Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Immediately accepted after 0.3 weeks
Accepted (im.)
Motivation:
Very Fast!
Motivation:
User-friendly submission portal, but a disappointingly long waiting time to hear something back from the editor (33 days).
Motivation:
Exceptionally slow review process, with no communication from the journal. Even when we requested updates they just gave non-specific responses. The slowness of review is not acceptable, especially as the manuscript was time sensitive in regards to its material.
Motivation:
Very good contact with editor who discussed why manuscript rejected. Reviewers were fair and constructive in their criticism. The whole process ran smoothly, even though ultimately rejected.
Motivation:
It is a quick rejection, not painful. "The unfortunate fact is that we receive many more papers than we can publish, which means we must decline a substantial proportion of manuscripts without sending them to referees, so that they may be sent elsewhere without delay. Decisions of this sort are made by the editors when it appears that papers - including those of high quality - are unlikely to succeed in the competition for limited space."
Motivation:
It is Nature Methods' policy to decline a substantial proportion of manuscripts without peer-review, so that they may be sent elsewhere without delay. Decisions of this kind are made by the editorial staff when it appears that papers are unlikely to succeed in the competition for limited space.
Among the considerations that arise at this stage are a manuscript's probable interest, level of methodological development and immediate practical relevance to a general readership. We do not doubt the technical quality of your work or that it will be of interest to others who wish to reduce the speckle effect during OCT imaging. However, I am sorry to say we do not think that the technical advances presented will have a sufficiently significant and immediate impact on a broader readership to justify publication in Nature Methods.
Among the considerations that arise at this stage are a manuscript's probable interest, level of methodological development and immediate practical relevance to a general readership. We do not doubt the technical quality of your work or that it will be of interest to others who wish to reduce the speckle effect during OCT imaging. However, I am sorry to say we do not think that the technical advances presented will have a sufficiently significant and immediate impact on a broader readership to justify publication in Nature Methods.
Motivation:
The editor opens many tabs for editor's works. So mistake could occur easily. I think they are overworked.
Motivation:
Journal was very quick. One review was of good quality, constructive and definitely improved the manuscript. Reviewer 3 was embarrassing and unfair: "It is not clear if this correlation was corrected for multiple comparisons (p=0.16/3 = 0.048)" on a correlation reported in MS of (r = -0.63; p < 0.016) and reviewer 4 was embarrassing. Both not appear to be experts on the topic. Reviewers bad choice and superficial assessment of associate editor.
Motivation:
Before Rejecting, editor pointed out that why our manuscript was not fit to publish in inorganic Chemistry. Happy with editor's decision
Motivation:
Process speed was normal. Reviews were useful but slightly aggressive.
Motivation:
In the review reports it was so clear that the reviewers invested serious time and effort with both initial and revised version of the manuscript. Frankly, I was surprised what details they were noticing, like: at one paragraph I've referenced wrong source by accident (Mendeley for LibreOffice has tricky interface), a reviewer noticed that the source does not correspond to the sentence where the citation was. To provide right perspective: the revised version of the paper had 108 references and more than 25k words, the paragraph is in the middle of the paper, covering less relevant aspect of the research - it wasn't part of the main chapters! This is what I perceive as top level professionalism! Here, don't get it wrong: it was one of very few objections being technical/formal in nature - the majority of the remarks were very concrete objections on the methodology, adopted methods, design decisions.... really, to produce such feedback you have to read the paper carefully and not only once. How hard it was to follow and understand the initial version - I became fully aware few months later, when had to translate it and integrate in the PhD thesis. If my head was exploding - then it couldn't be an easy task for the reviewers. In addition, they were not giving just objections / points that have to be improved, but also few very constructive ideas / directions / advises. Also, it is worth to mention that there was significant overlap in objections given by two reviewers - unlike with some other journal where I got conflicting requests in the same review iteration.
Related to the question on rejection motivation, I would expand on the selected answer:
+ changes were not significant enough for several points (cca: 2/10) (here I left out "considered" intentionally, as I do agree with the reviewers - the revision deadline forced me sent it unpolished)
+ with revision, two new objections surfaced (the reviewers really gave solid arguments why these are critical, couldn't agree more - once they made me aware in the feedback)
+ the research is interesting (all parties stated it in both review iterations), but it was clear even to me that theoretical contribution is not that significant
(btw. the latest IF of the journal is around 4!). As a reviewer well noticed in the second feedback: "combination of several practical and basic steps, ... ... with some improvements... but can't be considered as a solid contribution...".
