Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Motivation:
Very slow process, low quality external reviews, decision of editor based on wrong assumptions
Motivation:
Generic rejection letter.
"Because we receive more than 18,000 submissions every year, incoming manuscripts undergo an initial evaluation by a member of the Editorial Board, who is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, to determine whether the potential novelty, impact, and relevance in the broad scientific community merit further detailed technical review. In your case, our assessment is that your manuscript does not meet one or more of the principal aims of our journal and on this basis we expect that the likelihood that detailed review will lead to publication is low."
"Because we receive more than 18,000 submissions every year, incoming manuscripts undergo an initial evaluation by a member of the Editorial Board, who is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, to determine whether the potential novelty, impact, and relevance in the broad scientific community merit further detailed technical review. In your case, our assessment is that your manuscript does not meet one or more of the principal aims of our journal and on this basis we expect that the likelihood that detailed review will lead to publication is low."
Motivation:
The presubmission inquiry is a great system to allow you to decide to format an article for a paper or not. This took ~3 days. During this time I already suggested reviewers to consider. After receiving permission to submit, reviews were rapid and helpful. Love this journal's turn around time!
Motivation:
We got 2 reviews and one of them was less detailed and the reviewer recommended to publish the paper after revision elsewhere. But second reviewer gave very thorough comments and good suggestions for revision and proofread our manuscript as well. So the editor decided to give us opportunity to revise. After major revision the manuscript was sent to the same reviewers and they had additional comments for revision. the manuscript was quickly accepted after the second revision.
Motivation:
Transfer to Nanoscale Advances another Nanoscale family journal with Golden open access was offered.
Motivation:
I was very impressed with the quality of reviews received. The paper was on a specific topic but the editor found reviewers who were very knowledgable about the topic and who were able to provide feedback that genuinely improved the quality of the manuscript. Turnaround time was also relatively fast compared.
Motivation:
The journal was prompt with handling the manuscript and invited reviewers gave very useful feedback which largely improved the paper. I'm very satisfied with this journal and the output.
Motivation:
The decision was fast - which is good. No reason has been given, though, why the paper was did not make a new contribution ("Although we recognise that there are strengths in your submission, unfortunately the editors judged that this paper did not make such a contribution")
15.7 weeks
15.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Rejected
Motivation:
At least one of the reviewers does not seem to have read the article (s/he suggested that the article criticized an author that was in fact used as support; s/he suggested irrelevant references, probably his/hers). The second report was not much better. The poor quality of reports is probably related to the fact that after more than 3months, I asked the editor if the decision was coming.
Motivation:
The process was really fast and the reviewer reports were helpful.
Motivation:
One of the reviewer reports was around 200 words and it was not helpful at all. The other was a bit more detailed but it was not worth waiting for 4 months. One expects some constructive comments after waiting that long. I would not send another manuscript there.
Motivation:
The manuscript received a desk reject after 40 days. The rejection was based on small sample size and theoretical framework. Both of them were clearly stated in the abstract. So, I am guessing that it took them more than a month to read the abstract.
5.0 weeks
5.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Rejected
Motivation:
It is unacceptable to receive two reviews that are shorter than 500 words and of poor quality. It is worrisome that a good journal such as BJPolS accepts such poor quality of reviewers.
So, the reviews were useless and did not even justify rejection, but the editor chose to reject the paper anyway.
So, the reviews were useless and did not even justify rejection, but the editor chose to reject the paper anyway.
6.5 weeks
6.5 weeks
n/a
1 reports
Accepted
Motivation:
Great experience, outstanding editor, felt like a much more professional experience than what I have seen elsewhere.
Motivation:
At least it was fast, but these generic rejections I find highly annoying. Having some input from the editors would be I think a fair exchange for their getting the paper submission to bump up their selectivity numbers.
Motivation:
After four days of my submission, I was asked to resubmit it with more informative cover letter. Four days after resubmission, the manuscript went for review. The review process was fast (42 days) when compared with other journals even though the manuscript was rejected.
Motivation:
It seems to take about a month to finish the internal review. I am not sure if this was really the case or if the online submission just didn't get updated timely.
Motivation:
The quality of the reviews was good, some even very good and useful. The downside was with the extremely long process. It took the journal more than 4 months to find reviewers. Overall, it took exactly one year to publish the manuscript with only two revision rounds at this journal.
Motivation:
We opted for an open review round (so the abstract of the paper is displayed on the website of the journal and any registered reader can review it), and it was a big mistake. The quality of the reviews was below acceptable, very short, not helpful at all, and didn't improve the manuscript even a bit. Reviewers didn't know some of the very common field-specific terms and marked them as mistakes. Most likely, the reviewers were not from the same or even close field. Although it initially sped up the review process, I do not recommend choosing the open review round due to the low quality of reviews. The second review, although only minor, took the journal 4 times longer to process, and the time between acceptance and publishing online was at least a month.
Motivation:
Reviewer 1 was clearly into my field, and gave me a "Revise and Resubmit" with some precious suggestions.
As for Reviewer 2 instead, who suggested "Reject", s/he seemed not to be really into my field (or s/he seemed to follow a, say, competing school within the same field). S/he suggested me to take into account theories which have little or nothing to do with the one I investigated in my paper, and made some assertions without justifying them. Also, her/his observations went not beyond page 7 (over 32), which suggests that s/he made very little effort to understand the content of the paper (s/he said that some definitions were unclear, but in reality they were formulated in a way which is standard in the field).
As for Reviewer 2 instead, who suggested "Reject", s/he seemed not to be really into my field (or s/he seemed to follow a, say, competing school within the same field). S/he suggested me to take into account theories which have little or nothing to do with the one I investigated in my paper, and made some assertions without justifying them. Also, her/his observations went not beyond page 7 (over 32), which suggests that s/he made very little effort to understand the content of the paper (s/he said that some definitions were unclear, but in reality they were formulated in a way which is standard in the field).
Motivation:
Quick and courteous from the journal to provide a quick internal review from the editors to say that the manuscript does not fit with their scope.
Motivation:
the decision was quit. It is good that the EIC did not drag te paper
Motivation:
The editor read rather carefully the manuscript, which he found quite interesting but nevertheless not particularly insightful in terms of evidence for wider audiences. Several, sound, reasons were given for the desk-reject, which were very helpful for us in order to select a more appropriate journal. It is not common for editors to give that much attention to a paper that does not proceed to peer-review, so we are very grateful to the editor for his detailed and constructive feedback.