How-to
Desk-Rejecting a Submission
Rejecting an out-of-scope or unsuitable submission without sending it to reviewers, or saving a rejection recommendation for it.
A desk rejection is a final decision. The submission is rejected without going to reviewers, a decision letter goes to the author and the process closes. Only an Editor-in-chief makes this decision. In the same situation a Section editor saves a rejection recommendation.
You can make this decision while the status of the submission is Submitted, Screening or Documents missing. For a submission in peer review, see Making a Decision.
Rejecting the submission
- On the Next step card of the Overview tab, press Desk reject.
- In the Rationale (editors only) field, write the rationale for the decision. The rationale must be at least 10 characters long and is not shown to the author.
- The Decision letter to the author field comes filled with a draft letter. Edit the letter. The letter must be at least 10 characters long.
- Press Desk reject in the dialog.
- Read the outcome in the confirmation dialog and confirm.
You can also make the same decision on the Decision tab by selecting Desk reject. On this tab the letter starts empty, and the Draft a letter button writes the draft. If you wrote or changed the letter yourself, the panel asks before it replaces the letter with the draft.
The status of the submission changes to Rejected. The decision is stored as a record that cannot be changed, and it is written to the audit log.
A section editor's rejection recommendation
For a submission in screening, a Section editor sees the Decision recommendation section on the Decision tab. Only Desk reject can be selected in this section.
- On the Decision tab, select Desk reject.
- Fill in the Rationale (editors only) field. The letter is optional for this recommendation.
- Press Save recommendation and confirm.
The recommendation does not change the status of the submission. A notification goes to the editors-in-chief assigned to the submission or, if none is assigned, to the editors with the permission to decide. The recommendation appears in the Decisions and recommendations section at the bottom of the tab.