Peer Review Has Given Me PTSD. Here Are My 47 Rejection Letters.

The first paper I submitted was rejected in 14 days. This seemed, at the time, remarkably fast. I later learned that the desk rejection — a rejection issued by an editor without external review — is the publishing system’s way of saying “we have not read this carefully, but we have read it enough.” The speed, I would come to understand, was a mercy.

The second rejection arrived after three months. Reviewer 1 was constructive. Reviewer 2 had opinions about my contribution that suggested they had not read past the abstract, though this interpretation is charitable; it presupposes they read the abstract. The third reviewer — and here is where the story becomes statistical — was not provided. Three reviewers had been solicited; two responded; one provided a substantive review; and none of this was my fault, though it did not feel that way.

Stages of Grief: A Clinical Framework

The literature on academic rejection has identified five stages, which I here reproduce from memory and personal experience:

Denial: The reviews are wrong. The reviewers are wrong. The area chairs are wrong. There is a systematic bias against work that is correct, and I have experienced it firsthand. I will resubmit immediately, unchanged.

Bargaining: If I add the baselines, will they accept it? If I reframe the contribution, will they see it? If I restructure the introduction, reduce the paper to six pages, and add the three citations Reviewer 2 requested (two of which are written by the same person), will the fundamental judgment change?

Anger: I have been reviewing papers for free for four years. I have written detailed, constructive, timely reviews. I have done my part. And yet I am subject to a process in which anonymous strangers — who are, statistically, my colleagues, my collaborators, people I have eaten conference buffet lunches with — assess my work in prose styles ranging from “thoughtfully critical” to “why did I accept this assignment.”

Depression: The paper is, perhaps, incremental. The baselines are, perhaps, insufficient. The writing is, perhaps, capable of being tightened. I am, perhaps, not suited for this profession, and the system is not broken; it is functioning as designed; I am the variable that is failing to converge.

Acceptance: I will revise and resubmit. I always revise and resubmit. This is what we do. The paper will be better for it, marginally, in ways that could have been achieved in a fraction of the time with a single email from the editor. I will note this in my next grant application under “resilience.”

Toward Recovery

I have been publishing for eleven years. My rejection rate is approximately 73%, which is consistent with published norms for top-tier venues and inconsistent with the self-image I developed during my PhD. I have revised the same core claims through seven different framings across four different journals. The claims are, I believe, correct. I am less certain about my methodology, my evaluation, and my choice of career.

I continue to review papers. I continue to be constructive. I continue to believe, in a way that feels irrational when examined directly, that the process is worth it.

I am not sure what this belief is made of. But it has survived 47 rejection emails, and I consider that empirical evidence of something.

Peer review support groups meet Thursdays at 8 PM. Location: wherever there is free coffee and no one is asking about your timeline.