Journal Entry #3

Failure

Today I received the results of a peer review I had resubmitted to an academic journal. For those who don’t know, I will briefly explain how it works. As a PhD candidate, depending on your university, you are expected to submit articles to academic journals. Requirements vary depending on the university, but in Japan the common requirement is to have submitted at least two articles to academic journals (which should, at the same time, be recognized by your university). Of course, if you are aiming to become a good scholar, you should aim higher than that.

Once your academic article is submitted, there are several phases you need to clear until it is accepted for publication in the journal. These phases also vary slightly depending on the journal, but overall, the whole process looks something like this. First, your article goes through the editors of the journal, who read it and decide if the overall content of the article fits the journal. During this stage, the article can be “desk rejected”, which doesn’t necessarily mean that the article is bad, just that it is not what the editors are looking for in their journal. If, on the other hand, they consider it a valuable publication, they will ask for reviewers, and the peer review phase will begin.

Peer review is common sense in academia. Every article has to be evaluated by two reviewers, who ideally are experts on the topic of your article. They will carefully read it and evaluate whether the article is worthy of publication or not. The two reviewers are commonly called “reviewer A” and “reviewer B”. There is a common trope that reviewer B will always think your article is the worst and trash your work as hard as they can. However, ideally, their comments should be constructive as well and help you improve your article so it can become publishable.

This small journal entry is about my experience with peer review and the results I received today. I am trying to submit an article to a Japanese journal, actually one of the most renowned journals in its field. It is also known for being quite strict with the papers that can be published there.

My first time submitting an article here was in 2024. I was in my final year of my master’s degree, and I basically submitted what was going to be one of the chapters of my thesis. When the peer review came back, I got a “D” score. Basically, this means that the article is pretty bad and has too many problems. An article with a “D” is not eligible to be submitted again. Although the reviewers’ comments were very helpful, the impact the results had on my mental health was quite shocking. I remember receiving the email while I was walking in the street, going back home. After I read the email, I suddenly felt that I had lost all my strength. I didn’t feel like walking anymore. My mind became numb. The despair I felt at that time was quite something, to be honest.

I had been writing that article for the whole previous month. Every day. From the moment I woke up until I went to sleep, the only thing I could think about was the article. Even when I wanted to rest or take some time for my hobby, I couldn’t fully relax, thinking that I should be working on it. Now take a moment to process this. I was dedicating all my energy, everything I had, to writing that thing. And it had been rejected. Unworthy. What was all my effort for? What was I supposed to make of that?

I talked to my tutor. He tried to cheer me up. Then he sent me a YouTube video with a song, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”, the ending song in The Life of Brian. Very appropriate, and well, it made me laugh. When I recovered from the shock, I thought, well, let’s try again next year. I also had the comments from the reviewers, so that could help me write a better text for my thesis.

Fast forward to 2025. First year of my PhD. I presented at something like seven or eight conferences in total. On top of that, I got married (and by extension, I had to organize the wedding as well). So yeah, an extremely busy year. And then August came. I had been working on the final touches for one conference, and the deadline for submission to this journal was lurking there, two weeks after that. So I had been thinking, after I am done with the conference, I will work on the article. How naïve of me. Truly naïve. Let’s be honest, there was no way I could fix last year’s article within two weeks. I don’t know what I had been thinking.

For two weeks, I wrote from morning to night, giving it my all. I basically made a whole new article, very much based on what I had presented at my last conference. Expectations were already low. I even told my tutor: “I am sorry, I will not have it ready for you to revise before I send it. I will send it anyway, since maybe the reviewers’ comments will be helpful.” He was also disappointed with me, I guess. I promised that I would try to manage my time better.

I spent two terrible weeks trying to finish it and sent it at the end of the month. This really made me think that if, from then on, I were to take this PhD seriously, I needed to commit. I needed more time. So I also left my part-time job, which I had been working at for three years already.

Two months passed. I was attending another conference. Then the reviewers’ comments came. I had gotten a “C”. To be honest, I was surprised. At least it was better than last year. A “C” in this journal meant that I had one month to rewrite based on the comments. I needed to make quite a lot of changes and then go through peer review again. If the article passed the second round, it would be able to be published. I was close.

So again, I gave it all. I also talked to my tutor; he was surprised by this result as well, actually. We arranged that he would revise my article after I had implemented the changes, and then I would resubmit it. So again, I spent two weeks just working on the article. Then I sent it to my tutor. He would look into it and give me some comments in about a week. I took this time to get some well-deserved rest, as I was beginning to feel burnout as well.

Then I met with my tutor. He had some “critical comments” to make. Basically, my article was pretty bad. The main problems he pointed out had to do with the flow of information: the order in which I said things, the content… problems everywhere. He used the following metaphor: imagine that there is a film announced. Great director, great actors, very nice trailers. You are very excited about it and want to go to the cinema to watch it because you are very hyped. Then you go to see it, and it is pretty bad. So yeah, that was basically my article.

He even told me that, were he in charge of this review, he would have graded me with a “D”. Despite all this, it was not that he wanted to be cruel to me; it was because he actually cared that he was telling me all of this. And I get it. I also get that not only his comments, but the reviewers’ comments as well, were grounded and useful, and to be honest, I agree with everything I was told. It’s not like I was being trashed for no reason.

I had three days left to try to write something that would respond to the reviewers’ comments, plus my tutor’s comments as well. I was fully aware that this was an impossible task to accomplish. But I wanted to try. I had come all the way to this point; I didn’t want to surrender now. Although my tutor suggested that one option would be to stop here and try again this year, I said, “I will try again.”

If I had to describe how I was feeling during those three days… well, the first word would be “perseverance”. I definitely didn’t want to give up, not yet. But at the same time, I felt that I was fighting a lost battle. Still, I thought that receiving more comments from the reviewers would be helpful and would ultimately make my article better.

The final day of the deadline arrived. I spent the whole day at my department. And at 23:30, thirty minutes before the deadline, I resubmitted it.

Today, the reviewers’ comments came again. I was graded a “C” again. They recommended that I resubmit for the next issue of the journal. And that feeling assaulted me again. Although I still had hope that it would be better this time, I was also expecting this result. And still, I felt the despair again. I am still feeling it as I write this. I am just not meeting the mark. I did my best with what I had, and still, it’s not enough. All I can feel now is hopelessness. I failed. Again.

At least I tried, I suppose. It’s better than last time, that’s for sure, but still, it’s not enough.

And when August comes again, I will have to submit again. I guess I can learn from all this experience. Now I have plenty of time left. Do things the proper way. Plan ahead. Write better. Get revisions and advice from other people. However, the scariest thing that I cannot avoid thinking about is: what will happen if I don’t make it again? How many times can I endure these feelings? Am I going anywhere?

Maybe the best thing for now is to let it rest. Now I just want to be alone for some time and think. Maybe I can find some way to transform these feelings into something else. This journal entry has been just one more way of dealing with these feelings. Who knows? Maybe after some years, I will come back here and laugh at myself for feeling like this.