Rejection question

[grooveman]

I submitted three articles and the first time I submitted them it was the wrong format, and was told so.
Now I get this generic rejection;

"Submission does not follow our guidelines".

I thought I was careful to follow the guidelines and I completed all the fields, but obviously I missed something.
How can I find out exactly what was wrong with them? If they were purged and there is no way to find out; how do I know what to do, or NOT to do when I resubmit?

Thanks,
Russ

[Ed]

Our guidelines state that short summaries must be original and may not be copied and pasted from the document. Please make sure you are familiar with all of our guidelines.

In addition, please make sure you always choose a subcategory under "Articles."

Thanks,
Ed

[grooveman]

Thanks, I will fix them and resubmit.

[JanH1961]

I have a similar question just typed out that then poofs when submitting.
I submitted 12 articles on various topics; 11 were rejected with a note to check guidelines. They are professionally written on fact, so short of someone finding it offensive I'm still not sure why they were rejected. Saying that polo is seen as a rich person's sport is just fact, not insulting anyone as it *IS* an expensive sport.
So short of trying to guess I still don't know what was wrong with them. Content? They were formatted as far as I'm aware as required. They were my own work so not taken from someone else.

I really hate to continue doing work and it seems like it's a lottery to get accepted, without seeing why some are rejected. Is there a better way to find out?

[Ed]

Your articles did not follow our guidelines on many accounts. It is likely not every guideline deviation will be described in your rejection notice when this occurs. When more than one guideline is not followed, it is an indication that the author needs to go back and carefully reread each guideline before making any resubmissions.

We do not accept content written in the first person. Long summaries must contain a full one third of the article and be formatted as specified. If your article is not formatted in 12 pt Times New Roman or Arial, it will not be accepted. All of these points are described in our guidelines.

Thanks,
Ed

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

OK, I have a question about that. "If your article is not formatted in 12 pt Times New Roman or Arial, it will not be accepted." Does this simply not apply to plain text submissions? Or is plain text simply no longer an acceptable submission format?

Picky of me, I know, but I'd appreciate having this cleared up.

[Ed]

Plain text are currently appearing in Courier New, 10pt when they are opened. Not ideal, but not the worst font. If you don't have any control over it, you don't have any control over it. However, the two fonts described as acceptable in our guidelines are always preferred.

Thanks,
Ed

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Thanks for the speedy reply, Ed. No, .txt file definitely offers no control over font; that's what "plain text" means. :-) That's why I was confused by the guidelines positing no .txt file exception to the font requirements.

It sounds like my habit of using plain text format for my CC articles is not making life any easier for you, so I'll switch to .rtf and be sure to use the required font settings. Thank you again!

[Ed]

Yeah, not getting itchy trigger finger over that. It's really not a big deal to submit in txt. There are just some programs that have some pretty terrible default fonts, and then there are people who try to get creative . . . I'm just trying to make sure that everyone sticks to the guidelines so that we have some consistency.

Thanks,
Ed

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Thanks again, Ed.

OK, if the font of plain text files aren't bothering you so much, I'll stick to that for any resubmit/rewrite articles that are already in plain text - it sounds like you aren't so concerned about it that I should spend time converting everything from TXT to RTF. But I'll use RTF to compose future articles.

(Resubmit of Twitter article coming today. Thanks for the clear feedback in the rejection email!)