Latest review
First review round: 17.9 weeks. Overall rating: 0 (very bad).
Outcome: Rejected.
Motivation:
Reviewer 2 found the paper interesting! Unfortunately, since the journal uses a double-blind review process, I couldn’t reference my previous paper which the current one was based on, which may have led Reviewer 2 to decide not to continue with the review 😉. The second review consisted of two pages of comments (I suspect it was assigned to a student for a course related to scientific reviews). I appreciate the time they spent on it. Some of the comments were useful, but many were very subjective. The reviewer seemed focused on providing as many comments as possible, often suggesting what they would have done if they had written the paper instead of evaluating the content of the paper itself. In some cases, I believe the reviewer misunderstood the approach and based their judgment on this misunderstanding. Although I had responses for many of the subjective comments, it was ultimately rejected, so I didn’t have time to address them. Honestly, I am not happy with the review process, especially considering the time it took—two months for the initial decision, despite my two follow-up emails urging them to speed up the process. It was rejected in the end, and given the feedback I received, I am left feeling frustrated. I think the journal has a very top-down approach and doesn’t seem to appreciate the effort we put into our papers or the time constraints, which are particularly important for a PhD student. Before submitting to this journal, I hope you will review our feedback.
