Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
7.4 weeks
7.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
0
1
Rejected
Motivation: - One of the reviewers did not understand the work.
- One of the reviewers say the the work does not have "any certified and documented discussion". In the manuscript, we have a section dedicated to the discussion of the results.
- One of the reviewers say that in the work we give no information about the limitations of the proposal. However, we have a section, in the manuscript, in which we present a complexity analysis of the algorithm.
- One of the reviewers claim that the work presents no solid comparative analysis and we present a standard analysis similar to many other works.
- One of the reviewers said that the improvement is not significant. However, we applied statistical tests and the p-values. So despite the improvement can be small, in some cases such improvements are statistical significant.
- We sent a letter to the Editor-In-Chief to inform about the low quality if the reviews and we received no reply.
12.1 weeks
12.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
1
1
Rejected
Motivation: One reviewer suggested minor revision without much advice. Another reviewer didn't have any constructive suggestions either but just stated that he/she didn't agree with the data, without giving a solid reason. Actually this reviewer misunderstood the data and the analysis, and some put some statements in an obviously wrong way. Unfortunately, the editor lacked the expertise to assess those reviewer comments and simply rejected the paper.
35.6 weeks
35.6 weeks
n/a
6 reports
1
0
Rejected
Motivation: I contacted editorial office several times, but everytime I only got automatic reply. After many rounds of inquiry, I finally figured out the reason for the delay. It was becuase the action editor "declined to work due to time constraints" (I'm quoting). How professional!
After 8 months of frustration, I finally got my hands on the first round reviews. Six reviews included, five of them very concise(some even a few lines).
My experinece with Sage Open was complete waste of time. I strongly advise anyone to avoid this journal.
78.6 weeks
78.6 weeks
n/a
3 reports
1
0
Rejected
Motivation: The review process for our paper has been deeply disappointing and unfair. Here's a summary of what transpired:

First Review Round:

Our paper was reviewed by three reviewers. Two of them provided constructive, well-reasoned, and positive feedback, which we addressed by implementing the recommended changes.
The third reviewer, however, provided harsh and puzzling feedback, questioning the mathematical foundations of our work and criticizing the lack of derivations for certain equations. These equations, however, were standard equations in our field, properly cited, and not novel contributions from our paper. This strongly suggests that the reviewer lacked expertise in the subject area of our paper.
Second Review Round:

Unfortunately, the two constructive reviewers did not review our revised paper, depriving us of the opportunity to receive their assessment of the changes they requested. Instead, three new reviewers were assigned:

Reviewer #R9 provided only minor comments regarding formatting but requested we cite a paper unrelated to our work.
Another reviewer requested numerous modifications, which we implemented over two weeks.
Reviewer #R11, astonishingly, provided comments that clearly referenced a completely different paper.
In our resubmission letter, we explicitly raised concerns about Reviewer #R11’s mismatch and requested their removal due to their evident error in assessing a different article.

Final Decision (After 6 Months):

The editor rejected the paper, basing the decision on Reviewer #R11’s comments, which again pertained to a different paper. It is clear the editor either did not read or disregarded our request to exclude Reviewer #R11 from the process.
Reviewer #R9 returned the paper for yet another revision due to supposed minor formatting issues and repeated their demand to cite the same unrelated paper. This raises significant ethical concerns, as it appears Reviewer #R9 was using the review process to promote their own work.

This process has been deeply disheartening. Months of work have been dismissed due to a flawed and mismanaged review process. It is especially disappointing to encounter such negligence and unprofessionalism in a reputed journal from a prestigious publisher.
9.3 weeks
9.3 weeks
n/a
3 reports
0
1
Rejected
Motivation: The whole process was very straightforward. However, after receiving technically incorrect and superficial reviews, the paper was concluded that it "cannot compete for space". This level of review we received was surprisingly low quality.

For 2 out of 3 reports, it was basically 2 paragraphs, of random referencing of unrelated articles and a generic "Very interesting work, but not good enough for Science". The fact that the editor allowed these kind of reviews and did not request a more careful and thorough work is sadly a sign of editorial failure.

Comparing this report with tens of reports received in specialized and other general journals like the ones from Nature, this is by far the lowest quality reports ever seen. Essentially, the reviewers were allowed to put their subjective, biased and entitled opinion as "objective review" and in our case the editor was not familiar enough with the topic to recognize that.

