Rejection

Today was a heavy day of journal editing.  Desk rejections are a necessary part of the job for various reasons.  Desk reject may apply to papers that are very good but do not "fit" the journal, and range all the way to those with fatal flaws.  Authors deserve a careful and fair reading of their work.  Editors and reviewers also really struggle to keep up with the volume of material coming through the pipeline.  Some of this work is good, and some has potential.  Some work is sent with varying degrees of intentional or unintentional disregard to the editorial statements or usual standards of the journal.  This work demands attention and redirects  energies in ways that often stray from the core aims.  So filters must be applied, and time and energy focused on where it will be most effective. 

This is a big part of my job as an editor.  Today, I spent the entire day making some very tough or even exhausting decisions.  Some of these were to reject papers without external reviews.  One of my decision letters prompted one very rude email reply from an author without any greeting or signature that started with the following one word sentence: "Really?"  Another letter elicited the following unsigned one line response: "Actually, I am giving up."