What is the best way to manage the review process?
Where to send papers?
Different schools have different expectations for achieving tenure and receiving annual merit pay. Often, the schools will have a "journal rankings" list to give you some idea of the relative value of publishing in a particular journal. My own philosophy is that I should never work on an idea that doesn't have at least some chance at a top-tier journal. Then if it gets rejected, then I can decide if it is worth the effort to move it to a different top-tier journal after revising the paper or to move it down to the next level journal.
Showing Incremental Contribution: A Goal of the Reviewing Process
In my opinion, most manuscripts get rejected because of a lack of incremental contribution. The research design may be adequate, the data and research question interesting, and appropriate inferences can be made. But somehow, even after all that, the question is why are we in a better position because of this manuscript? Why will I think about the world differently now because of this paper? Therefore, a goal of the reviewing process is to heavily promote your incremental contribution to the literature.
Receipt of Revise and Resubmit Recommendation
First of all, say a prayer of thanks for getting past a major hurdle. Once the prayer is over, it is time to get to work! Focus on those items that will take some major effort (e.g., additional data collection and analysis, review of different research stream, etc.). Once those are addressed, focus on the smaller issues. Address each and every point in the revision in a thorough way. Then write a response to reviewers that provides a point-by-point response to each question. Authors are usually given one year to revise the paper. I like to return the paper in 3-4 months to show that I am able to quickly and completely respond with a complete revision.
Sometimes it does not make sense to revise the paper. Are the reviewers asking you to do something nearly impossible? Or do the results of your paper go away after some robustness checks. you must continually assess if a satisfactory revision will be able to be done. Sometimes it will take less effort or you may have a better chance of getting this article published with a different reviewer team at a different journal.
How to Handle Rejection
For most top-tier journals, the rejection rate is above 90%. Knowing this base rate, even the most accomplished authors can expect that their manuscript will be rejected. While frustrating, one should take the opportunity to learn why the reviewers did not extend an opportunity to revise the paper. Was it a lack of incremental contribution? Was it a research design flaw or error? Was it due to a lack of motivation? How can you use this knowledge to your advantage in a subsequent paper?
