Commonality – This accounted for 44 percent of the reason for rejection. Our in-house definition of Commonality includes: topic that has been well studied previously both by international and national researchers, information present in standard textbooks or present no new perspective. Further, it also includes studies whose results have lost their relevance in current times, as techniques described are obsolete or surpassed by better alternatives [9]. Most but not all these rejections happen at editorial level itself. Gupta et al., also found around 50% rejection based on absence of message and poor originality in Indian Pediatrics [6].

Articles in Grey zone: Includes those original works which have been discussed in western literature and not much by national authors. Our view is that if such study result is likely to vary with the population studied, then it is allowed to go for peer review, if no other flaw is found on initial screening.

It is important to note that, at times, an uncommon aspect is present in an article however the author has not highlighted the same. At other times authors have noticed an uncommon secondary result, but played it down since they were not sure how to defend it in absence of supportive literature. These authors forget that the whole idea of repeating research is to discover these differences and not be apprehensive to discuss such outcomes. When a topic which comes to senior editor’s desk for rejection are based on commonality one singular question is asked : is there any uncommon or yet undiscussed feature brought out by the article? If the answer is yes then the article merits reassessment. It is worth mentioning that editors have time constrains and have to screen through a wide range of articles. If authors bring out this uniqueness in their article themselves, it becomes less likely to face rejection.

Methodology issues – It is the second most common cause of rejection among original articles. It was found that researchers might have started a project without giving a deep thought to all the methodological aspects. After completion of the study the error comes up, thus invalidating the research work. Before initiating a research, statistical and methodological issues need to be evaluated. Some of such issues can be, sample size, faulty selection criteria, flawed study design, weak analysis, unaccounted confounders and the methodology considered does not correspond to the aim [3,17].

These aspects of methodology were not adequately dealt with researchers, specially in dental articles. eg. saliva has been used as a diagnostic tool by many researchers. The results vary even if the complete methodology has been repeated by another researcher. The facts are hidden in the bias created by difference in sample collection procedure. What is commonly omitted by many, is that if saliva collection is done after mouth rinsing, the ions get diluted and hence lead to variation in result.

Although these facts might be well known, it must be emphasized because this leads to wastage of a lot of hard work and frustration of the researcher.

Non compliance of author– It comprised of 18% of all the rejections. This aspect comes into play once the first feedback has been sent by the journal. Usually 3 week period is given to author to resubmit the revision. The period was extended on valid requests. Failure to submit the revised manuscripts accounted for 10% rejections of the 18%. In these instances, the editorial takes a serious note and it does impact indirectly the future decision of the journal if author or any of the co-author resubmits another manuscript to the journal [20]. This non serious attitude leads to waste of editorial and most importantly, peer review time. Second most common reason within this group was the authors who did cosmetic corrections following only few suggestions suggested by the peer reviewer. At times author may not agree with reviewer suggestions, that is never an issue. However, author is required to provide reasons why he feels the corrections should not be done [21]. At other times we have come across certain good quality, although poorly drafted research works. The refusal of author to improve the draft led to a negative decision. On the other hand there were authors who diligently work on their revisions. They were appreciated and even if further revisions and editorial inputs were needed, these were readily offered. Author should always aim to carry the manuscript through publication and not abandon it midway because of negative comments by the reviewer [20]. If the editor indicates willingness to evaluate a revision, it means the manuscript may be publishable if the reviewers’ concerns could be addressed satisfactorily [22]. It is important to note that, returning authors are remembered by editorial and these factors do tangentially effect decisions, with due diligence, especially if negatives exist. In the process, what remains a bitter fact is that, such noncompliant behavior leads to a lot of revenue and logistic loss for the journals which do not charge upfront processing fee, but charge fee only for the accepted manuscripts. The authors of medical specialty were found to have a more noncompliant behavior in comparison to the dental specialty.

Failure to submit revision has been occasionally mentioned but never been deeply analyzed. Canadian Journal of anesthesia, which conducted a very detailed and structured study, did not enlist failure to send revised submission as a reason for rejection [15]. One study in Indian subcontinent by Gupta et al., analyzing the data of Indian Paediatrics (2002), found 7% noncompliance by authors, but this category also included those articles that were withdrawn and had ethical reasons [6]. Either this was not a real factor a decade back or was under reported. One proposed explanation can be that with push of publication authors tend to submit manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal and whichever journal gives quicker and positive response is continued. The other journal is abandoned without any communication. The real reason can be known only once the fate of articles rejected under this category is analyzed.

Plagiarism – This accounted for 11% of the reasons for rejection. The impact of plagiarism vary depending upon the type of article i.e. research work, case reports and reviews [23]. There are many views as well as guidelines on this aspect [BMJ, COPE] The part of manuscript where plagiarism has been detected has to be considered important for further processing of the article. [13,24–28].

The process to check plagiarism is both automated and manual. Though there are well-recognized softwares that have lessened the manual work immensely [29], however even such softwares have flaws, like figures and equations can not checked [30]. There were quite a number of manuscripts, that cleared such automated checks but got caught when rechecked manually. The rechecks were at times done on a hunch or due to certain valid reasons associated with manuscript drafting or author’s reputation. Hence, we recommend, decisions should not be solely based on automated plagiarism reports, they must be re-evaluated manually. This fact is supported by a study conducted by Croatian journal of Anesthesia [24].

We encountered a case report in which the case was new and unique however introduction as well as discussion was heavily plagiarized. Internationally, such articles are rejected outright, however the author was allowed one opportunity to redraft the article. On the other hand in case of an original article, if the results and discussion was found to be plagiarized then the article was rejected.

