ON INFLUENTIAL BOOKS AND JOURNAL ARTICLES INITIALLY REJECTED BECAUSE OF NEGATIVE REFEREES EVALUATIONS

This article describes examples of influential and/or highly cited pap ers that were initially rejected by one or more scientific journals. T he work reported in eight of the papers eventually earned Nobel prizes for their authors; six papers later became the most cited of the jour nals in which they were published. Also described are influential and highly cited scientific books whose authors encountered problems in pu blishing them. These case studies suggest that, although rejection may subsequently result in an improved manuscript, on other occasions ref eres may simply have failed to appreciate a paper's importance. Many o f these rejected papers also reported unexpected findings or discoveri es that challenged conventional models or interpretations.