Despite being rejected (both reviewers clearly stated in the second feedback that it should be rejected - with very sound arguments), I can't find anything negative in the whole review process. Only criticism that I could state is about the submission web interface/system, that is outdated and very buggy: it accepts only obsolete document formats, provides step by step instructions that are confusing and conflicting to each other. It took, in total - for both submissions - more than 12 hours to get proper PDF document for my final approval (note that I'm using LibreOffice, not MS Office - so, it was probably huge part of the adventure) - but that is, in fact, the issue of the publisher's older version of submission system. Regarding the editorial board and the reviewers: it is the most professionally carried out review process - out of four I've experienced in the last two years (all journals had IF above 1). With some other journals, I had reviewers that were reading "diagonally" - even abstract - more than half of their objections were simply: not true (it happens when you do not really read the text in front of you). So, such dramatic difference between this journal and them - is my main motivation to invest time and write all of this.
Related to the question on rejection motivation, I would expand on the selected answer:
+ changes were not significant enough for several points (cca: 2/10) (here I left out "considered" intentionally, as I do agree with the reviewers - the revision deadline forced me sent it unpolished)
+ with revision, two new objections surfaced (the reviewers really gave solid arguments why these are critical, couldn't agree more - once they made me aware in the feedback)
+ the research is interesting (all parties stated it in both review iterations), but it was clear even to me that theoretical contribution is not that significant
(btw. the latest IF of the journal is around 4!). As a reviewer well noticed in the second feedback: "combination of several practical and basic steps, ... ... with some improvements... but can't be considered as a solid contribution...".
Despite being rejected (both reviewers clearly stated in the second feedback that it should be rejected - with very sound arguments), I can't find anything negative in the whole review process. Only criticism that I could state is about the submission web interface/system, that is outdated and very buggy: it accepts only obsolete document formats, provides step by step instructions that are confusing and conflicting to each other. It took, in total - for both submissions - more than 12 hours to get proper PDF document for my final approval (note that I'm using LibreOffice, not MS Office - so, it was probably huge part of the adventure) - but that is, in fact, the issue of the publisher's older version of submission system. Regarding the editorial board and the reviewers: it is the most professionally carried out review process - out of four I've experienced in the last two years (all journals had IF above 1). With some other journals, I had reviewers that were reading "diagonally" - even abstract - more than half of their objections were simply: not true (it happens when you do not really read the text in front of you). So, such dramatic difference between this journal and them - is my main motivation to invest time and write all of this.
Motivation:
The two review reports received were largely accurate and helpful. I have two concerns with the general editorial handling.
1) Nine days after the initial submission, I received a request from the same journal to review another manuscript. While this was not suitable for me, I felt more obliged than usual, as I suspected that the review request might have come from the same associate editor handling my paper. Normally, one would know, but in this case, the identity of the handling editor was not revealed until the final decision (of the first submission) was made, 113 days after submission! While I am generally happy to review manuscripts, and the one assigned to me fit well, it felt like a little bit of a "blackmail" situation. (On a side note, after submitting my review of that manuscript on time, that manuscript was ready for decision for around four months before a decision was taken!)
2) It is not acceptable that a journal, that allows their reviewers 14 days to complete a report, takes such long time to reach a decision!
1) Nine days after the initial submission, I received a request from the same journal to review another manuscript. While this was not suitable for me, I felt more obliged than usual, as I suspected that the review request might have come from the same associate editor handling my paper. Normally, one would know, but in this case, the identity of the handling editor was not revealed until the final decision (of the first submission) was made, 113 days after submission! While I am generally happy to review manuscripts, and the one assigned to me fit well, it felt like a little bit of a "blackmail" situation. (On a side note, after submitting my review of that manuscript on time, that manuscript was ready for decision for around four months before a decision was taken!)
2) It is not acceptable that a journal, that allows their reviewers 14 days to complete a report, takes such long time to reach a decision!
11.1 weeks
11.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
Rejected
Motivation:
1) Rejection was based on a reviewer who was clearly not an expert in the filed. Criticisms didn't have any sense from a methodological point of view, and was not considered in the appeal.
