When submitting to an academic journal goes wrong

The emotional rollercoaster of academic publishing

Over the past week, I’ve been thinking a lot about critical feedback. As a creative writer, I’ve developed a tough skin over the years and had my share of rejections. My work is not for everyone, and that is okay. But this past year, after attending a creative writing conference in London, it was suggested I submit my paper to an academic journal and thus, I unwittingly dipped my toe into a whole new world of academic publishing.

Now, I don’t come from a long lineage of university scholars. My mom was a single parent, and I’m the first person in my immediate family to go to university at any level. I have no first-hand knowledge of academic publishing and I assumed it was very similar to the publishing process of commercial fiction. I was wrong.

Submitting to my first journal

I did a quick google search of the journal, and found myself at the Routledge Taylor & Francis website which provided a summary and profile of the journal. I knew the editor, having previously met him at the conference, and I scanned the page for the submission instructions. To submit, I had to create an author profile, and ORCID, and a ResearchGate profile. What are these things? I had no idea. But, I am adept at filling out bureaucratic forms and got to work. The journal also provided a template for submissions, which I thought was handy (saved me the formatting headaches) and I copy/pasted my paper into the template, did some final editing and sent it off. That was July of 2023.

Cut to eight months later, and I was curious about the progress of the paper. In the creative writing world of publishing, around the six month mark, you simply assume the piece has been rejected and move on. I hadn’t heard anything, so I logged into the author portal to take a look. I was surprised to see there had been some progress, the paper was sent out for peer review in January, and on February 6, the portal had logged that a decision was pending. Interesting. A few weeks later, an email landed in my inbox. It was from the editor.

It read:

Your paper has been refereed and in view of the comments made by the referee(s), which can be found at the bottom of this email, I’m afraid the editor has decided that we cannot proceed any further with your submission. We’re sorry to disappoint you on this occasion, but we would like to wish you every success in publishing your paper elsewhere.

The rejection letter was to the point, and I was about to move on to the fifteen other emails in my inbox when I kept scrolling. The email continued. Further down, there were two sections labelled “Comments to the Author” which had several paragraphs of feedback. Who was giving me this feedback? It didn’t say. The comments were anonymous. I understood that the paper had been sent out for a peer review, and these two comment boxes contained the results of their reviews. I’m not familiar with what a peer reviewer is looking for, or what feedback they might offer, so I read on.

Screen capture of the author portal submissions process

The chirps were just flying

The commentary was scathing. As we say in Canada, the chirps were just flying. I read the suggestion on sources to consider (fine) but these were sandwiched amongst insults and critiques that left my jaw on the floor (not fine). The comments were eye-popping in their criticism, and while maybe they reviewers are right and I don’t have a clue what I’m doing – it did come across as blisteringly harsh. I asked my PhD supervisor “is this a typical experience when submitting to a journal?” Apparently, often times – yes.

I sent a note back to the editor:

These comments seem so blisteringly critical and unduly harsh that to me – it reads that they’ve taken sincere joy from ripping my very first academic article to shreds. If this is a typical experience, it’s my first time witnessing it.

His reply:

“Candidly, I’ve seen even worse.”

The sharp-tongued comments included feedback such as “numerous errors in grammar and/or formatting” which I found surprising since the formatting template was provided, and a grammar check in MS Word found one instance of a missing comma. Then the insults started.

The sporadic references to the article author’s own writing lack direction (what’s the point?)
I hope this article author will agree that the current article does not know if it is a review essay, thematic criticism or a comparison of two Canadian authors.
The argument or even identity of the chapter is unclear.

What followed was a resounding lecture on Canadian history. In the paper, I was faced with a decision on how much context to provide to assess a specific line of dialogue in the novel I was reviewing. The line of dialogue spoken to another character about reconciling with an abuser says “truth and reconciliation” – a phrase that has a very specific meaning in Canada related to the genocide of Indigenous people. The suggestions were well outside the scope of the paper.

They read:

A glaring omission in sources and facts in establishing historical context are the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)
The history of Canadian confederation attempted here needs to include the TRC
Alberta is an area three times the size of the UK, and while it does contain areas like the author describes (especially in the south) it also has Francophone communities and Metis settlements hundreds of kilometres away in the north
To fulfil the potential presented in the abstract, the paper needs to deal with all of this.
As written, this is not a current version of Canadian history.
Consider a complete rewrite

The editorial demand for an in-depth analysis on Canada’s colonial genocide, the Truth and Reconciliation commission, and French colonial influence in Northern Alberta is a tall order from a creative writer, who is arguably not an expert on Canadian or Indigenous studies.

Perhaps this was a quick lesson. Stay in my lane. Forget the context.

But it got me thinking.

There has to be some common ground to be able to write authentically about Canada in a work of fiction, plus examine how other Canadian crime writers are doing it, and perhaps try to improve on what others have done – yet not set an expectation that a creative writer is somehow going to provide nuanced commentary on Canada’s problematic nation-building efforts over the past hundred or so years.

I can’t say I’m enthusiastic about the prospect of submitting to another academic journal. While the editor encouraged me not to take it personally, and admitted that reviewers can be unnecessarily harsh, the experience was one I’m not soon to forget.