109 PRS Proofreading and Editing Service PhD Experts • All Academic Areas • Fast Turnaround • High Quality any other publisher: “So you see, there is academic life after a D!” My fellow students and I shared some meaningful looks and a moment of sombre reflection, but all of us (the professor with the near-failing grade included) were very soon laughing and moving on to other things. I’m not suggesting that laughter is an appropriate response to a rejection letter (or often an email message these days, but I’ll stick to ‘letter’ here), or that you will feel remotely like laughing when faced with such bad news (unless, of course, you decide to imbibe a good deal of wine yourself, which may or may not be advisable). I am suggesting, however, that there is a successful publication career after having your writing rejected by an editor. J. K. Rowling apparently received over 50 rejections before a publisher finally accepted the first in her series of best-selling Harry Potter books – I often wonder how many of those publishers have since used those volumes to knock themselves over the head – and virtually every successful publishing academic or scientist has experienced at least one letter of rejection over the years. Unfortunately, letters of rejection can be terribly impersonal, and while this is a helpful reminder that writing and publishing are business and rejections are not personal, it can also be maddening. Receiving a rejection letter, for instance, that curtly states that your paper does not fit the journal’s publishing agenda when you know very well from your research on the journal that it does indeed fit that agenda provides no real reason for the rejection and no advice for improvement. Such a rejection can be frustrating and unhelpful, but it’s simply a quick, general way of saying ‘no thank you’ and a very good indication that it’s time to move on to a different journal. Although there are always exceptions, there is little point in demanding explanations in such an incommunicative environment, and a good chance of shining a poor light on a relationship with a journal that could in the future still be a likely candidate for submissions. PARt III: commUnIcAtIng wItH JoURnAl edItoRs: sUBmIssIon, AccePtAnce, RevIsIon And ReJectIon