2) The whole revision process with a final decision took 5 months (1 revision and 1 appeal), and communication was extremely slow or no communication at all.
3) It seems that the decision of rejection was based not much on the bad revision of one of the reviewer but on the topic of our study probably not interesting enough for the journal that sent the paper anyway to reviewers with a wait of 11 weeks after the the decision to reject it.
2) The whole revision process with a final decision took 5 months (1 revision and 1 appeal), and communication was extremely slow or no communication at all.
3) It seems that the decision of rejection was based not much on the bad revision of one of the reviewer but on the topic of our study probably not interesting enough for the journal that sent the paper anyway to reviewers with a wait of 11 weeks after the the decision to reject it.
Motivation:
Standard, nondescript answer.
Motivation:
If you are somehow important, come from a "name brand" school, or know the editor, I'd say go ahead and submit, regardless of the quality of your work.
Motivation:
The initial evaluation by the editors is very slow. They found 1 minute in over 2 weeks to make the decision. No useful comments, waste of time. The editors are all university professors, which differs from Nature publishing group. Initial I thought it means more professionals, but now I realized it means very slow because the professors are too busy. They don't have time to consider the manuscript seriously.
Motivation:
Two of the three reviews were very similar and certain passages were nearly copy-pasted from each other. After bringing this to the attention of the handling editor and the editor in chief, they responded by saying that the two reviewers couldn't have colluded on their reviews because they have never co-authored a paper together, without following up with them directly. The quality of the two reviews was also very low and it was obvious that they had not fully read the manuscript. The third reviewer who had clearly paid more attention to the manuscript had advocated for major revisions but the paper was rejected.
Motivation:
We submitted to this journal due to their quick review process and were extremely pleased with their fast handling of our manuscript. The initial handling by the editor was extremely efficient and the manuscript was sent for review within a week of submission. It took a total of 3 more weeks for the reviewer reports to be received which again was pretty quick as opposed to our earlier experiences.
While handling of the manuscript was definitely efficient we were disappointed with the quality of reviewer comments received. The reviewer comments indicated that several questions raised were already answered in the document/figures and others indicated conducting unnecessary experiments which could result in 4 different publications. Other queries pertaining to formatting the manuscript were well received by us. While the nature of the comments indicated that we could have communicated with the editorial office, clarified any misinterpretation of our manuscript and performed necessary experiments to strengthen our findings; we were advised against a re-submission due to the 'concerns raised by the reviewers'. The experience was definitely disheartening as we received no relevant scientific comments and got an indication that the manuscript had not bee reviewed thoroughly.
While handling of the manuscript was definitely efficient we were disappointed with the quality of reviewer comments received. The reviewer comments indicated that several questions raised were already answered in the document/figures and others indicated conducting unnecessary experiments which could result in 4 different publications. Other queries pertaining to formatting the manuscript were well received by us. While the nature of the comments indicated that we could have communicated with the editorial office, clarified any misinterpretation of our manuscript and performed necessary experiments to strengthen our findings; we were advised against a re-submission due to the 'concerns raised by the reviewers'. The experience was definitely disheartening as we received no relevant scientific comments and got an indication that the manuscript had not bee reviewed thoroughly.
Motivation:
My experience with this journal is exactly how I would expect a paper to be handled. The first decision was in a reasonable time, I got three quality reviews that improved the clarity of the manuscript, and the turn around to acceptance was also very quick.
Motivation:
The review process was smooth and the reviewers helped me improve the paper. However, I found one of the reviewers repeatedly requesting for additions to the reference list with each reference belonging to a single author. I believe the editor should check such reviewers and push back against this.
Motivation:
An international journal indexed in JCR as Q1 can't make a decision having only one review, especially when the report only provides one reason, does not indicate changes to perform and can be seen as subjective.
Motivation:
The whole review process took us more than one year, so the paper was published almost two years after the work was performed. Four rounds of revisions were performed with the following results: major changes, minor changes, major changes and acceptance. I can't find the logic when you apply minor changes suggested by reviewers and their next review suggests major changes. Additionally, there were contradictions between the reviewers that the editors did not solve.
Motivation:
We had five reviews that really improved our paper. One of the reviewers didn't agree with the rest, but the editors solved this issue and finally published the paper. Our only complaint was the excesive publication fee.