The ‘Seven deadly sins’ of rejected papers

‘Publish or perish’ has become the mantra of 21st century academic life1 but, despite the potentially cynical response it might raise with respect to performance based research funding, the reality is that publishing our work in peer‐reviewed journals is one way to contribute to public health through the dissemination of new knowledge, the raising of social consciousness, and to challenge dogma. However, the process of publishing your work can be a soul destroying process, even for the most seasoned of campaigners. Editors are also authors, and we know that the ‘rejection letter’ inevitably invokes a sinking feeling, not least of which is the knowledge that you will need to spend the best part of a day reformatting your paper to meet another set of ‘author guidelines’ with the obligatory quirky referencing styles, even though we know that revision helps make the manuscript a better product...