Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
International Biodeterioration and Biodegradation
n/a
n/a
6 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Science of the Total Environment
9.7 weeks
11.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
2
2
Accepted
Motivation: We had two reviewers for this paper. One was very good but the other seemed to understand little about the analysis and have read almost nothing in the subject area, as was clear from his/her comments. Yet this reviewer was given a lot of weight in the review process by the editor. This paper was part of a special issue where I was co-author on a number of other papers. My experience with these other papers was similar. The choice of reviewers was baffling for the most part. The other papers in this issue went through very quickly (though compromising the review quality in my opinion), while this one was very slow but still lacking in review quality.
Physical Review Letters
n/a
n/a
3 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Neuron
n/a
n/a
7 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Motivation: "overall conclusions fall short of providing the kind of robust conceptual advance and new biological insights that would make the paper a strong candidate for this journal"
Political Studies
9.3 weeks
10.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Accepted
Motivation: The comments by both reviewers were very helpful and the editors provided us with clear points to address in our revision.
Future Generation Computer Systems
10.7 weeks
17.6 weeks
n/a
3 reports
3
0
Rejected
Motivation: We received three reports from three reviewers. Two of them were knowledgeable commenting on the topic and asked for minor changes that all were addressed in the 1st round review. The 3rd reviewer described him/her self as "informed about the topic but never publish in the topic". The 3rd reviewer was dismissive of everything. His main comment was approved mathematically wrong.

We addressed all of the comments in both the paper and the response letter. Our paper got rejected with a couple of lines only from the 3rd reviewer only stating that we did not address his comments.

We rate down this journal due to the unusual procedure of rejecting a paper based on one unspecialised reviewer and ignoring the other two reviewers' decision.

