The Value of Rejection
Matthew Wiley, the Managing Director of the Henry Center for Theological Understanding, recently shared his own failure, something that many people are afraid to do.
First of all, I applaud Wiley for his transparency. On social media, we tend to only talk about the things that are going well. We talk about our publications, not the times our papers are rejected. We talk about the jobs we got rather than the interviews that never went anywhere.
The main reason I want to talk about this tweet, however, is because of its timely reminder that rejection is part of academic life. I am sure that the ratio of articles submitted to articles accepted gets better as you continue to learn how to write the kinds of essays that specific journals want, but it is still a percentage game.
Many factors go into the publication of an academic essay.
1. Different peer reviewers will read different articles and have varying perspectives. Someone may find your article brilliant, while someone else may find it ridiculous. Which one was assigned to your essay? One will help lead to publication, while the other will lead to rejection.
2. Different journals have varying tones. Even though journals typically say the articles must be “academic,” certain writers will have the natural style that corresponds with certain journals.
3. Different publications have different needs. I had a Tolkien essay that was rejected by one publication and accepted by another. An Inklings-specific publication rejected it, but it was accepted by a more theologically oriented journal. It was apparently more consistent with the needs of the theological publication.
4. Even volume can make a difference. If a publication is flooded with a huge number of very good submissions simultaneously, they likely will not publish every single one. However, they might be more open to certain articles when they have a lower submission count.
There are probably even more elements that contribute to whether an article is published, but I have either experienced or seen these occur.
Returning to Wiley’s tweet, then, it is a rite of passage even to attempt to submit to a heavyweight, prestigious journal. You have attempted to figure out these factors I have mentioned above while writing an original and thoughtful paper. Many people never try to jump in, so even getting to the point of rejection clearly demonstrates that you are doing the work of an academic.
I remember the first paper I submitted to an academic journal.
I was pretty proud of my argument. It was also Tolkien-based, and I thought I had made some relatively helpful points that were not discussed very often in the literature. As it turned out, the people who reviewed my article did not feel the same way. They thought it was an overly basic argument. Perhaps it was. I never actually published that piece, even though I drew elements from it later, but I have published a handful of articles and reviews since. I became a better writer because of the experience. I would not claim to be an expert, but the rejection was even an opportunity to grow.
At least for me, and I imagine that Wiley would agree with this, I felt kind of like Sam in the film adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring, explaining that if he took one more step, he would be the furthest away from home he had ever been. That is kind of what the academic life feels like sometimes. Even a rejection from a major publication is one more step further away from home, one more step in the right direction. Thank you, Matthew Wiley, for the insight; it is something we should all remember.