Do author name(s) dominate the content of the paper?

In what you have written, you are confusing together two things:

  1. Is the author known to the reviewers? (e.g., "names with a good track record")
  2. Is the paper well written? (e.g., "English is poor")

While some sub-fields may have "cliques" that exclude people who are not part of them, most reputable scientific publications have a basically honest review process. Reviewers are human, and so even honest reviewers will tend to look more favorably on a person whose work they already respect---and thus many publication venues have double-blind review to try to eliminate this possibility.

If you haven't published in a well-reputed journal before, however, there's a good chance that your paper will not be well-written. Writing scientific papers is a skill, and that skill takes practice. Moreover, writing well is often much harder if you aren't writing in your primary language. And even if you write well in general, writing effectively to a particular scientific community requires being conversant with the current state of that community, in order to understand how readers (and reviewers) are likely to think about what you write.

Thus, I would strongly agree with your colleagues that it is extremely useful to get an expert to look at your paper. I would strongly disagree that means that expert should become an author---merely reading and commenting on a draft is definitely not sufficient for authorship.

If the expert finds problems in what you have written and is interested to become involved, however, it might be very good to begin a collaboration in which they work with you to refine your work and connect it better to the community of interest. In that case, the expert would indeed become a co-author: not because their name is valuable, but because their expertise has helped to improve the paper into something much stronger than it was before.


Colleagues are suggesting me to ask any expert to proofread the paper...

That's a good suggestion, although I would start by asking such experts to listen to an "elevator pitch" of your idea before you ask them for a more serious review. Also, what about your advisor, if you're a graduate student? S/he should help you with that.

...and then to include his name as one of the authors.

This part of the suggestion is inappropriate. Don't add his name unless s/he has made a significant contribution to the paper.

But I don't want to involve any other person and want to do everything on my own

That's the wrong attitude. Part of the experience you're missing is knowing you shouldn't, and should not want to, do "everything on your own".

and if any revisions are there, I revise my paper according to the comments by reviewers.

Don't rely on journal / conference reviewers to do the work of a colleague examining your paper. The reviewers should only need to make sure you haven't missed anything, and that the work is significant enough.

there is a possibility of immediate rejection without seeing the content if authors are new and English is poor.

You need to make sure and write your paper in proper English. Consider improving your writing using a short book on the matter such as The Elements of Style, or taking a university course in academic writing. If that's not enough - pay or find someone to do literary editing in English for you, to improve your skills and not get auto-rejected.


The review process has multiple stages. The first is an administrative/editorial review making sure the paper meets formatting requirements and is vaguely related to the area of specialty for the journal. At this stage the author's names do not matter since the person looking at the paper generally does not know everyone in the field. Really poor language very well may result in the manuscript being returned to the authors. At the end of this stage the manuscript is typically handed to the Editor in Chief or an associate/handling editor.

The EiC may also halt the process. The decision to precede at this stage might depend on the authors. If the EiC is unsure of the topic area, but recognizes an author that may help them decide on which AE to pass the paper to. A failure to recognize any authors and if the EiC cannot determine which AE to hand the paper to, may result in the manuscript being returned to the author or rejected. At the end of this stage the manuscript typically proceeds to the AE.

The job of the AE, at this stage, is to determine if the manuscript is worth the time of reviewers and find suitable reviewers. If the AE is doubtful about the manuscript, but recognizes the authors, they might send it for review while if they do not recognize the authors (or recognize the authors for causing problems), and the manuscript is bad, they might (and should) desk reject the manuscript. Typically, the manuscript then proceeds to the reviewers.

At this stage, the manuscript is reviewed. Sometimes the review is double-blind which means the authors cannot influence the decision, since the reviewer does not know who the authors are. Even when a single-blind system is used, the hope is that the authors do not influence the decision. That said, there is concern that it does, since double-blind systems are gaining popularity.

At all stages a poorly written manuscript can result in rejection and will likely lessen the quality of the reviews.