Academic

"After Careful Consideration ..."

By Tim Zinnecker

Many of us have submitted manuscripts to law journals this month.  I?m looking for good homes for two articles.  (Student editors, call me please!  Yes, my titles refer to the dreaded and oft-loathed UCC Article 9, but that doesn?t necessarily mean that your perusal will induce confusion, anxiety, nausea, or drowsiness.)   Rejection, on the part of both author and journal editors, is part of the process.

But sometimes the rejection leaves me ... speechless.

Case in point:  I submitted a manuscript to numerous journals via Expresso on Monday at approximately 11:40 a.m.  At 1:34 p.m. (less than two hours later), I received an electronic message from the ____________ Law Review (name withheld, but the men's basketball team lost a second-round tournament game), informing me that ?[a]fter careful consideration," the editors had decided not to publish the article.

Wow!  I haven?t been rejected with such speed since I asked Wendy Featherstone to the senior prom back in the 70?s.  I gotta hand it to this group of student editors, though.  They must be graduates of the EW speed-reading course.  How else would one explain such a swift ?careful consideration? of a manuscript that exceeds 60 single-spaced pages?

Can anyone beat the time of my expedited rejection?  Or shall I call the folks at Guinness (these folks, not these folks)?

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on March 25, 2009 (boomark / email).