Manuscript Rejection Blues

I am slowly trying to settle into a dissertation working/writing routine, but having some problems. First, what to do, and what to make myself do? I have a list of to-do tasks, some to do with cleaning up and sorting data for analysis, some of it to do with writing/outlining parts of my dissertation. But I feel like I jump around, do a little of this, a little of that, but mostly… a lot of procrastinating.

BUT, one thing that is really getting in the way of my motivation is my much-rejected manuscript based on my masters research. I finished my thesis in 2007, presented data from it in posters and presentations and conferences from 2006-2008, and since around 2007, have been trying to get it published. I have submitted it, thus far, too four journals. Two rejected it outright. One said that the major problems were that the sample size was too small (four males, four females), the amount of data was too low (approximately 70-ish focal hours), and that the age range of the focal animals was too large (juveniles range from about 15-50 months, and I categorize them in one of three age categories). The second said that the major problem was the length of the time of the study (about 14 weeks). Despite these drawbacks, after rejecting my manuscript, I later came across a recent article in the first journal on similar topics in captive rhesus macaques—it was based on one week (!) of data collection, and 44 observation hours! GRRRRRRR!!!!! How did THEY get that accepted? I will concede that they had a much large number of males and females, they were probably approximately the same age or at least a smaller age range, and that they recorded and analyzed data based on bouts of social interactions (ie, so their observation hours are presumably ALL social behavior, whereas mine include other activities). Nonetheless, it is frustrating—especially considering that my number of focal animals and the age ranges are a) completely of my control, and b) limited because of the life history, community size, and ranging size of spider monkeys—with an interbirth interval of three years, there are only so many juvenile spider monkeys you can find in one place!

The third journal rejected it, but did say that it would accept resubmission if I could address all the reviewers critiques—so I revised and resubmitted it. I think it made the manuscript much stronger, and although the number of focal individuals is small (not much I can really do about that!), I noted that the number of focal hours per individual is comparable to other similar studies on juvenile primates, and cited a couple of those studies. Every other critique was addressed. But, nonetheless, despite my resubmission, they rejected it the second time, because although I did address all those critiques, the sample size was still the same!

And now, I’m in the same boat with journal #4. Their major issue is not the sample size, but hours of data per individual. While the reviewers acknowledge that it is comparable to the other studies, they note that those studies were on juveniles living in cohesive groups, and that for juveniles in a fission-fusion society, they think that amount of data is inadequate. Which is so annoying, because unlike at least one of those other studies, I had individual recognized focal animals—if I didn’t bother recognizing them, obviously I could have had more data, but that would, in my opinion, be a bigger problem! BUT, if I can adequately argue that it is sufficient, and address a number of other minor points, then they might consider my resubmission. But is it worth doing another round of painstaking revisions, if in the end, it’s going to rejected for again for the factors that I can’t change? It’s just frustrating, because obviously, I’ve put a lot of work into it, and part of the reason I chose that particular topic was BECAUSE there was so little published on the topic. But now I realize that maybe I should have picked animals with cohesive groups and large numbers. Perhaps I should have studies some captive macaques.
This is my frustration, and it’s definitely killing my motivation and enthusiasm for working on my dissertation. While I definitely have more individuals, and more data, for my dissertation project, my total focal hours and hours per individual are a bit lower than I had wanted. I’m hoping that with the ecological and endocrinological data to round it out, it won’t be a problem, but it worries me. What if I run into the same problem trying to publish manuscripts from my dissertation? If I can’t get it published, then I probably have little chance of getting a job, and thus many years of my life have basically been wasted. I know I’m overreacting, but when I’m thinking about that, it makes it really hard to focus on actually trying to work on the stupid dissertation.