The Lancet Public Health

Acceptance Rate · Rejection Rate · Submission Experiences · Editor Reviews · Publish Competitiveness

The Lancet Public Health

Acceptance Rate

Acceptance Rate

The acceptance rate for an academic journal is dependent upon the relative demand for publishing in a particular journal, the peer review processes in place, the mix of invited and unsolicited submissions, and time to publication, among others. As such, it may be a proxy for perceived prestige and demand as compared to availability. However, locating acceptance rates for individual journals or for specific disciplines can be difficult, yet is necessary information for promotion and tenure activities. Journals with lower article acceptance rates are frequently considered to be more prestigious and more “meritorious”. As an internal benchmark, most journals will not publish their acceptance rates on their website. From their perspective, a consistently low acceptance rate may prove to be a deterrent to future submissions. Moreover, the method of calculating acceptance rates varies among journals. Some journals use all manuscripts received as a base for computing this rate. Other journals allow the editor to choose which papers are sent to reviewers and calculate the acceptance rate on those that are reviewed that is less than the total manuscripts received. Also, many editors do not maintain accurate records on this data and provide only a rough estimate. In brief, Acceptance rate (or rejection rate) is the ratio of the number of articles submitted to the number of articles published. It can measure the selectivity or prestige of a journal, though like many journal metrics, the raw number is not the whole story.

Calculating & Comparing acceptance rates

The method of calculating acceptance rates varies. Some journals use all manuscripts received as a base for computing the rate. Others allow the editor to choose which papers are sent to reviewers and calculate the acceptance rate on those that are reviewed that is less than the total manuscripts received. Also, many editors do not maintain accurate records on this data and provide only a rough estimate. A prestigious and multidisciplinary journal like Science or Nature will receive many more submissions than they can accommodate in publishing, regardless of merit, resulting in a low acceptance rate. A special journal on a narrow topic (like a specific disease) may only have a limited number of experts writing in the field, resulting in a higher rate. Journals that publish a limited number of paper issues would have a lower rate.

Journal Acceptance Rate Feedback System

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