Getting Science Papers Published: Where It's Easy, Where It's Not

Chemists, astronomers, or physicists looking to publish in one of their discipline's scholarly journals stand a far better chance of having their submissions accepted first time around than do anthropologists, psychologists, or sociologists. This conclusion combs from independently undertaken studies reported on earlier this year, which found that, in general, journals dedicated to physical sciences have markedly lower rejection rates than do publications geared toward the social sciences. One of the studies—reported on in the American Sociological Review (volume 53, pages 139-51)—claims, for example, that some chemical journals reject only 15% to 20% of papers submitted; on the other hand, the ASR report points out, an important political science journal—the American Political Science Review—has been known to reject as many as 94% of its submissions over a period of time. Meanwhile, another study—reported on in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (volume 100, number 626, pages 506-08)—concurs in observing the disparity, comparing relatively low acceptance rates at social science journals with, for example, three major astronomical journals that accept more than 90% of the manuscripts submitted to them. The reason for the disparity? According to Lowell Hargens, a University of Illinois sociologist who wrote the ASR study, physical scientists more often put their papers through several review steps—beginning with grant applications and including informal reviews by coauthors—before submitting them for journal publication. Social scientists, on the other hand, are more likely to work alone and without a grant, which shields them from the constant influx of peer criticism that is likely to improve a paper's quality. "In social sciences, journals are almost the only review institution," Hargens says. "We [social scientists} don't have as much 'prescreening'. " By the time a physical science paper reaches a journal's editorial reviewers, it tends to be more polished than a social science paper—and therefore less likely to be rejected. Helmut Abt, an astronomer at Kitt Peak National Observatory and author of the PASP paper, suggests that the interpretive nature of social disciplines may also be partially responsible for the comparatively low acceptance rates for social science papers. At many social sciences journals, Abt says, a manuscript reviewer does not have to rigorously defend his recommendation to reject a paper. Because social studies are more open to interpretation and less tied to rigid theory than those of the physical sciences, acceptance or denial is more likely to depend on a reviewer's opinion. "The reviewer can say, 'This is junk,' if he doesn't agree with it," Abt says. This leads to a phenomenon commonly observed in the social sciences: Papers are often submitted consecutively to three or more journals without a major revision because the authors do not take rejection to indicate lack of merit. "We see it as 'the game'," says Hargens. "We're so used to this that it's no surprise when the paper comes back rejected, and we don't revise it." Astronomers, on the other hand, often revise and revise again to satisfy the demands of their first-choice journal. Rejection rates are not tied to surges in the number of scientists in a particular field, says Hargens. He finds that growth in a field's scientist population is usually matched by a similar increase in the number and size of its journals, keeping acceptance rates generally constant. But if a field grows over a long enough period of time, as did psychology and sociology in the 1960s, rejection rates tend to rise. This phenomenon occurs, Abt says, because, with more journals to choose from, an author is likely to respond to rejection of a paper by submitting it to other journals rather than revising it for the original publication. Abt notes that, while individual journals may show relatively high rejection rates, most papers in a given social science field eventually seem to find a home.

Getting Science Papers Published: Where It's Easy, Where It's Not

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