Can I use my rejected Article?

[forumguru]

I had submitted a article which was rejected because of grammatical errors. But I had checked my article very well before submitting. I don't know where are the grammatical errors? Without showing such grammatical errors , CC has suspended my Account. So I want to get back my article. Can I use it somewhere else? As the article I submitted to CC is very much my property until it is sold.
Can I use my rejected Article?

[Celeste Stewart]

The article belongs to you and always has. Until you sell the article for full rights, it's yours to do with as you please. CC does not keep a copy of articles that it does not accept (they "purge" non-accepted articles from their system).

[jadedragon]

Based on the grammar of your forum posts it is pretty clear your articles would be rejected here. CC requires perfect grammar. Good luck in your future endeavorers though.

[michaelsmoker]

I've seen far worse grammatical errors than the OP's before. I wouldn't ban someone just because they got a couple of periods and commas wrong. At least the OP understands the proper use of past tenses.

Michael

[jadedragon]

I've seen worse too, but not from successful writers here. Seriously the first sentence should not have the word "had", a instead of "an". Second sentence should not start with the word "But". I could go on...

[JoyRCalderwood]

jadedragon, "endeavorers"?

let he who is innocent cast the first stone

[jadedragon]

I don't sell forum posts so I don't spell or grammar check them carefully. That is a pretty funny error too. Forum posts don't go through Ed, thank goodness!

If you were coming into the forum to complain that your account was suspended for bad grammar and hoping for reconsideration you would make darn sure your appeal was error free, would you not? If the forum post contains serious errors in this kind of situation it is pretty safe to say that the writer does not have a good grasp of English.

[BarryDavidson]

In reply to the original post - Celeste is quite correct. The work is yours, and will remain so until you sell it for full rights. At that point it becomes the sole property of the buyer, and they can do whatever they want to it.

In reply to Michael - banning isn't something done for no reason at all. Gross and repeated grammar, spelling and punctuation errors are bad enough, but not usually enough for banning. Banning usually occurs when the rejected articles are resubmitted multiple times, and have the same or more errors making them unreadable. In other words, unprofessional work which shows no sign of improvement. If the author can show that they are improving with each submission, their account is often left alone so that they can have that room to grow into being a CC writer. However, if all of the writer's initial work looks like the work of a six year old...

I have seen complaints from people who were banned after one to three submissions. In the case of the former, the work was barely readable, and the subject matter was one of the very few excluded topics/styles here. In the cases of the latter, it was apparent from those first three submissions that the writers would never be able to write professional quality work without taking numerous classes first. The majority of banned accounts come from those two categories. For those that don't, it's often a case of resubmitting multiple articles with the same errors in them every time. After all, CC is a business. This site, in order to remain in business, needs a lot of professional quality work. If the editors spend more time rejecting articles than accepting them, the site and its authors suffer because of that wasted time.

For those who don't have the capacity or ability to adhere to CC's submission guidelines, there are hundreds of other sites which probably will accept their work. They're mostly not as good or profitable, but you really can't make money without putting in the effort and time to use the English language correctly.

[michaelsmoker]

Barry, that's one reason I almost never resubmit a rejected article. For example, one of my articles was rejected with this comment: "Exclamation marks should be kept to a minimum." I reviewed the article and saw that it contained NO exclamation marks--not a single one. I don't believe I've used even one exlamation mark in any of my 215-or-so published articles. Since I couldn't figure out why the article was rejected, I couldn't do anything to change it so that it would be accepted the second time around, so I just submitted it elsewhere.

Anyway, thanks for confirming that resubmitting a rejected article is a bad idea.

Michael

[BarryDavidson]

I've resubmitted plenty of articles in my time. Lately though, with there being a few more editors who are an unknown, I haven't bothered. A few months back I had a rejection which basically said that my article based on constitutional law and Supreme Court precedents was an opinion/editorial piece. That was a new one to me, so I submitted it elsewhere.

As for the exclamation mark comment, it was probably a mistake. There is a pull down menu for rejections which are most common. On occasion you will get a comment which is actually typed out with the biggest reasons why it was rejected. Usually it's just a generic drop down comment.

[michaelsmoker]

I also try to avoid having my articles reviewed on Mondays or on Tuesday mornings lately. Since I started doing that, my acceptance rate has been 100%.

Michael

[webscribe]

I've submitted rejected articles a second time and had them approved, but then the rejections were related to isolated, very specific problems (e.g., inadvertent hyperlinks--oops!). For rejections due to grammar, punctuation, usage, etc., perhaps it is best not to re-submit because the author who made the errors in the first place may not be able to identify all of them and could spend a lot of time on changes only to have the article rejected again. We can also go to our colleagues on the forums for help on identifying and avoiding errors. If I'm uncertain about anything, I know I will save time by posting a question here versus submitting, getting a request for revision, making changes, re-submitting and waiting for approval a second time.

There is often a fine line between informative writing and an opinion piece. Most of my articles are full of 'shoulds' and subjective statements but within the context of a how-to format. When I've been in doubt as to whether something was an op ed or informative article, I just didn't submit it here. CC's guidelines are straightforward and liberal so I try my best to follow them to the letter. Compared to most clients and other writing sites, I really don't think CC asks that much of us.

[jorjastandish]

I usually use my rejected article,sometimes it gets approved.

[Sharion]

With one exception, I've always reworked and resubmitted the articles.

I figured if the editor was good enough to take their time and offer a comment, the least I could do is take my time and put their comment to good use as a "good faith effort" so to speak. That did come back to bite me last time, though. I ended up spending much more time on the piece than it would ever pay for.

The editor did suggest that I turn it into two articles, and I have not reworked and submitted the second article. The first article did get accepted and is now for sale.

I've not been able to get my motivation back to do the second article, and am subsequently frozen. Suddenly CC is inundated with public requests, several per day, generally at a much lower rate than I can write for, and that has taken away my motivation to submit.

I see all those public requests and assume that the editors are too swamped for speculative submissions. I see the prices being offered and assume that there are too many writers willing to write more cheaply than I can, so I don't feel I can be competitive enough. I see the new writer's pool and I don't recall the details, but it gave the impression that I'd be bidding or competing for the work.

All added up, it completely obliterated my motivation.

It does bode well for CC to have so many new requests every day. Apparently they've done something to bring a lot of new business in. For me, however, I feel pushed out by it.

[Celeste Stewart]

Sharion, only you can control what you submit and ask for your work. So what if a bunch of requests are currently asking for lower rates than you'd like? Ignore those and submit your own stuff, the stuff that makes you happy.

If that second article is dragging you down, banish it and work on something else. I know how that happens. It happens to me with books I'm reading all the time. Sometimes I'll tackle a huge book that's totally boring and I drag my feet reading it. It could take me months (or years) to get through it and I've hated it the whole time. Meanwhile, I've missed out on all those other great reads. I've finally learned to close those books, put them away, and go find a better one instead of investing any more time and energy into books that just aren't working for me.

While I appreciate the editors' hard work, it's not up to us to ease their burden by not submitting articles. That's what they're here for. Also, the writers pool isn't really competitive. Once a request goes out to the pool, the writers have a chance to "claim" it. So, while I suppose you have to be fast, assuming everyone in the pool is clamoring to be the one to claim it, you don't have to bid or even write on spec with these requests.