On this page: what makes a rejection decision letter different from a revise-and-resubmit decision, an illustrative worked example of the reviewer comments and editor’s letter that typically accompany a reject decision, how to tell a fixable objection from a fundamental one, and what an author’s realistic options are afterward.
How a reject decision differs from revise-and-resubmit
Not every set of reviewer comments invites a response letter. Under the terminology formalized in ANSI/NISO Z39.106-2023, editorial decisions at most journals resolve into a small set of outcomes — commonly accept, minor revision, major revision, and reject (some journals also use “reject and resubmit” or “reject with encouragement to submit elsewhere,” which read closer to a fresh submission than a revision cycle). A reject decision is qualitatively different from the revision-stage comments covered in Reviewer Comments to Author: Worked Examples, in several concrete ways:
- No resubmission pathway is offered. Revise-and-resubmit comments assume a next draft; reject comments generally don’t — the letter states the decision is final for that journal.
- The objections tend to be structural, not correctable by editing. A comment on a manuscript being revised might ask for a clarified paragraph or an added citation. A comment attached to a rejection more often points at something a revision can’t fix within the same dataset or design — an underpowered sample, a confound the study can’t rule out, a research question the journal doesn’t consider novel or in-scope, or a conclusion the data don’t support.
- There is usually no formal response-letter expectation. Because the journal isn’t inviting a revised draft, authors don’t typically write a point-by-point rebuttal back to that editor. The two realistic next steps are addressed later on this page: appealing the decision, or revising for submission to a different journal.
- The editor’s framing is more categorical. Decision letters accompanying a reject typically state the outcome plainly near the top (“we regret to inform you,” “we are unable to accept,” “we do not believe further revision would address the reviewers’ concerns”) rather than opening with encouragement about eventual publication.
What a rejection decision letter and reviewer comments typically contain
The exact format varies by journal, but a rejection typically arrives as an editor’s decision letter plus the underlying reviewer reports (sometimes summarized by the editor, sometimes attached in full). Reviewers writing toward a reject recommendation tend to lead with the objection they consider decisive, rather than working through a manuscript section by section the way revision-stage comments often do.
Worked example
Editor’s decision letter (excerpt):
Dear Dr. [Author], Thank you for submitting your manuscript, “[Working Title],” to our journal. After careful consideration by two reviewers and the handling editor, I regret to inform you that we are unable to accept your manuscript for publication. Both reviewers raise substantive concerns about the study’s sample size and the strength of the causal claims made in the discussion, and the handling editor concurs that these are not issues a revision could resolve within the scope of the current dataset. I recognize this is disappointing news, and I hope the reviewers’ comments below are useful as you consider next steps for this work.
Reviewer 1 (excerpt):
The research question is worthwhile and the writing is clear, but I have a fundamental concern about statistical power. With n=24 per arm, the study is underpowered to detect an effect of the size the authors report (see their own Table 3), and the confidence intervals in the primary outcome are wide enough that I don’t think the data support the strength of the conclusion drawn in the Discussion (lines 210-224). This isn’t something a rewritten Discussion section can fix — it would require a substantially larger sample.
Reviewer 2 (excerpt):
I agree with the general framing of the problem, but I don’t think the design rules out a plausible confound: participants weren’t randomized to condition, and the two groups differ at baseline on a variable (prior exposure) that plausibly affects the outcome being measured. Absent randomization or a statistical control for this, I can’t be confident the reported effect is due to the intervention rather than this baseline difference. I’d encourage the authors to consider a follow-up study with random assignment.
Reading a rejection: fixable issues vs. fundamental ones
The worked example above illustrates the distinction that matters most for deciding what to do next. Both reviewers are pointing at what methodologists sometimes call a design-level limitation — something baked into how the study was run, not how it was written up. That’s a meaningful signal:
- Fixable-by-revision issues — unclear writing, a missing citation, insufficiently justified analytic choices, formatting that doesn’t match the journal’s requirements — are the kind of comment that shows up on manuscripts invited back for revision, precisely because they can be fixed without new data collection.
