• Holly S Meyer, Steven J Durning, David P Sklar, and Lauren A Maggio.
• H.S. Meyer is assistant professor, Department of Medicine, Graduate Programs in Health Professions Education, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland. S.J. Durning is professor, Department of Medicine, and director, Graduate Programs in Health Professions Education, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, and deputy editor for research, Academic Medicine, Washington, DC. D.P. Sklar is distinguished professor emeritus of emergency medicine, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and editor-in-chief, Academic Medicine, Washington, DC. L.A. Maggio is associate professor, Department of Medicine, and associate director for technology and distributed learning, Graduate Programs in Health Professions Education, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland.
• Acad Med. 2018 Mar 1; 93 (3): 464-470.

PurposeManuscripts submitted to Academic Medicine (AM) undergo an internal editor review to determine whether they will be sent for external peer review. Increasingly, manuscripts are rejected at this early stage. This study seeks to inform scholars about common reasons for internal editor review rejections, increase transparency of the process, and provide suggestions for improving submissions.MethodA mixed-methods approach was used to retrospectively analyze editors' free-text comments. Descriptive content analysis was performed of editors' comments for 369 manuscripts submitted between December 2014 and December 2015, and rejected prior to external peer review from AM. Comments were analyzed, categorized, and counted for explicit reasons for rejection.ResultsNine categories of rejection reasons were identified: ineffective study question and/or design (338; 92%); suboptimal data collection process (180; 49%); weak discussion and/or conclusions (139; 37%); unimportant or irrelevant topic to the journal's mission (137; 37%); weak data analysis and/or presentation of results (120; 33%); text difficult to follow, to understand (89; 24%); inadequate or incomplete introduction (67; 18%); other publishing considerations (42; 11%); and issues with scientific conduct (20; 5%). Manuscripts had, on average, three or more reasons for rejection.ConclusionsFindings suggest that clear identification of a research question that is addressed by a well-designed study methodology on a topic aligned with the mission of the journal would address many of the problems that lead to rejection through the internal review process. The findings also align with research on external peer review.

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