got pretty close. After two revisions, he still attacked my ideas and finally put in writing that my work was not publishable. The other two reviewers loved it and had only constructive criticism. I wrote the editors of the journal and more importantly forwarded my comments from the angry one. I asked that this reviewer's comments not be considered simply because of the hostility, biases, and vitriol coming from this person's remarks; that is, I was hoping they would let the two constructive reviewers determine the manuscript's "fate," so to speak. To my surprise, they agreed to this arrangement and I spent another season refining the article. It finally got published--after a 3 three year fight/delay, however you want to call it.

Best wishes to your endeavors.

PJ