Ben Marder¡¯s lowest moment came two years into his first job in academia. On a dark day in 2015, he received his second rejection for a paper in the space of a week. Even then, Dr Marder was no stranger to rejection ¨C it was his 15th in total ¨C but this time the letter came from an editor considering his paper in a third round of review. The response was: ¡°Please send us your best work in the future.¡±

¡°°Õ³ó²¹³Ù was my best work,¡± said Dr Marder, now a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Edinburgh Business School. ¡°°Õ³ó²¹³Ù evening, I consumed two bottles of red wine, a large pepperoni pizza and 20 Marlboro Reds [cigarettes] by myself while escaping into the BBC¡¯s Don¡¯t Tell the Bride.¡±

Almost every researcher knows the devastating feeling that can come from opening a letter with the words ¡°We regret to inform you¡­¡±

But those in the throes of submitting and resubmitting a paper should remember that rejection rates at?high-profile journals are notoriously high. Analysis by Frontiers, an open-access publisher, also suggested that even journals with impact factors below the average may reject as many as nine out of 10 papers.

ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

Crucially, what doesn¡¯t kill you will only make your?work stronger, according to some who know ¡°no¡± only too well.

Nigel Wright, deputy vice-chancellor, research and innovation, at Nottingham Trent University, suggests that rejection is less a mark of failure than it is of the correct level of determination.

ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

¡°A 100?per cent success rate indicates that you need to aim higher,¡± said Professor Wright, who has published more than 120 papers over the course of his career. ¡°Be ambitious in choosing a journal; if [your paper] is rejected, take the feedback on board and submit elsewhere.¡±

Of course, such practical measures can go only so far towards tempering the emotional blows. ¡°Listen to Tubthumping by Chumbawamba ¨C the drinking is optional,¡± he suggested.

Dr Marder said that his attitude towards rejection was now much healthier. ¡°Rejection no doubt hurts at any stage of your career; but from my first-hand experience, for early career researchers [it] hurts more and is far more common,¡± he said. ¡°Although nothing really dulls the heartache of a paper [being turned down]¡­speaking out about it [rejections] to colleagues really helps.¡±

One of his top tips for early career researchers is to collaborate with ¡°fellow strugglers¡± ¨C and, crucially, to not assume that working with senior scholars will be the ticket to publication success.

ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

¡°A [senior] professor is very unlikely to help you complete and format references at 10:37pm on a Sunday,¡± Dr Marder said. ¡°Working with fellow strugglers really¡­is great emotional support. You need someone [with whom you] can truly empathise, drown sorrows and swear at Reviewer?2.¡±

Dr Marder also advises that ¡°when you see the rejection email, do not read the reviews straight away¡±. Instead, ¡°close the email, grieve and return to the reviews a few days later¡±, he suggested. ¡°Reading negative reviews straight after the blow of a rejection is just like rubbing salt into a wound.¡±

According to Mike Larkin, an emeritus professor of microbial biochemistry at Queen¡¯s University Belfast, the same approach is also advisable when it comes to writing a response. It may be tempting to hit reply immediately and give an editor a piece of your mind, but it is important to ¡°never react straight away to a letter or email¡±, he said.

¡°Put it away, sleep on it and look again the next morning,¡± suggested Professor Larkin, who is a?former editor of the US journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

For Janet Ward, a digital marketing researcher at the University of Sunderland, rejection will never be something she is happy to receive, but it gets easier to handle with time. ¡°Seeing rejection as part of the job helps,¡± as does ¡°being realistic that this will happen¡±, she continued.

¡°I think everyone does feel [personally offended] by rejection, particularly early in their career,¡± she said. Dr Ward admitted that she has ¡°sometimes challenged an editor¡± but that has rarely led to a successful outcome.

ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

¡°Rejection¡­is never nice, but you learn to manage by having alternative strategies,¡± she concluded. ¡°Nothing gets wasted. It¡¯s the only mindset to have.¡±

rachael.pells@timeshighereducation.com