Note that this journal does not have appeal policy and the decision of the editor is final
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
15.4 weeks
15.4 weeks
n/a
4 reports
1
2
Rejected
Motivation: I was told there were 4 reviewers. Only one wrote more than a phrase, but he had the thesis backward, so I don’t know how closely he read it. Another wrote only “same as comments to editor” which was not provided to me even on request. Nothing was said about how to change or improve the article.
Physical Therapy
n/a
n/a
24 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Energy Policy
8.7 weeks
18.3 weeks
n/a
2 reports
1
0
Rejected
Motivation: The first round of reviews was mixed: one favourable and one against. The one against was poorly written and misunderstood the nature of the paper showing to be a rushed work.
We answered explaining point by point why we did what.
The second round of reviews discounted our answers and the new reviewers sidelined with the first negative reviewer without taking in account our responses to the first negative reviewer. The favourable reviewer had been removed by the reviewing team while the first negative reviewer was retained in the reviewing team. It was a lengthy and unfair process, there was no engagement on part of the reviewers or the editors with our answers to first round negative reviewer's criticism.
Cell Metabolism
n/a
n/a
7 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
IEEE Access
3.0 weeks
7.7 weeks
n/a
3 reports
4
4
Accepted
Technological Forecasting and Social Change
17.4 weeks
17.4 weeks
n/a
1 reports
0
1
Rejected
Motivation: In my opinion, a better better approach would be to reject the paper straight away than spend several months revieweing it (one reviewer was assigned), with the outcome of the review process being one short paragraph. At least, not for a journal that seeks to achieve prominence in the field.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
23.4 weeks
38.0 weeks
n/a
3 reports
4
3
Accepted
Motivation: The editor and 2 out of 3 reviewers did an amazing job. Especially one reviewer has been extremely careful and significantly improved the quality of our manuscript. The third reviewer, however, has constantly been late, has sent very approximate reviews (that shown that he/she did not read the manuscript carefully) and ultimately dropped out the reviewing process, after having caused a tremendous delay.
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
5.4 weeks
6.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
5
Accepted
Energy
14.4 weeks
14.4 weeks
n/a
3 reports
3
0
Rejected
Motivation: The paper was rejected due to too many submissions, even though my paper went through a positive first round of reviews.
Knowledge-Based Systems
n/a
n/a
27 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Applied Surface Science
3.0 weeks
3.0 weeks
n/a
3 reports
4
0
Rejected
Motivation: As per my knowledge, the majority number of review reports are positive then they are willing to publish. But in this case, the editor is claiming that they need all (in my case 3 review reports) reviewers should give positive (instead of majority reports) to proceed further for the acceptance of the work to publish.
It is very strange!!!!!
Applied Energy
5.4 weeks
6.3 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
5
Accepted
Fuel
41.0 weeks
41.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
2
0
Rejected
Motivation: After 10 months review time, editor rejected our manuscript although the other reviewer was very positive and the other reviewer recommended only minor changes. Rejection is not a problem, however, ten months delay caused by an average impact journal is unacceptable.
International Advances in Economic Research
15.0 weeks
17.0 weeks
n/a
1 reports
4
5
Accepted
Physical Review X
n/a
n/a
20 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Nature Communications
7.1 weeks
15.6 weeks
n/a
3 reports
4
4
Accepted
Motivation: After the minor revision was submitted, it took six weeks.
I do not know why it took so long time to evalucate our minor revisions.
Journal of Cell Biology
n/a
n/a
14 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Journal d'Analyse Mathématique
21.7 weeks
22.7 weeks
n/a
1 reports
4
5
Accepted
Motivation: Currently the journal has a huge backlog. Very good in all other aspects.
Integral Equations and Operator Theory
n/a
n/a
5 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Motivation: Christiane Tretter: IEOT is facing constantly high submission numbers and we are thus forced to a strong selection of papers that we may consider.
Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society
n/a
n/a
7 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Motivation: initial reviewer: ... not appropriate for a highly selective journal such as Proceedings of the AMS. Probably this should be published in a more specialized journal.
Viruses
2.3 weeks
2.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
5
Accepted
Motivation: The Journal review process is very fast and the Editorial Office is very helpful.
Pattern Recognition
13.4 weeks
13.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
0
1
Rejected
Motivation: Bad quality of the reviewer's feedback. Even (and perhaps more importantly) when a manuscript is rejected, and specially after several months awaiting for their input, one would expect to find some valuable or constructive criticism in the reviewer's comments. This was not the case.
Journal of Neuroscience Methods
6.9 weeks
7.0 weeks
n/a
1 reports
4
3
Accepted
Motivation: The first round of reviews was quite slow (compared to previous reviews on sci-rev.org) due to the reviewers, and unlike some other journals they do not provide an estimated time frame for the first round. After acceptance, the Elsevier production office kept contacting me to ask for documents that I had previously uploaded, which caused further delays.
Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Journal
12.0 weeks
12.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Accepted
Motivation: this is a very good journal about electromagnetics. it is very fast and very efficient. it is very easy to publish in this journal.
Journal of Vision
9.9 weeks
27.9 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Accepted
Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies
18.1 weeks
76.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
3
Accepted
Motivation: Very responsive and friendly editor, but I was disappointed in how long we had to wait for the second round of reviews.
Journal of Herpetology
11.9 weeks
23.9 weeks
n/a
3 reports
5
3
Accepted
Motivation: My only complaint about this journal is the slow review process. Other than that, I feel that the editor and reviewers are very fair and great to work with.
Science
n/a
n/a
3 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Motivation: Thank you for submitting your manuscript "xxx" to Science. Because your manuscript was not given a high priority rating during the initial screening process, we have decided not to proceed to in-depth review. The overall view is that the scope and focus of your paper make it more appropriate for a more specialized journal. We are therefore notifying you so that you can seek publication elsewhere.
Scientific Reports
10.1 weeks
21.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
5
Accepted
Motivation: Although review process was very slow but reviewers comments significantly improved our manuscript.
Journal of Medical Internet Research
3.0 weeks
3.4 weeks
n/a
1 reports
5
5
Accepted
Nature
14.1 weeks
14.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
3
Rejected
Motivation: First decision to send out to review in 3 weeks, but then a very long delay to receiving a final decision. Third review was never returned so decision was at least partly based on two reviews from the same discipline. One reviewer admitted the specific field wasn’t in his/hers expertise.
Methods
4.3 weeks
6.3 weeks
n/a
1 reports
5
5
Accepted
IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility
3.1 weeks
3.1 weeks
n/a
3 reports
0
1
Rejected
Global Ecology and Biogeography
0.6 weeks
0.6 weeks
n/a
3 reports
2
3
Rejected
Motivation: Of course, I recommend this journal if we can publish the paper in it, but I am not very satisfied with the response of the associate editor and two reviewers, because they all put forward the comments not really related to the species distribution models, which is the main approach of our paper. They gave me the feeling that all reviewers are not working on species distribution models, becasue their critics are about the data we used and the resolution we determine. But the time of the process seems ok that we can get the decision quickly.