Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Motivation:
The review process was fair and many of the comments were good and can be acted upon. However, getting the first round of reviews took close to 20 weeks and initially communication was not the best with the editorial team. After the first round though things got quicker. The publication process itself was smooth and people from the publisher's side were really helpful.
Motivation:
This was a reject with the possibility of sending in a revision as a new submission. One review was short and vague. The other was medium-length. It cited a bunch of papers of historical interest only, suggested additional analyses that weren't on my point, and made a key claim that just wasn't true. The editor's decision was mostly based on a personal reading: the editor wanted the text restructured and key analyses stricken. I disagreed with a lot of the feedback, but my experiences with other ecology journals have been even worse.
Motivation:
The review process was time-effective and fair. I also really appreciate the editor's wisdom, not sending out the revised version for additional review but making the decision by herself immediately (which practice is less and less common these days when editors simply act like corresponding clerks between authors and reviewers but not making real decisions). My only concern is that we have received a single peer review report, which I believe is below the industry-standard.
Motivation:
The reviewers offered constructive feedback on the manuscript, enhancing its strength and readability. The review process on the website was transparent and seamless, making this submission a highly positive experience.
Motivation:
The overall review process was good. The manuscript as send out to the reviewers quickly. Overall handling of the manuscript was very professional and without any issues. I received 2 revisions, one minor, one major. In general, the reviews were helpful to imrove the manuscript, while they could have been a bit more specific.
Motivation:
The review process is relatively fast compared to other journals, but the comments in the review reports are relatively not exhaustive.
Motivation:
The editor did a fine job. However, the editorial support of the journal as well as the publisher (BMC) desperately needs improvement! Additionally, BMC insists on supplying the email addresses of each co-author just to afterwards bombard them with spam. Very unprofessional all around.
Motivation:
The journal's processing times were fast. The reviewers were anonymous but from the review they appeared to be individuals who were well suited for reviewing. We submitted a web resource. The reviewers provided constructive feedback on several aspects of the resource and in the process of addressing all comments - our resource became considerably better.
Motivation:
The journal article was transferred from Bioinformatics (upon rejection after revision by 3 reviewers). Then,a fter 20 days I got the decision to resubmit a revised version of the paper with an additional reviewer report (4 in total). The revisions were affordable but time consuming, but improved a lot the work.
After 3 weeks we resubmitted the revised version of the article and it has been accepted directly by the associated editor within 2 days.
After 3 weeks we resubmitted the revised version of the article and it has been accepted directly by the associated editor within 2 days.
13.0 weeks
13.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Accepted
Motivation:
The revision process took approximately 8 months, at the end of which my manuscript was rejected by the editor in chief, telling me that the reviewers suggested for its rejection. However, in the comments attached, both reviewers did not mentioned any suggestions about the acceptance or rejection of the article.
However, the main point that gave us a bad experience was the fact that every time we wrote to the editorial board asking for an update, they was always a specific problem that was almost being solved, and that would require two additional weeks at most. This same response was given to us for several months.
However, the main point that gave us a bad experience was the fact that every time we wrote to the editorial board asking for an update, they was always a specific problem that was almost being solved, and that would require two additional weeks at most. This same response was given to us for several months.
Motivation:
I think the evaluation was quick and the opinions helped us move forward with the text.
Motivation:
This was the 4 th paper I submitted to PNAS and was rejected at the editorial level without any reason. It is not worth taking the effort to format the manuscript according to PNAS guidelines and receive no feedback about rejection. Therefore we decided as authors not to send any of our future manuscripts to PNAS.
Motivation:
Received two positive reviews requiring minor revision, but editor rejected it without reason. No comments were provided by editor, after inquiring with journal, they all they would say is that rejections are final.
Motivation:
The journal desk-rejects many manuscripts, but does so quickly. We knew that.
Motivation:
I love the fast reject because I have time to submit to other journal
Motivation:
Their reply was quick, but no comments on our manuscript at all. It would be rude not to mention our manuscript contents.
Motivation:
We received the first review nearly 25 weeks after the initial submission. When we asked the editor the reasons behind this delay, it was reported to us that they were unable to find appropriate reviewers. The editor and the editorial team were friendly and flexible. The first round of review was informative and significantly improved our manuscript. However, the second round of review seemed quite unnecessary as these things could have been addressed during the proofreading phase.We recommended that if you want to publish your manuscript early, try to submit it to another journal if possible.
Motivation:
Nature has a good system of transferring rejected papers to a different Nature publication with a shared user account.
Motivation:
The journal claims a 1st review time of 2.5 weeks, so it came as a great disappointment that the process took four months. In addition, there was only a single reviewer report that was 1 (one) paragraph (and 6 sentences!!). I'm not bothered by the rejection from the journal, as there are many journals with a similar citation score/impact factor, more so that it took months for such lame and poor-quality feedback.
Motivation:
Did not hear any response from the editor for a year, so withdrew my manuscript. Will submit elsewhere.
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 503.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation:
We initially sent the article for review in January 2022. After six months of hearing nothing, we asked for an update and they said they hadn't found any reviewers and requested a list. We provided an extensive list of reviewers. In November 2022, January 2023, and February 2023 we requested specific information about the status of our manuscript and a timeline for when we can expect the response; in November and January we were told generally by the JEO Assistant that the article was still with reviewers, with the response in January including that the JEO Assistant had contacted the editor to expedite the process. In February the JEO Assistant indicated that the email we sent had been forwarded to the editor for comment, with the Office Staff intending to inform us when the editor responded. After another month with no comment, we contacted the editor-in-chief about the article, asking for a decision to be made. We received no response, although activity in the portal indicated that someone accessed the article (updating its 'last action taking' tracker) but without changing its status as under review. In early May we requested that the article be withdrawn from the journal and to inform us when this was done, and received no response. We repeated the request again today, with the JEO Assistant quickly acting to withdraw the paper. So in total nearly a year and a half was spent waiting on the first response to a potentially multi-round process.
Throughout this entire process, the Office Staff always responded to us promptly and professionally, but themselves received no responses from the editor. As such, and as recent discussions we've had with others in the field indicated that this is a repeated issue with the journal, we cannot in good faith support this journal. Indeed, it feels as if the choice of the journal to report median time to first response is, whether purposefully or accidentally, hiding that they have a repeated issue of unacceptably long review times and withdrawal periods, especially as time to first decision does not necessarily include papers that were withdrawn due to the review process taking an unprofessionally long time.
Throughout this entire process, the Office Staff always responded to us promptly and professionally, but themselves received no responses from the editor. As such, and as recent discussions we've had with others in the field indicated that this is a repeated issue with the journal, we cannot in good faith support this journal. Indeed, it feels as if the choice of the journal to report median time to first response is, whether purposefully or accidentally, hiding that they have a repeated issue of unacceptably long review times and withdrawal periods, especially as time to first decision does not necessarily include papers that were withdrawn due to the review process taking an unprofessionally long time.