Rejection Policy

A manuscript may be rejected at two stages. Every rejection is sent to the corresponding author in writing, with the reasons.

Desk rejection (before peer review)

The editor may reject a manuscript without external review if:

• it is outside the aims and scope of the journal;
• it does not follow the Author Guidelines, or required statements and files are missing and are not supplied after a request;
• the similarity check shows plagiarism or unacceptable overlap;
• it lacks ethics approval or consent where these are required;
• it has serious flaws in design or methods, or it does not add anything new; or
• the language is too poor for the work to be assessed.

Authors are usually informed of a desk rejection within 7–10 days of submission.

Rejection after peer review

A manuscript may be rejected after review if the reviewers and the editor conclude that its methods, results or conclusions are not sound, that it is not original enough, or that the authors' revisions do not address the reviewers' major concerns. The authors receive the reviewer comments, anonymised.

Resubmission

A rejected manuscript may not be resubmitted unless the decision letter invites a resubmission. Resubmitted manuscripts are treated as new submissions and must include a response to the previous comments.

Appeals

Authors who believe a rejection was based on an error or a misunderstanding may appeal (see the Appeals Policy).