Why Research Papers Get Rejected (3 Reasons Explained)

 Is this scenario familiar?

You’ve spent days and nights working on your research paper to beat your instructor’s deadline. You’ve handed in the work on time for review and you’re eagerly waiting for the results.

Unfortunately, the feedback isn’t what you expect, especially since you pulled many all-nighters to work on the paper.

Your instructor’s feedback clearly indicates that they’ve rejected your research paper, which means you have to redo the whole paper.

It’s important to know why research papers get rejected so you understand exactly where you went wrong.

With the information in this guide, you should be able to identify the mistakes students make that get their work rejected and the right approach to fixing those errors.

Why Research Papers Get Rejected         

Your professor can reject your research paper because it doesn’t fit the scope of the research journal. Sometimes the rejection is justified because your research doesn’t contribute to new or existing knowledge. In rare cases, professors may reject a research work based on ethical standards.

We can categorize the above information into two. The firs category is the problem with the research.

The second issue is the problem with the presentation of the research. Your research paper can have one of the issues or both, which explain why your paper failed to meet the research paper writing guideline set by the school.

1. Problem with the Research

Doing research for a term paper isn’t easy. Depending on the topic, you may have to invest weeks in the research phase alone, and it’s easy to get the process wrong if you don’t pay close attention to the expected research standards.

There are at least 9 issues related to problem with research that you should know to understand why professors reject research papers.

• Insufficient research: You didn’t spend enough time researching the topic despite having enough time to do so. Your paper ends up describing a poorly conducted study that doesn’t add value to existing knowledge or describe the application of knowledge.
• Duplicate content: Plagiarism may not seem like a big deal initially. However, it can get your paper rejected without a second thought, not to mention you can easily be expelled from school. Duplicating another person’s work and using it as your own is academically unacceptable.
• Inadequate literature review: You haven’t looked at past studies or already existing knowledge in-depth. Therefore, your research paper fails to present concrete information.
• Methodological problems: You failed to do enough research, which hinders you from providing the right information in the methodology section of a research paper. 
• Problem with your samples: Small sample sizes aren’t good for research paper. It’s also likely that you have self-selected your sample, which is inappropriate in research writing.
• Data interpretation:  Either you have interpreted the data poorly or you don’t have the right combination of words to provide the right information to your audience.
• Issue with the analysis: You have the right concept, but your analytical skills are weak. You fail to provide concrete information to demonstrate that you’ve done sufficient research.

How to Deal with the Problem of Research

There are a few things you can do to make sure you don’t run into the problem of research for your research paper. 

You should:

• First find out if the formulated research question is significant to the study. If it’s not original or important, consider another question.
• Find out if the researcher observed ethical standards when conducting their experiments, especially in the treatment of the participants that took part in their research studies.
• Determine the validity and the reliability of the research instruments.
• Find out if the outcome of the research correlates with the variables used in the research investigation.
• Determine if the research is advanced enough to make the publication of the results of the study meaningful
• Find out if the research design tests hypothesis in a clear and unambiguous way.

2. Problem with the Presentation of Your Research Paper

You can get the research phase of a term paper assignment right. However, if your writing or presentation is not up to the standards, chances are your professor will reject your work.

If your professor rejects your research paper because of presentation, it’s most likely the paper has the following issues:

• You have written more words than the word limit suggested in the instructions sheet by your instructor
• Your writing skills aren’t up to the expected standard
• The research paper is either too technical for the target reader to understand or it’s full of jargons that you should have otherwise explained in simple words and phrases
• You failed to follow the writing guidelines presented by your teaches
• You didn’t proofread your work, which means your instructor found a number of spelling and grammatical errors that shouldn’t be in the paper.

How to Fix the Problem of Research Paper Presentation

Here are some simple tips that you can use to make sure you never run into the problem of research paper presentation:

• Stick to the suggested word count. Doing so signifies that you read the instructions before starting to work on your paper.
• Use a research paper outline. It’s a useful framework that allows you to organize your ideas in an order that makes sense. The outline also makes it easy for you to write the paper since you know what information to include in the paper.
• Ask for help if you have poor writing skills. Our research paper writing service can help you a great deal, especially if you’re struggling to score the highest grades in college.
• Don’t just write your research paper and submit it afterwards. Your first draft will more than likely have errors. So it’s important that you revise and proofread your work for information accuracy. That also helps to make sure your work doesn’t have spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.

3. Other Reasons Why Research Papers Get Rejected

Additional reasons why your professor is likely to reject your research paper include:

• The content of your research paper may be out of date
• The quality of your paper isn’t up to the expected standards and therefore it can’t compete with the papers published in research journals
• Research  biasness