The only reason I rate the process as 1/5 and not 0 is that there was an effort by the editor to justify their choice, which although pretty disappointing as they never admitted their inability to judge the content (which was sadly apparent from their replies), it was still an effort to be mentioned.
49.1 weeks
49.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
0
0
Rejected
Motivation: The review process was too long, and its quality was poor. The journal rejected my paper after 11 months with just two revisions. Reviewer 1 posed some minor changes, such as adding some information for reproducibility and including some references, which cannot be considered enough for rejecting a paper. However, reviewer 2 suggested rejecting the paper without giving any reason or pointing out any defects.
21.0 weeks
21.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
2
0
Drawn back
Motivation: almost 2 months for the pre-editorial check, almost 5 months for the first review outcome: it used to be the reference journal in the sector, but unfortunately now the the editorial process is flawed
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 106.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation: 3.5 months after I submitted my manuscript it has still not been handed by an editor. This is not serious and is lack of respect for the authors.
35.4 weeks
35.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
1
Drawn back
Motivation: My co-authors and I felt that for the amount of time it took, the reviews were too simplistic. Furthermore, there was no response from the editor when we sent reminders at the 4-month and 5-month mark. At the 8-month mark, we finally were forced to email the editor-in-chief to finally get the reject-and-resubmit option.
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 103.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation: Despite multiple request to proceed my paper for review, and each time the editorial office assures me that we have contacted the handling editor to expedite the process, the status of my paper remain as it was since first submission. Within 4-5 months, even the editor has not taken the initial decision, therefore I consider it a total wastage of precious time. I strongly 'Not Recommend' this journal to any one.
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 236.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation: Manuscript JMCR-D-23-01387. "Muscle efficiency as key driver of exercise capacity improvement after Cardiac Rehabilitation in a patient diagnosed with HFrEF and an implanted CRT-D: A case report"

Reason for withdrawal: poor communication and very delayed timeline for review.

While we appreciated the time and effort invested in considering our work by the journal, we had a very extended review period for this Case Report (8 months since submission, with 3 months under review), and no first-decision decision communicated. We understand that the peer-review process can be unpredictable, but the significant delay caused us to explore alternative publication options to ensure dissemination of our research findings.
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 321.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation: After 6-month waiting, I started chasing the journal for updates. However, it was impossible to get in touch with the editors, all requests for update were answered by managerial team with the same text saying that the journal staff are doing their best to produce optimal evaluations, but that they understand the author's concerns and will escalate the issue to the editors. After 10-month waiting and 4 identical replies from the manager, the request was sent to withdraw the manuscript. The journal managers, again, responded that the staff are doing their best for the fair review, but that they understand the author's concerns, and issue will be forwarded to the editor. 11 month after the submission, a message was sent that in the absence of the feedback from the editors, we are considering the manuscript to be withdrawn even if we do not hear from the journal, and the following day the status of the manuscript changed for WITHDRAWN. No feedback from the editorial team was received.
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 170.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation: The status of the manuscript did not change at all from the time of submission until we decided to withdraw it, nearly seven months later. Multiple inquiries about the status were sent to the administrator, associate editor, and editor-in-chief, but only the initial two were responded to by the administrator. It seems that the manuscript never entered the review process.
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 460.0 days
Drawn back
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 105.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation: While the Editor was assigned since 14 March, the paper was not sent to any reviewers since then. After waiting for 3 months and confirming the publication dates of many papers on the journal, I notice that a lot of paper took 7-9 months (some even took 1 year or more) for reviewing. While I think that the Review quality is good after reading peer review reports, I could not wait for the journal due to needing the paper to be accepted to graduate. That is why I decided to withdrawn the paper and send to another journal.
17.4 weeks
17.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
0
Drawn back
Motivation: After nearly 4 months of waiting for peer review, Reviewer 1’s comments focused mainly on formatting and minor language issues, without raising any significant concerns about the research quality. Reviewer 2 was even more supportive, suggesting only minor revisions. However, the editor still rejected the paper. Save your time and money—don't select this journal.
I saw similar comments on SCIREV, and I never thought I’d be treated the same way.
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 202.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation: "The review process was too long, and the support team was very unprofessional. We emailed them multiple times to inquire about the review process, but they responded with the exact same message three times. Meanwhile, there was no progress on the paper, and the editor did nothing to help accelerate the review process despite our repeated requests.
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 131.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation: It has been four months, and the manuscript status remains "with the editor." We have sent two follow-up emails but have not received any responses. Without a clear update on the next steps in the review process, it is becoming increasingly difficult to wait.
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 304.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation: Four months after submission, our manuscript was still with the editor. I wrote several times to the editors in chief and the publisher agent to ask what was happening. After four months, the paper was at last sent to reviewers, I am not sure how many. Four months later, the tracking system was informing me that the one reviewer had sent his/her comments. No other reviewers were in the process (it indicated that one other reviewer did not accept to review). Again, I sent several emails to inquire. I was told first that a decision will be taken with this one reviewer. Nothing happened. I inquired again. I was told to be patient. After four months, the tracking system was indicating no sign of activity. I had no responses or reactions from the editors in chief. After 10 months, we decided to withdraw our paper. The Publisher agents were very responsive (I probably had emails with 6 of them), but basically could only tell me to be patient. The editors in chief never ever reacted. Very disappointing. I can understand the challenge of finding reviewers, but a minimum communication would have been appreciated. I even started to doubt if the editors in chief really existed... which is probably just my frustration (but who knows).
1.7 weeks
5.0 weeks
n/a
1 reports
4
5
Accepted
Motivation: Good experience. Only the APC charge was way too much in Indian standards. They gave us 50% discount. Even after that it was huge.
45.9 weeks
75.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Accepted
38.7 weeks
39.7 weeks
n/a
1 reports
3
3
Accepted
81.0 weeks
105.7 weeks
n/a
5 reports
3
3
Accepted
48.7 weeks
53.9 weeks
n/a
3 reports
2
0
Accepted
Motivation: I feel that this is a predatory journal and I will never submit any papers to this journal and will never recommend any one to do so.

