The following are reprinted with the authors' permission.
A helpful paper by Professor John H. Cochrane, University of Chicago, entitled "Writing Tips for Ph.D. Students" can be viewed here. Despite its title, we believe the paper is also relevant for faculty. The JFR wishes to thank Professor Cochrane for allowing us to link to his site.
"How to get your paper rejected"
written by Professor Matthew Spiegel, Yale School of Management
"A very snarky guide to getting your paper rejected at the RFS. Others should feel free to add to my list if they like.
1. Why stop at 60 pages when you can produce an 80 page manuscript! I do not have any hard evidence on this, but my casual observation is that unless you are a past president of the AFA or believe you will soon be one, then any article over 60 pages will almost certainly produce a negative referee's report. Think of each page as another target for the referee's quiver. Then cut.
2. Set the page defaults to fit as much as you possibly can on a page. Tiny type (ten point is especially good), narrow margins, and 1.5 line spacing are particularly good choices. Editors and referees are particularly dumb and unlikely to notice any of this. Furthermore, the editor of your paper probably wants to go blind. Why not help him or her along?
3. Never check your Acrobat settings to determine if the fonts are being imbedded. Typically, files without embedded fonts will generate little boxes where your equations used to be. Most referees find it much easier to do their reports when this happens. Though, I am not sure if you will be all that happy with the results.
4. The longer the introduction and literature review the better. Editors and referees generally have very little to do other than read your paper. Help fill the time by showing off your command of the literature. If possible avoid getting to your work (you know the material you hope we will actually publish) until around page ten or twelve.
5. Write in grammatically challenged English. If your paper is difficult to read you will likely convince most people to go on to something else. If you even think you may need help with English grammar hire a copy editor to review your paper prior to its submission. Given all of the time you put into your paper the cost of doing so is minimal.
6. Use colloquialisms (like snarky!) throughout your paper. The less formal your writing the better. That way the referee will know for sure that you are not serious about your paper and can treat it casually as well.
7. Really long sentences are a particularly good way to convince the reader that you are really, really smart. Who needs periods anyway! Alas, long sentences are also really, really hard to decipher so while the reader may think you are really, really smart it is also likely the reader will have no idea what you are talking about and will then write a report saying, "Boy this person is really, really smart but I have no idea what he is talking about so I think you should reject the paper," which is unlikely to lead to your paper's ultimate publication."
This post can be found at its original location here. The JFR wishes to thank Professor Spiegel for his permission to re-post his advice.