Acceptance and Rejection Rates 

Acceptance rates refer to the number of papers that a particular journal accepts for publication.  Rejection rates refer to the number of papers that a particular journal initially rejects for publication, however, after revision the paper may eventually be published.

 The higher the rejection rate the higher the perceived quality of the journal.  For example, in 2010 Nature published 7.9% of all submissions (Nature ‘For authors’).

 Journal publishers in many disciplines do not publish their acceptance/rejection rates.

 Disciplines that do publish acceptance/rejection rates tend to be in the Business and Social Sciences rather than Science and Health.

 Some sources of journal acceptance/rejection rates are:

• APA Journal Statistics and Operations Data (American Psychological Association)
• Cabell’s Business Directories