The editorial team is unprofessional and not responsive, and does not do its job. They only care about money and they never care about their reputation and the reputation of the authors.

I sent them dozens of emails requesting to do correction to my name in the paper. They just don't give sh*t, they keep ignoring my emails as they really don't care.

Their team is very unprofessional and they do lots of typos and mistakes, and will just disregard our corrections and suggestions.
27.3 weeks
28.3 weeks
n/a
2 reports
1
0
Accepted
Motivation: Excessive length of time for reviews that requested extremely minor changes. Editor was unresponsive during the entire process.
22.1 weeks
36.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
0
Accepted
Motivation: This is a terrific journal but the peer review process requires substantial improvements. I would not recommend considering this journal given that it might take a year to complete the peer review process! THis is specific to Ecological Applications - the peer review process with Ecosphere, another ESA journal, does not experience this problem.
1.3 weeks
3.4 weeks
n/a
3 reports
4
3
Accepted
Motivation: We received three reviews on the paper. Two were very constructive, offering helpful insights, while the third came from a reviewer who mainly picked up on a few keywords and concluded that the topic was uninteresting and lacking in novelty. This third reviewer provided no constructive feedback, offering only a few sentences.

After revision, the paper was sent back to this reviewer, likely because the other two recommended only minor revisions. However, this reviewer again suggested rejection, stating that their initial "points" had not been addressed, though the reviewers feedback consisted of critical remarks rather than specific points. We did provide a point-by-point response to their brief comments.

Following this round, the manuscript was reviewed by the editorial board, which took about two weeks to reach an acceptance decision.
36.9 weeks
58.6 weeks
n/a
3 reports
4
4
Accepted
23.0 weeks
53.4 weeks
n/a
5 reports
3
1
Accepted
Motivation: It's too slow, taking more than one year from the submission to the final decision. Also, it took more than two months for production the published version. Not all reviewers were professional and familiar with the field and method that my paper focused and employed, some of whom even asked me to explain basic statistical method. Although my paper had been accepted, perhaps I cannot recommend to submit a paper there, especially in situations where high timeliness is required.
58.9 weeks
97.6 weeks
n/a
3 reports
2
0
Rejected
Motivation: The whole process took 2 years. Then they rejected the article, although the after the first review it was written minor changes required. After making the changes we were informed about the rejection after 1 year.
34.7 weeks
43.4 weeks
n/a
1 reports
4
2
Rejected
Motivation: In a multi-round review process, one reviewer did not see/receive the letter response to their review. Due to this, the next two rounds of review were repetitive and inconsistent. With a split review (one suggesting acceptance and the other suggesting major revisions / rejection), we would expect intervention from the handling editor, through sharing their perspective OR inviting a third reviewer. It seemed that the handling editor did not want to invest time in the article/ was not interested. If this was the case, it could've saved us the two year review process with an earlier rejection.
8.7 weeks
12.6 weeks
n/a
3 reports
3
0
Rejected
Motivation: It was terrible. I will not be submitting to this journal again. Waste of time. I felt some of the second reviews unfounded.
11.7 weeks
27.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
1
0
Drawn back
Motivation: After a year and a half after initial submission, and 2 rounds of reviews, we kept receiving the same reviews from the same reviewer, despite having politely replied multiple times explaining why we were in disagreement with the reviewer. The reviewer fundamentally disagreed with us on some aspects, and they would not budge despite two rounds of reviews and two rebuttal letters.
The editors have been APPALLING throughout all this, never responding to our emails and basically ignoring us for the whole time. We ended up withdrawing the manuscript, and even this took months, and was only accomplished when we contacted the editorial office (specifically Lizzy Seal, who was nice and helpful).
Do not publish with this journal! Stay clear! So many other better outputs around
4.3 weeks
32.7 weeks
n/a
3 reports
1
1
Accepted
Motivation: The editorial handing of our manuscript was unprofessional and extremely slow. The first round of reviews went quickly. We thought one of the reviewers made inappropriate comments and asked the editor not to re-invite that reviewer. The editor did not respect our request. However, our original editor resigned sometime during the second round of review. Therefore the second round of review took over 4 months and several emails to the journal. We responded to the second round of peer review quickly and the editor sent the paper back to one of the reviewers. This review responded quickly and positively, within only a few days. However it still took the journal 2 months to accept our manuscript. Overall the paper should have been in review for 2-3 months, but was instead in review for over 9 months.
8.3 weeks
17.4 weeks
n/a
4 reports
2
1
Rejected
Motivation: In the last round one reviewer did not disclose to us some concerns, but only confidentially with the editor. The editor asked for and expert advise from a 5th (5th!!!!!) reviewer.
Another reviewer had still one comment and we answered to it by email to the editor (who never answered in that regard).

