How To Avoid Desk Rejection

It takes you week, or even months, to prepare your manuscript for submission to a journal of your choice. You put your heart and soul into it. You believe that the methods are sound, data are solid, and conclusions are carefully drawn. Once you feel that your manuscript is ready, you submit it to the journal and wait to hear from them, hoping to hear that your work has been queued up for peer review. However, this is not the news you receive. You are informed that your submission cannot be considered and has been rejected.

This is the dreaded desk rejection.

It is easy to interpret this as a verdict on the quality of your research and feel discouraged. It is not. Desk rejection often reflects a mismatch between the manuscript content and the journal’s editorial priorities. The challenge is that these priorities are not always obvious from the outside. Here are a few tips to help you understand how editors screen submissions. These tips will help you understand how you try your best to avoid desk rejection.

Think beyond a topic match when choosing a target journal

One of the most common assumptions authors make during journal selection is that topical similarity is enough. Your manuscript is about oncology. The journal publishes oncology research. That should be a match, right? From an editor’s perspective, the question is more specific. You also need to think about whether the journal publishes studies that are similar to yours. The broad research may be the same, but the journal’s focus areas could be very specific. Think about what your study adds to the information that is being supported by the journal.

Editors look for contribution within context. They are not just looking for a topics-keyword match. They are asking whether your paper advances the type of work their readers expect. A technically sound study that repeats well-established findings or addresses a narrow question that is completely outside the journal’s central themes may not move forward. This is why reviewing recent issues of the journal is important. You need to look beyond the aims and scope of the journal. Previously published articles will give you helpful hints about the level of novelty and depth the journal prioritizes.

Your abstract is evaluated in minutes

If you think that journal editors read your manuscript fully before making a decision, you are mistaken. The first screening is usually based on the title, abstract, keywords, language, and a quick scan of structure. At first glance, editors are trying to answer three questions very quickly:

• Is this aligned with our audience?
• Is the contribution clear?
• Does it meet our criteria for significance?

If the abstract feels generic, overly broad, or unclear about its main contribution, that can trigger early rejection. Even strong research can be framed in a way that makes it appear unfocused. Before submitting your manuscript, go back to the journal’s aims and scope and previous publications and ask yourself this: Does my abstract belong in this journal?  Does it convey the importance of my work coherently and impactfully? Will this pique the screening editor’s interest?

Position your manuscript correctly

Sometimes, the problem is not the research itself but how it is positioned. For example, even though your study has strong local implications, you may have framed it as having broad global relevance. You may have submitted this to a journal that focuses on large datasets that have a global reach. Such a mismatch rarely results in detailed feedback. The editor may simply state that the manuscript is not a priority for the journal. That can feel vague, but it often reflects a deeper issue of alignment.

Editorial priorities are not always visible

Every journal has internal priorities that shape editorial decisions, even if they are not explicitly stated. These may also change us to special circumstances. Editors typically prefer a balance of content within an issue. If they have recently published several papers on a similar topic, they may be less inclined to consider another manuscript on the same topic. In order to understand this, you need to make sure that you have gone through past issue to get a sense of what the journal is choosing to publish. Look at the kinds of studies that are consistently highlighted or papers that receive editorials or special commentary. This will help you identify editorial choices and priorities.

How you present your work can affect editorial decisions

Desk rejection is not always triggered by a scope mismatch. Sometimes it is caused by a series of other issues, such as a title that overpromises, an unclear abstract that does provide a clear picture, a generic cover letter that does not explain why and how the manuscript fits the specific journal’s scope, or non-compliance with submission guidelines. Editors handle high submission volumes, so when a manuscript does not immediately signal alignment, it is harder for them to justify sending it for external review. None of this means that editors are looking for perfection. They are looking for fit, clarity, and readiness.

BONUS TIP – How to pressure test your journal choice before submission

Before submitting your manuscript, try a simple exercise. Compare your abstract with those of three recently published studies. Read each of them carefully and think about whether yours can belong in that group Ask yourself: Is the level of specificity similar? Is the framing comparable? Next, ask yourself whether your Introduction section clearly reflects the kind of contribution the journal tends to publish. If your manuscript claims broad impact but presents limited data, that mismatch will be immediately visible. Finally, review your cover letter. Put yourself in the editor’s shoes. Ask yourself: Does my cover letter explain why my manuscript belongs in this journal, not just why the research is valuable? A well-positioned cover letter can help an editor understand your intent and awareness of the journal’s focus.

The next time, before you hit “submit” on your manuscript, pause and revisit these tips. Look at your manuscript and each of the submission elements through an editor’s eyes. Compare your work with recently published papers. Ask yourself whether your manuscript truly belongs in that conversation. Any adjustments you make at this stage can make a meaningful difference.

Have you experienced desk rejection before? If yes, what did you learn from it? And how did you change your strategy? Share your experience in the comments below.