Confused About Editing Process

[philipanderson]

Hi

When I first joined, my first five articles were accepted straight away. I then started to get some rejections from the editor. There were/are definitely problems with wordiness in the articles, so I effectively re-wrote the offending articles based on the feedback from the editor.

The last three articles that I wrote were simply deleted. I'd written and submitted them before I started to get the rejections. I think that due to the Christmas and New Year break there had been some delays in the editing process so it possibly looked like I wasn't listening to the feedback from the editors. I got an email with editorial comments in all cases - wordiness was the culprit again. I can understand why they wouldn't want to have to keep feeding back the same comments.

Here's the confusion.

The email says:

"We have reviewed your content. Unfortunately, we can no longer consider this article for approval. Please do not resubmit." The email gives lots of other feedback on the article, in terms of wordiness and use of commas too.

So I'm now wondering what I can do.

If I rewrite the article entirely and resubmit, this would appear to contradict the editor's instruction. Does the site allow you to submit a 'new version' of an article that was previously deleted? I can't imagine it does. If it does, why is that any different to submitting a new version under a rejected title? If it doesn't, what that effectively means is that I can never submit an article under that title again, even if it conforms to every guideline and is top-notch quality. That strikes me as being bad for the site.

I've got 2 new articles that I want to submit in due course, but will be making sure that I am very confident that none of these problems exist before I submit them. It is probably best to just forget these three articles and submit brand new content.

I was just curious if anybody could shed any light on when and why an editor outright deletes something versus rejecting for resubmission. I don't think the issues of wordiness with these 3 were any more or less serious than the issues with the ones before, but they've now been edited, resubmitted and accepted.

[Lysis]

I think you basically get one shot to fix it. I have an article I resubmitted with the notes "I rewrote the sentences you pointed out" and the editor said she saw no changes. Not sure what happened, but the editor wrote back that she can't accept it again if it doesn't get fixed.

I'm sure if it's minor stuff the second time around, they'll let you fix it, but I think if it's too far gone after the first revision, they remove it.

[philipanderson]

Thanks

I sort of took the three rejections as a call to think carefully about what to do next. I feel as though the editor is saying to me "you need to stop sending articles like this because you're wasting our time", which I already knew and accepted. I should have deleted those three at that point myself and then resubmitted once I had had a chance to rework them. I'm writing two drafts at the moment, and I'm focusing on the issues raised as I do not want more rejections. I won't be submitting until I am really confident that they meet the standards.

I've been surprised at how challenging this process has been for me so far. I've been writing online content elsewhere for many years (albeit on a relatively small scale) with lots of positive feedback from clients etc. Joining this site has really exposed how my 'natural' style doesn't meet the quality standards it needs to. The editors' comments are spot on. I need to slow down and focus on getting the quality right one article at a time I think.

[elenawilliams]

I've been surprised at how challenging this process has been for me so far. I've been writing online content elsewhere for many years (albeit on a relatively small scale) with lots of positive feedback from clients etc. Joining this site has really exposed how my 'natural' style doesn't meet the quality standards it needs to. The editors' comments are spot on. I need to slow down and focus on getting the quality right one article at a time I think.

It's something most writers go through when starting out here. I too had many years of writing experience online, but found myself having to modify (slightly) the way I submitted for CC.

re Editing - if you get feedback suggesting modifications, the best approach is to make your FIRST revision thorough and complete. The 'second chance' may not be a generous one, or even offered. If there are extensive mistakes pointed out, you might even consider pulling the article and not submitting it again. The reason is obvious - editors' time is precious, and repeated editing wastes it. Though not always strictly enforced, a "one shot and you're out" policy is a good thing to keep in mind while submitting edits/corrections, imho.

Elena

[philipanderson]

It's something most writers go through when starting out here. I too had many years of writing experience online, but found myself having to modify (slightly) the way I submitted for CC.

re Editing - if you get feedback suggesting modifications, the best approach is to make your FIRST revision thorough and complete. The 'second chance' may not be a generous one, or even offered. If there are extensive mistakes pointed out, you might even consider pulling the article and not submitting it again. The reason is obvious - editors' time is precious, and repeated editing wastes it. Though not always strictly enforced, a "one shot and you're out" policy is a good thing to keep in mind while submitting edits/corrections, imho.

Elena

Thanks Elena - that's good advice.

I should say that with these three articles, this was my first submission attempt - they were rejected without any opportunity to revise. With other articles, where they were initially rejected, I was given a chance to modify, which I did, and in all cases, they were accepted on the second pass. I was surprised that there was no opportunity to resubmit here but I have just taken this as a generic 'stop submitting until you have sorted your style issues out' message. That's how I am approaching it now anyway.