What to Do When Your Manuscript Is Rejected

How to Write High Impact Papers and

What to Do When Your Manuscript is Rejected

OOA workshop with prof. dr. JC Coyne

"The good thing about a war is that one morning you will wake up dead and won't have to write"-

Ernst Hemingway.

The process of getting scientific papers published is undergoing dramatic changes. Many papers are rejected without being sent for peer review and yet other papers appear on PubMed within weeks of submission. There is an increasing need to capture an editor’s enthusiasm based on the title, cover letter, and abstract alone if a manuscript is even to be sent out for formal peer review.

A well-organized manuscript reporting results of a well conducted experiment in grammatically correct English sentences may not be sufficient to secure peer review and being published in the highest impact journal possible. Moreover, many journals have new policies concerning salami slicing, redundant publications, and self-plagiarism that are enforced with sophisticated web tools that can trap the unwary. And there is an increasing need to write press releases, tweet, and deal with post-publication publicity.

This workshop will introduce strategies for writing journal articles so that the process may not be effortless and joyous, but at least less painful and more assured of success. Topics include:

·  The changing world of scientific publishing: open access and rapid changes in subscription journals

·  Creative use of web-based resources to find references and pick journals and reviewers

·  Don’t be boring: crafting a catchy storyline for cover letters and the abstract

·  The Elevator Talk as a way of organizing abstracts and cover letters and the basic structure of the manuscript

·  Avoiding the perils of inadvertent plagiarizing and salami slicing

·  Integrating daily writing into your life style

·  Writing and rewriting the manuscript

·  Getting your manuscript past the editor and sent out for peer review

·  Postsubmission responsibilities

·  Writing cover letters and responses to reviewers’ comments

·  Strategizing when your manuscript is rejected

·  Why you should write press releases

·  Using self-citation, twitter, and publicity to increase early citations.

James C. Coyne is Professor Emeritus of Psychology in Psychiatry at University of Pennsylvania where he was Director of Behavioral Oncology at the Abramson Family Cancer Center and Senior Fellow, Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. He is currently Professor of Health Psychology at University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He was also the 2015 Carnegie Centenary Visiting Professor at University of Stirling. He is the author of over 400 articles and chapters and has been identified by ISI Web of Science as one of the most cited psychologists and psychiatrists in the world. Dr. Coyne is also a blogger at Science-Based Medicine

(http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-mind-in-cancer/) and PLOS Mind the Brain

(http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/author/jcyone/) where he sometimes takes editors of high impact journals to task for poor editorial decisions, confirmatory bias and other actions that put bad evidence into the literature.

Jim’s website is http://www.coyneoftherealm.com/

Date: 6 February and 20 February 2017

Time: 10:00 – 13:00 h (with more than 25 participants there will be an extra workshop in the afternoon from 14:00 – 17:00 h)

Room: De Waver, ZH -1 C 118.17, VUmc

Target audience: PhD students in oncology VUmc CCA, NKI and AMC

Price: Free of charge

Registration: You can register by sending the registration form to before January 15, 2017

More information: Dr. Esther Ruhe: 020-4444981 or