If your manuscript was accepted and peer reviewed, and you have submitted your corrections, you'll have to wait and see if it is accepted for publication, or if there are any additional changes that are requested by the reviewers or the editor.
However, if your manuscript does not get accepted for publication, don't worry!
Rejection is part of the publication process and it will happen to you throughout your career. Therefore, do not be discouraged, but learn from the experience and the feedback provided to you. The process gets easier over time.
- Read the reviewers comments and learn what they believe needs to be polished in your manuscript. Was your statistical analysis or methodology flawed? Was your literature review not thorough enough? Did you answer your own research question? These are common comments you may see.
- Revise your manuscript according to the reviewer’s recommendations, if they have provided some. If one or more reviewer at this journal had a particular criticism about your work, reviewers at another journal might hold the same views. Expanding your literature search, beefing up your discussion section, and cleaning up your statistics are all good revisions to make to get your paper published on the next go-round.
- Rethink your journal selection for this manuscript. If your paper was flat out rejected without even making it to the peer review stage, it's time to rethink your choice of journal. It could be that your journal has a low acceptance rate or that your article does not fit the scope of the journal.
- Resubmit and move on to the next journal on your list. If you do not have another journal in mind, work with your medical librarian to assist you with finding a new home : “Finding the Right Journal”
