Under the supervision of the Dean of the College of Pharmacy, Professor Dr. Sarmed H. Kadhem Al-Khateeb, the Continuing Education Unit at the College of Pharmacy/ University of Baghdad organized an in-person workshop entitled
“Major Causes of Desk Rejection of Manuscripts by Journal Editors”, delivered by Associate Professor Ali Azeez Ali, a faculty member in the Clinical Pharmacy Department.
The workshop aimed to familiarize researchers with the key reasons journal editors reject manuscripts outright without sending them for peer review.
The workshop included several topics like: submitting to journals that do not publish research in the submitted topic area, critical flaws in research methodology or design, repetitive or unoriginal research ideas, as high-impact journals seek innovative contributions rather than duplicated studies already published elsewhere and the importance of selecting journals that provide timely initial decisions (within one to two weeks), as some journals may take up to two months to issue a desk rejection—causing delays for researchers, especially graduate students with limited timeframes for publication.
The workshop concluded with several recommendations for researchers, graduate students, and faculty members : carefully select journals that align with the research specialty and review the journal’s aims and scope, Submit manuscripts with novel ideas or added value, supported by rigorous methodology and highlight the strengths of the research clearly in the cover letter to the editor and within the manuscript particularly at the end of the introduction before stating the research objectives, to encourage editors to send the manuscript for peer review rather than reject it outright.