Self Plagiarism– Out of 58 articles that were rejected for plagiarism, 23 were self plagiarized. Croatian medical journal found 85 plagiarized manuscripts of which 22 were self plagiarism [25]. Slicing own research work for the sake of increasing the number of publications, is also considered as self plagiarism.

Plagiarism of Images – One article was rejected as the image was not original, but a cropped image picked from Google database. This was a photomicrograph and it could be traced to the Google database. The author confessed when the editorial communicated with him.

Ethical issues – Three articles were rejected due to ethical concerns. Ethical concerns in publication are same across the globe. However few issues which were faced repeatedly are highlighted here.

Patient issues: As per norms, the patient consent or ethical committee approval is asked for while submitting the manuscript [10]. Authors have been asked to furnish required documents whenever editor or peer review felt it necessary. They were rejected if author could not comply. In dental case reports, the patient consent and de-identification, holds importance as the patient identity gets revealed in most of the cases.

Authorship issues: Articles have been rejected when, upon search, it was found to be listed as thesis work of a postgraduate and in the list of authors presented to us, the primary investigator’s name was missing. Such matters are further complicated when the primary investigator is not amongst the first two/three authors or the guide is not enlisted as an author or acknowledged in the article. Regarding such conflicts, we had discussion with senior editors of other reputed journals and ironically came across conflicting opinions.

Discussion of such dilemma that may or may not lead to rejection are beyond the scope of current manuscript. Though according to COPE guidelines, the authorship is decided by the author and not the journal [28]. And journal is not to arbitrate between authors, however, many a times we have been inadvertently pulled into center of the conflict.

There was a case report where it was required to ascertain the originality of the case as it was a rare variation. In this case, a calculi was removed from a visceral organ. Only the gross image of the calculi was presented with no supportive investigations. Hence, the copy of discharge summary of the patient was requested from the author, to authenticate the case. Author was unable to furnish any details and the article was rejected.

Poor drafting – There are two aspects of this. One, poor English language and other the flow of the article or the subsection break if not conform to journal guidelines. Both aspects are weighed differently. In JCDR, as rule of thumb, the language is not taken in isolation for rejection. Many of our authors are not native English speakers, hence an opportunity is given, as cited by other journals also. Similarly, improper flow of the article does not in isolation merit rejection, as there are many inexperienced writers, however in extreme cases exceptions do happen. Failures to correct the above issues in revised files are viewed negatively and have lead to rejection. The concern regarding language might be a bigger issue for journals who receive articles from non-english speaking authors [5,14,25]. Unlike us, many journals are more stern during their initial screening if the drafting is poor.

Around 7% manuscripts had drafting and language issues for which they were rejected, although it was not the sole reason for rejection. Only one manuscript had a major problem with drafting and hence was rejected based on the same.

Topic Out of scope of journal – For certain journals that cover few specialties, rejections based on this aspect, may be more compared to us, we being a widescope journal. But there are many fields of science that has to be dealt with separately or with special consideration, as in, psychology, environment science, etc. Before submitting a manuscript an author should go through the subjects that a journal deals with, can mail or have a telephonic conversation with the editor to know the subjects covered by a journal. A pre information on this will lead to avoiding the wastage of editorial time as well as reduce author’s anxiety [9].

Blacklisted author – There was an incident where an author had submitted three articles and all were under process. One of them was found to have a serious issue which put in doubt the originality of the work submitted. Hence the author was debarred and his all other submissions were by de-facto rejected.

Data inconsistency/fabrication- This parameter is for original articles and it accounted for 5.7% of our rejections. Flaws in the data can be broadly classified into two types. One, obvious data inconsistency within the article i.e. numbers not matching in abstract, results and table. An occasional typographical error is ignored, however more than that goes fatally against the article. In addition, besides being consistent throughout, the data or result should reflect the real life scenario. A huge variation should be accompanied with an appropriate justification by author [10,28]. Second, when our in-house statistical calculation differed in absolution, author was asked to submit the original data. If the author refused to share the data the manuscript was rejected [5,9,12].

Data issues in revised file - If a change in data has been observed in revised files which cannot happen without redind the study, it reflects fabrication. For example, a reviewer had pointed out the lack of a control group, and in the subsequent revision instead of adding it as a limitation or justifying the redundancy for a control group, a previously nonexistent control group was added. There were rare exceptions also. An example of when it was acceptable to change original data: an author encountered more cases by the time article had been through second revision. Then he had asked prior permission and editors felt it will strengthen the article and thus addition of cases was allowed.

Wrong diagnosis, unjustified management, false claim (morphed image): This is for case reports or images in medicine and accounted for almost 2% of our rejections. In case reports, if diagnosis was wrong, based on concurrence of two peer reviewers, the article was rejected. Further, if the treatment imparted appeared unconventional, reasoning for the same was asked from the author. The manuscript was considered only if a satisfactory justification was provided. In suspicious cases or cases with excellent visual outcomes, images were checked to rule out forging/morphing. In more than one incidence a discovery of false claim of healing by morphing an image, led to rejection of article. This issue has made the editors sought more and more help from in-house graphic experts. This aspect has rarely been dealt in literature and we feel more journal editors peer reviewers should be aware of this [31]

When a doubt arose in photomicrographs, the scanned copy of the histopathology report, was asked, failure to do so led to rejection of article. Images which depict clinical examination done with unsterile practices brought negative reviews. As in, an ungloved hand demonstrated an intraoral lesion.

Received same topic more than once within short span of time – A nicely written draft was also put for rejection as the topic has already been covered by the journal recently. This is an unfortunate but unavoidable situation in which article is rejected for no fault of authors. At other times authors were given the opportunity to highlight the work/result which go further from the published article.