- Fundamental/design-level issues — underpowered samples, uncontrolled confounds, a research question the field or journal doesn’t consider sufficiently novel, conclusions that outrun the data — are what typically drives a reject decision, because no amount of rewriting resolves them within the existing dataset.
Sorting each comment into one of these two buckets is the first practical step after a rejection. It determines whether the realistic next move is revising the manuscript for a different journal (if the issues are fixable or journal-fit-specific) or redesigning the underlying study before writing it up again (if the issues are about the data itself).
What authors can actually do after a rejection
Unlike a revise-and-resubmit decision, a reject decision doesn’t come with a built-in next step at the same journal — but authors generally have three realistic paths, and picking the right one depends on the reject decision letter above.
- Revise and submit to a different journal. This is the most common path. Reviewer comments from a rejection are still useful even though they’re addressed to a different editor — a confound flagged by Reviewer 2 above is worth addressing (or at least discussing as a limitation) regardless of where the manuscript ends up next. Authors are not obligated to disclose a prior rejection to a new journal, though some fields and journals have norms around acknowledging substantial prior review.
- Redesign the study and resubmit later. When the objection is design-level — an underpowered sample, a missing control condition — the underlying fix is a new or extended data collection effort, not a text revision. This is slower, but it’s the only path that actually resolves a reviewer’s stated concern rather than working around it.
- Appeal the decision. Appeals are the exception, not the default, and are generally reserved for specific circumstances rather than disagreement with editorial judgment on novelty or fit. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) addresses editor-author disagreements and appeals within its guidance for editors on handling the peer-review process, and most journals that accept appeals limit them to cases involving a factual error in a reviewer’s reasoning, an apparent conflict of interest a reviewer didn’t disclose, or a procedural problem with how the review was conducted — not a request for a second opinion because the authors disagree with the reviewers’ scientific judgment. An appeal that just restates the manuscript’s strengths, without addressing the reviewers’ specific objections, is unlikely to succeed with most editors.
Before choosing a path, it’s worth rereading the decision letter itself, not just the reviewer comments — editors sometimes use the letter to signal which of a reviewer’s objections they consider decisive versus secondary, which is useful information the individual reviewer reports don’t always make explicit on their own.
Frequently asked questions
Should I still write a response to the reviewers if my manuscript was rejected?
Not in the formal, point-by-point sense used for a revise-and-resubmit decision, since the journal that rejected the manuscript typically isn’t expecting one back. It’s still worth working through each comment privately (or with co-authors) before revising for another journal — the discipline of deciding what you agree with, what you’ll address, and what you’ll defend differently is the same, even though nothing gets sent back to the original editor.
Do I need to tell a new journal my manuscript was previously rejected elsewhere?
Most journals don’t require disclosure of a prior rejection at a different journal, and it is standard practice in most fields to submit a revised manuscript to a new venue without mentioning the earlier decision. Always check the specific journal’s author guidelines and any concurrent-submission policy, since expectations do vary somewhat by field and publisher.
Is it worth appealing a rejection based on a reviewer misunderstanding the methods?
This is one of the more defensible grounds for an appeal, since it points at a factual error rather than a disagreement over judgment — but it only tends to succeed if the misunderstanding is genuinely central to the reject decision (not a secondary point) and the appeal explains the specific error clearly and briefly, addressed to the handling editor rather than reargued at length. If the decision letter shows the editor’s own reasoning was independent of that one reviewer point, an appeal is less likely to change the outcome.
How is this different from the reviewer comments guide already on this site?
The companion guide covers revision-stage comments — the kind attached to a minor- or major-revision decision, where the journal expects a formal point-by-point response letter and a revised manuscript back. This page covers the reject decision specifically: comments and a decision letter written when no revision is being invited, and the different set of options (resubmit elsewhere, redesign, or appeal) that follow from that.
See also: COPE Flowcharts Explained for how editors are expected to handle disputes and disagreements during the review process, and Peer Reviewer: Role, Responsibilities, and How to Become One for the reviewer’s side of a decision like this.
