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Conclusions and Reflection Topic

Once you have completed your field work and data collection, you will have to draw conclusions from what you have found, reflect on what those conclusions mean and finish writing your dissertation or thesis. The learning units in this topic will help you to both form conclusions from your findings and to explain them, as well as covering issues such as effective writing and presentation, defending your thesis in viva voce examinations, and thinking about what you might want to do after you have finished your research.

Reasons for rejection

A sad face

'Writing is a time consuming and highly skilled activity, and for it to be productive, authors should embark on a strategy that reduces the possibility of their work suffering the ignonimity of rejection'
(Birchenall 1997: 86).

Outright rejection can be disheartening, but remember that unconditional acceptance is rare; generally acceptance always involves some form of revision to the paper. The common reasons for outright rejection include:

  • the paper has a poor fit with the journal's aims , and/or
  • the paper requires too much work to bring it up to standard, and/or
  • authors do not follow the guidelines of the journal.

Even if the content of the paper is worthy of publication, it could still be rejected because of problems with the writing style. For example:

  • The style is confusing, ambiguous and vague
  • It lacks creativity, imagination or originality
  • It is uninformed by current literature
  • It is unstructured and fragmented
  • It is unethical and breaches confidentiality
  • It is either overly lengthy or inaccurate
  • It makes claims that are unsubstantiated by the data
  • It lacks sufficient academic rigour
  • The statistical analysis is incomplete

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