Oh no, I've been rejected!

[gaia]

As a newbi to CC, I proudly submitted my first article last week, thinking that I had carefully followed all the submission guidelines. So I was really disappointed to receive my rejection email, which simply said 'Please follow all formatting guidelines, which describe how spaces must appear between paragraphs in the content details and the document itself.
We do not accept content with punctuation errors'.
I have read lots of the posts on this forum regarding rejection and have checked and re-checked my article before re-submitting, but really could not see what I had done wrong. Someone had suggested using the edit feature, after submission, to see what Ed sees, so I have tried this and made a few minor changes and am keeping my fingers crossed that it will now be accepted. But I did feel that I was groping around in the dark, not really knowing what needed changing! I wouldn't mind going through this trial and error process if I could be sure I would get accepted eventually, but I remember reading somewhere that once you have had 3 rejections, no more articles can be submitted, so this is a bit worrying - is this correct?

[BarryDavidson]

Gaia,

I've had quite a few rejections in my time here. The first three articles I submitted were rejected for one reason or another. Fortunately, they were accepted on the second try. I have had one or two articles which were rejected twice in a row.

The "three rejections" rule is subjective. Basically, if you keep resubmitting the same articles, or submit lots of articles with the same types of errors without any sign that you're trying to improve, then your account can be suspended. I was scared when I had articles rejected twice. If you consistently show improvement, but have other small errors from time to time, you'll be fine here.

Ed is one of the fairest editors I've ever seen. I've only heard about him suspending a few accounts in my time here, and those were usually from people who wouldn't edit their articles at all before resubmitting.

[audrabianca]

Barry, oh, no. You've opened the floodgate to the masses. Poor Ed :)

[cathymcc]

Gaia,
I have been rejected my first 3 submissions also. I came to the forums to figure out what I am doing wrong...my rejections say the same thing, wrong formatting, grammatical errors. But I double checked my spelling and did not have any errors. The only thing I can think of is that the transmission goofed up the formatting from Word. I have resubmitted with notepad. Hopefully, this second submission will work out. I am a newbie too. I think you are from DS too, right?
I sure hope I can make this site work for me. I like it and I need the income, but I just don't know what I am doing wrong. So, I hope somebody can help me.

[gaia]

Thanks Barry and Cathy, but it gets worse! See my new post about third rejection

Gaia

[Ed]

If the rejection notice does not include rejections for formatting, it is likely no formatting errors have been made.