Can an editor reject a paper (without review) because it does not cite papers from the journal it has been submitted to?

Question

I have recently submitted some work we did with one of our PhD students to one of ASME's Journals and the editor rejected the paper on the spot (without sending it for review) because the submitted paper did not cite any paper from their journal. The editor was arguing that we should include recent papers from their journal so that they could find a suitable reviewer.

I would argue that this is likely just an excuse for getting the journal's impact factor up and I have strong ethical concerns with this journal if that is their practice. The editor should not have such editing power and that should be at the discretion of the authors. If they need a list of reviewers, I am happy to provide that, as is common practice in other journals I have submitted papers to in the past.

I did oblige in the end and added a few references and I am currently waiting for the outcome (interestingly, none of the references (all published in 2022 except for one which is from 2019) we included in our paper did cite any work from the same journal, which makes this request even odder, i.e. it seems this is either a new policy they have or our work is being singled out). I was very surprised initially and did not want to publish in that journal anymore given these poor academic practices but did not do so as this would just mean more work for my PhD student to reformat and resubmit the paper to a different journal which would be unfair on him. If that would have been my own work, I would have made it very clear to the editor that I disagree with this practice and that I would not be interested in getting published in their journal.

I am just wondering if other researcher had similar experiences and what they would do (or have done) in this situation? There must be some ethical standard that this goes against (?!). Either way, my take away message is that it is unlikely for me to consider ASME again in the future for publishing my work unless they improve their standards.

Answer 1

Ultimately editors can reject for whatever reason, including "because it doesn't cite other papers from the journal".

You could argue that this is a poor reason to reject a paper, or that it is unethical. It sure gives the impression that the journal just wants to boost its impact factor after all (although there's a limit to how many self-citations a journal can have before it gets delisted by Clarivate, see e.g. this). But there are also more benign interpretations. The one given by the editor is such an interpretation, although it's a rather lazy reason, since one can still find reviewers, it's just that one has to register them in the system first.

Another benign interpretation is pointed out by Louic in the comments. If your paper is so unrelated to the journal's other papers such that none of them are worth citing, are you sure the journal is still a good fit? Like, suppose I submitted an astronomy paper to a food science journal. Obviously I won't be citing any food science papers, which results in the editor rejecting without review ("because it does not cite other papers from the journal"). Even without such a glaring mismatch, it could still be that your paper is more suited to another journal - for example, suppose your work builds on someone else's work. Perhaps you should submit to the journal that published the original work (why didn't you by the way?).

For your specific questions:

• I've never encountered this.
• I'd probably submit to another journal.

Answer 2

The editor was arguing that we should include recent papers from their journal

Publishing in a journal that blatantly inflates its impact factor is bad for your reputation and bad for academia. Withdraw your paper and take it to a better journal.

so that they could find a suitable reviewer.

Finding a reviewer is really the only responsibility the editor is accountable for, in practice. This editor is announcing their incompetence by claiming they need help finding a reviewer.

Answer 3

Editors can do whatever they want, pretty much, so long as they don't get the publisher angry.

That said, if you're writing a major paper and you haven't cited any papers from the journal you're submitting to, you might take a step back and ask yourself if you're submitting to the appropriate journal.

Note also that your paper was not rejected out of hand. It is now in review. Presumably, you could have simply recommended appropriate reviewers that the journal has interacted with before, perhaps with the same outcome.