The Journal of School Nursing2024, Vol. 40(4) 359–360© The Author(s) 2024Article reuse guidelines:sagepub.com/journals-permissionsDOI: 10.1177/10598405241258012journals.sagepub.com/home/jsn
As editor of The Journal of School Nursing (JOSN), several times a week, I give authors the bad news that the manuscript they submitted was not sent out for review. In other words, it was “desk rejected” by the editor without the benefit of a peer review.
It is not my favorite part of the job. Over my career, I have received “desk rejects” for my work, which are always disappointing. I would prefer that most of the manuscripts submitted qualified to be sent out for peer review and eventual publication in the JOSN or another journal. Some of the most common reasons manuscripts are rejected by the editor can be avoided.
The number one reason for a “desk reject” is that the submitted manuscript is not pertinent to school nurses or school-aged children. The description of the JOSN is on the website’s home page. The JOSN is “a forum for improving the health of school children and the health of the school community” (Sage, 2024b). Despite that description, more than half of the manuscripts submitted to The JOSN have nothing to do with student or school community health or school nursing. I have received manuscripts about teaching strategies for undergraduate and graduate nursing students, decubiti prevention in acute care settings, and orienting new graduates in acute post-partum care.
The next most common reason a manuscript is not sent out for review is that the author did not follow the submission guidelines (Sage, 2024a). The JOSN publishes several types of manuscripts: original research, brief research reports, literature reviews, policy papers, and articles describing evidence-based practice and quality improvement projects. The ranges of acceptable page lengths for each type of submission are specified in the submission guidelines. Twenty pages is the maximum number of pages for original research. The other types of manuscript maximums are shorter. In the past month, I received three manuscripts that exceeded 40 pages. One still included the table of contents required by the graduate student’s university. Another submitted manuscript had the correct number of pages, but the authors did not double-space as the guidelines specify, so the 18-page submission was actually 36double spaced pages.
Another common reason for a manuscript to be rejected prior to peer review is a missing Institutional Review Board approval stating that the research or the project does not violate human subjects’ protections. The instructions for authors specify that to be considered for publication, the research or project must conform to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, 2024) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. The ICMJE recommendations dictate that any paper that studies or involves humans must include a statement in the methods section that an ethics committee or Institutional Review Board provided or waived approval of the work.
Other manuscripts are rejected without review because they do not add anything to nursing science. This includes reports of education-only interventions where the outcome measures are limited to increased knowledge and improved attitude or confidence (Bergren, 2023a). It is common knowledge that education interventions result in increased knowledge. Also rejected without peer review are manuscripts that do not add anything new to what is already known (Bergren, 2023b). The most typical example is research where the authors survey a population of children, teens, parents, teachers, or nurses and analyze the relationship between variables that we already know are related.
Please follow a few recommendations to increase the likelihood that your manuscript will be sent out for review. First, read the journal’s description on the home page or masthead. There are times that you may still be unsure, and the best option is to send the editor a letter of inquiry asking if the topic of your work is a good fit for the journal. Once you have determined your manuscript is a good fit, read and follow the submission guidelines carefully. Keep the journal length within the recommended page limit. Before starting the research or project, investigate your options for an ethics review or Institutional Review Board approval. Lastly, before spending months on a project or research, ensure that the time and the work contribute to new knowledge or new nursing structures or processes that improve care. Even if The JOSN does not accept your manuscript, your manuscript will benefit from the feedback given in the peer review process, which often leads to successful publication in another journal.
Martha Dewey Bergren, PhD, RN, NCSN, PHNA-BC, FNASN, FASHA, FAANExecutive Editor, The Journal of School Nursing
Martha Dewey Bergren https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8655-5418
Bergren, M. D. (2023a). Education is not enough. The Journal of School Nursing, 39(2), 103–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/10598405231158450
Bergren, M. D. (2023b). Tell the readers something they don’t already know. The Journal of School Nursing, 39(6), 419. https://doi.org/10.1177/10598405231202845
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). (2024). Recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals. https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/
Sage. (2024a). The Journal of School Nursing: Manuscript submission guidelines. https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/JSN
Sage. (2024b). The Journal of School Nursing. https://journals.sagepub.com/home/jsn