We got rejected without actually knowing why since one of the reviewer did not disclose his/her concerns with us.

The handling of the manuscript was really poor and unethical. Further we satisfied 3 out of 4 reviewers, one one did not disclose the last concerns with us. Really unfair and unethical behavior from both reviewer and editor.

Only few comments did actually improved the manuscript, the rest was really "unexpert" comments.
33.1 weeks
57.9 weeks
n/a
2 reports
2
1
Rejected
Motivation: The editor hand picked a very negative reviewer for round 2, who came up with a lot of non-substantive feedback. Some critique went against things we had implemented after the first review round. In the end, in round three new critique was raised that went against fundamental questions of the data collection. To identify these should be the editors or the first round reviewers task, not a third round review. In part condescending tone in both the reviews and the editorial communication.
45.9 weeks
84.0 weeks
n/a
1 reports
4
2
Accepted
Motivation: Reviews very of good quality, but very slow review process. In addition, a minor revision was treated as resubmission and took almost 9 months again to be reviewed (was send out to a new reviewer although same referee and editor could have easily and much more efficiently checked it).
53.7 weeks
61.0 weeks
n/a
1 reports
4
3
Accepted
Motivation: 10 months duration, only 1 reviewer. 1 major review and 1 minor review with the same reviewer. The handling editor also pointed out a small miskate. Generally is good, but the process time is too long, struggling in finding proper reviewers.
5.7 weeks
10.9 weeks
n/a
4 reports
2
0
Rejected
Motivation: The review process in the beginning at Nature Communications was acceptable, though the timeline was quite long, and we found the quality of reviewers to be mixed. Our manuscript was evaluated by four reviewers. Reviewers #1 and #2 were neutral, while Reviewers #3 and #4 provided positive feedback. After addressing their comments with new fitting data and additional experiments, Reviewer #1 and #4 accepted the manuscript, but Reviewers #2 and #3 raised concerns about certain fitting results. We responded thoroughly, and while Reviewer #2 was satisfied, Reviewer #3 remained unconvinced. Reviewer #3 appeared biased, as our XPS fitting method differed from his own work; he cited two of his publications, suggesting a lack of objectivity and a shift in stance from his initial positive feedback.

The editor ultimately decided to reject the paper, despite three reviewers being in favor. This decision felt imbalanced, as the editor leaned heavily on Reviewer #3’s opinion, discounting the other three reviewers. We filed an appeal, but unfortunately, it took two months to receive a response, and after almost a year in the review process, the novelty of our work risked becoming outdated.

Following the appeal, our manuscript went to external review. It took another month to secure a reviewer, who then submitted feedback on the same day they were assigned!!!. This new Reviewer #5’s comments were cursory, agreeing with Reviewer #3 and providing three points. Firstly, they compared our work with two previous studies, but the comparison lacked depth and misinterpreted both our manuscript and the prior work. Secondly, the reviewer was unable to distinguish between data with and without iR compensation, leading to unfounded claims of contradiction. Finally, they expressed doubts about our Raman spectra explanation, despite it being well-supported by references and additional experiments.
This experience was quite disappointing, leaving us disheartened by the apparent lack of expertise shown by both the editor and reviewers at the journal.
It’s possible that our lack of prior publications in Nature Communications may have influenced the fairness of the editor and reviewers in handling our submission.




1.3 weeks
1.3 weeks
n/a
0 reports
n/a
1
Rejected