Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Motivation:
After three weeks at the editorial board, I received a generic one-liner reason for rejection, which says that the paper does not meet one or more requirements of the journal. I personally believe that the true reason for rejection is because the work is multi-disciplinary and the editor, who is only versed in one discipline might not have understood the true significance of the paper. In any case, they should have gotten back to me quicker.
Motivation:
Review process was incredibly slow. Reviews were of good quality. However, reviews were very positive, so the decision to reject was somewhat confusing. Editor justified decision by alluding to fit with the broader focus of the journal.
Motivation:
Review process was quick and the reviews were of good quality, very methodical. Reviews were very positive so rejection was surprising, but the editor justified it as lack of theoretical development.
Motivation:
Our paper was desk-rejected. No specific reasons were given for the decision, except that the editor felt it was not a good fit for the journal. At least they didn't take long.
Motivation:
The assigned editor decided to reject the manuscript without sending it to further review, because they considered it was out of the journal's scope.
Motivation:
The editor is very nice but told me Discourse & Society is overbooked and to find an alternative journal.
Motivation:
Long period between second revision and publication, almost one year
Motivation:
I was motivated to improve the paper because that was the first ever reviewer report for the paper. The reviewer comments did help in improving the paper. After I resubmitted the paper, it was outright accepted without any further changes.
Motivation:
The beginning of the reviewing process was delayed, but probably because of the COVID-19 problems at that time. After the first revision, the processing was significantly faster.
I am very much satisfied with the reviewer's and the editors' competence and engagement. Because the opinions of the two reviewers in the first review round were not entirely in agreement with each other, the Editor-in-Chief got involved with an additional, pretty comprehensive review. All three reviewers suggested major but very meaningful corrections. After resubmission of the revised manuscript, it went over a new round of revision of both reviewers plus the editor, and the manuscript was finally accepted with minor revisions.
I am pretty optimistic about the future of this new journal if they manage to keep such a high quality of reviewing as in the case of our manuscript.
I am very much satisfied with the reviewer's and the editors' competence and engagement. Because the opinions of the two reviewers in the first review round were not entirely in agreement with each other, the Editor-in-Chief got involved with an additional, pretty comprehensive review. All three reviewers suggested major but very meaningful corrections. After resubmission of the revised manuscript, it went over a new round of revision of both reviewers plus the editor, and the manuscript was finally accepted with minor revisions.
I am pretty optimistic about the future of this new journal if they manage to keep such a high quality of reviewing as in the case of our manuscript.
Motivation:
I was very impressed by the review process at Science. Everything was done quite quickly. The whole process definitely significantly strengthened the quality of the work! I was particularly impressed by the cross review process. We had one reviewer who asked for follow-up work that would have taken years, and through the process of cross review by the other reviewers (which even included bringing in a fourth reviewer) it was concluded that the original reviewer was indeed asking too much and our paper was accepted.
Motivation:
The editor decided to reject the manuscript without sending to further review. He argued that, even though our manuscript was within the journal's scope, the journal receives many more submissions yearly than it can actually publish. Because of that, he has to balance the kind of content that do make it through reviewing. His decision was not driven by the submission's quality.
Motivation:
Not as fast as promised, and with one reviewer miss-understanding the methodology (which the other reviewer commended) this was never going to cut it for PNAS.
Motivation:
The journal had an relatively fast turnaround time after initial submission. The revised submission was accepted by the editor without being send back out to the reviewers. Overall, this was a good process.
Motivation:
In the first round one reviewer provided thoughtful and useful comments, the review of another reviewer was written in a rather rude language, however, we addressed all the comments as well. There were contradictions between the two reviews but the editor made little effort to reconcile them. In the next round the second reviewer was not satisfied with the paper, but he/she did not specify what exactly was wrong. We asked the editor to pay attention to this situation. The second reviewer has withdrawn from the review process, another reviewer was invited. This prolonged the review process drastically, especially because the third reviewer was reviewing an older version of the submission. The third reviewer suggested minor changes which also consisted of inclusion of citations irrelevant to the subject.
The main drawback is that the editor almost does not participate in the review process and does not follow the discussion. Everything depends on whether the reviewers endorse the publication, and the quality of reviews is not monitored.
The main drawback is that the editor almost does not participate in the review process and does not follow the discussion. Everything depends on whether the reviewers endorse the publication, and the quality of reviews is not monitored.
Motivation:
After 5 days of being listed as "With Editor" the status changed to "Under Review." 11 weeks later a very curt rejection letter arrived with no reason for rejection or reviewer comments attached. When I asked the editor for comments he said the manuscript was desk rejected so did not require a reason and had no reviewer comments. The manuscript was a replication of an article published in Cities that produced qualitatively different results. I have no faith in the editorial office at Cities. Elsevier said they would contact me regarding the complaint I filed but have heard nothing. Gatekeeping at its finest.
Motivation:
I found the waiting time way too long and was extremely disappointed by the quality of the reviews.
Motivation:
The turnaround was longer than expected, but the journal gave us a fair review and raised interesting points to improve.
Motivation:
Although I have seen more careful/detailed referee scores, the rejection of the submission is not my main issue with the review process. After submitting the manuscript, I did not hear back from the journal for more than half a year. I had to send several reminders (after 7 months, 9 months and 12 months) before I received a decision letter after almost 13 months. Even though I did recieve replies to these reminders from the managing editor, the process was very frustrating.
Motivation:
Reviews were very friendly, waiting times were moderate, would submit there again.
Motivation:
Great constructive reviews regarding the literature review and the theoretical part of the article. However, we wished to have some feedback on the statistical part of the paper as well.
Motivation:
The article was considered too narrow.
Motivation:
Rejection in 1 hour because the editor didn't like the abstract structure.
Motivation:
The reviewers and editors highlighted several problems which we had not taken into account but were very valid, which hopefully when addressed will result in an improved manuscript.
Motivation:
The revised manuscript was rejected based on priority and a perceived lack of novelty. The one review of the revised manuscript, which contained several errors in two short paragraphs, concluded that the paper was "in fact very solid", but lacked novelty. No such concerns were expressed in the original two reviews or by the editor at the time of inviting resubmission. The reason for rejection was thus unrelated to the revisions made, and it seems this decision could have been rendered at the time of reviewing the initial submission rather than wasting our time by encouraging resubmission.
Motivation:
Rejected by the editor within one business day. The editor did give detailed reasons, although you might not agree with them. This journal will only send 8.2% of submitted paper for external review (according to their twitter post), so they do turn down most of the submitted papers. Considering the editors’ workload, I won’t be surprised to see my submission got turned down without, in my opinion, fully evaluated.
Motivation:
The first review round took relatively long, likely as the editor was waiting for a third reviewer. The revise and resubmit came the day I wrote the editor to inquire regarding the expected timeline of the reviews. I really appreciated the interactive forum, as it allowed for more communication with the reviewers. After the first reviews the process was quick and smooth.
Motivation:
Review process was fairly quick and the reviews were excellent quality.
6.4 weeks
10.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Accepted
Motivation:
Substantial delays from acceptance to publication due to COVID-19 and because this was a special issue submission.