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I sent a paper to an elite journal (the top in the field). Two weeks later I got a decision "reject" but the editors added that "we believe it should deserve a good publicity and publication".

The paper was described by the associate editor as "of very good quality" and the reason for the rejection is that "the techniques used look rather far to me from the journal readership".

It should be mentioned that the main results of the paper are very much related to the scope of the journal. Moreover, this journal has already published more than 5 papers on the subject with results similar to those of mine (but in rather special cases, and according to few experts in the field no doubt that my new result is a significant step forward).

My questions are:

  1. Is it common that a paper that contains results of high enough quality that are well in line with the journal scope, is rejected because the techniques are not familiar to the readership?

  2. If it is common, could anyone explain the reason behind this policy? To me it seems odd, as in mathematics applying tools from one subject to solve problems in another subject, as long as it is done correctly, is considered to be a good development.

HUO
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    This is typical for "top journals". You should not take seriously the reason they give. Just send to another journal. – Alexandre Eremenko Jun 12 '22 at 14:42
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    this may well happen if the editors judge they would not be able to provide reliable and expert review. – Carlo Beenakker Jun 12 '22 at 14:42
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    To state the obvious: professional math journals don't have "readerships" who are going to pick up the latest volume, flip through it, see your paper, and be offended that your paper is out of place. I read statements like these as euphemisms used in place of things like: "at first glance, we don't think your paper is worth the space in our journal" or "I don't want to spend the time reading your paper to give you meaningful feedback." There is a lot of luck in journal acceptances and you shouldn't take this personally. Remember it though, and behave better when you become a referee or editor. – Mark Lewko Jun 12 '22 at 16:33
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    Although this question is specifically about a mathematics paper, the nature of the question about high-level journals that it asks seems to have little to do with mathematics. It seems like maybe a better fit for AcademiaSE. – LSpice Jun 12 '22 at 16:58
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    I read that rejection as inarticulately stating the editors could not find referees they trust that could evaluate your paper quickly. When submitting to journals its always a good idea to look at the editorial board, and check to see if there is an editor who is a little familiar with some of the core ideas in your article. Or if not familiar with your techniques, then at least knows of your work to some extent. – Ryan Budney Jun 13 '22 at 20:19
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    In response to @CarloBeenakker and Ryan Bundey: Although I did not explain this in the original post, the techniques I used are by all means common and in use by many authors, usually in different fields though. I know for certain that there are many experts familiar with both fields that can judge the paper professionally. – HUO Jun 14 '22 at 06:56

2 Answers2

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When you submit to an elite journal, expect a rejection most of the time. Then submit to a less-prestigious journal. It is a waste of your time to attempt an analysis of the reasons given for rejection.

  1. Yes, it is common for journals that receive far more submissions than they can publish to reject most of them — sometimes for boilerplate reasons, sometimes for no reason at all.
Gerald Edgar
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If I understand you correctly, you have proven a result in field X using techniques from field Y.

And you have tried to get this published in "Journal of field X".

What the editor is trying to tell you is that it might be more suitable for "Journal of field Y".

You would probably have to add more motivation since Y people doesn't care much about X results.

On the other hand Y people cares a lot about their field being useful to outsiders.

So:

Lately a lot of work have been done by people in field X trying to prove the John Doe conjecture. [ref] However, only a few special cases has been solved. [ref][ref][ref]

In this paper I show that applying methods from field Y, in particular yadda yadda[ref], allows us to solve far more general cases.

...

Stig Hemmer
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