All reviews received by SciRev

Motivation: While the end result was a rejection, the review process itself yielded three helpful reviews and did not take too long.

Motivation: The review process generally took long, especially for the second revision round (5 months). In that time I contacted the peer review coordinator multiple times, and suggested additional names for reviewers to expedite the process. When reviewers were finally in, a month elapsed before the editor finally made a decision. They rejected the manuscript a year and three months after first submission, based on characteristics that were inherent to the data, and known from the start (no control group, but this was not relevant for the research question), and on an issue with potential confounding that we immediately addressed (quick rerun of analysis with covariate, no change in conclusions).
The rejection was unexpected because one (repeat) reviewer recommended minor revisions, and the other (new) reviewer's comments expressed concern, but could be addressed without much trouble. We communicated our viewpoint to the editors, but they concluded the paper could contribute too little to the field, and the lack of control group was too problematic. Barring any feelings of frustration, this conclusion seems unjustifiable: they should have screened the manuscript more attentively at the first submission, or resubmission if they felt the study design was not sound. This late change of attitude makes it seems like they did not like the change to (mostly) null findings.

Motivation: The Editor -an established expert in the field- handled the manuscript promptly and very well, sending it to an intellectual giant in the field. The reviews were of very high quality and the comments straightforward to address.
It was a pleasure to have such a smooth and high-quality review process.

Motivation: Worst journal and editorial team. They rejected my manuscript after two month because they found similarity with another paper: the preprint version of the same manuscript at arxiv!!! They didn't realize this even though it was allowed in Guide For Authors.

Motivation: Four reviewers provided useful information, but one was quite abusive. The editor separately sent the additional negative review, which appeared to have access to personally identifiable information about one of the authors. This review also provided absolutely no content-based comments. When the senior author addressed this with the editor, the response was that they were under an ethical obligation to forward all reviews even if they were derogatory and personally attacked an author. We disagree with this statement, are concerned about the blinding procedures, and believe that this journal perpetuates a negative academic environment.

Motivation: Decision-making time too long, helpful feedback

Motivation: Relatively slow review process. After the required reviews were completed, the paper landed on the editor's desk and stayed there for a month. Reviews were of OK quality, but most points regarding methodology were false as they argued in exactly the opposite direction that the paper did.

Motivation: After 1 month of submission the paper was initially rejected based on the use of a specific design which was not used in the paper and was factually incorrect. Upon appeal the paper was reassessed and sent out to review, and the resulting reviews (after 2 months and few days from the reassessment, 3 months and few days after initial submission ) were informative and raised legitimate concerns mainly based on the discussion of background literature and discussion of the results. However no specific reason was provided for the rejection.

Motivation: The reviewers pointed out important limitations that we did not emphasize as much as they would have liked. Since we cannot address them with the data used (as discussed in the paper), it's only fair for the editor to reject the paper. The whole process was a bit slow, though...

Motivation: "As you may know, we decline a substantial proportion of manuscripts without sending them to referees, so that they may be sent elsewhere without delay. In such cases, our decision is based on the paper’s appeal to Nature’s broad audience, rather than a judgment of its technical robustness. "

Motivation: Typically, desk rejections in JACS happened to us quickly. In this case, it was a very unpleasant surprise to get a desk rection after nearly a month long wait without any feedback whatsoever.