Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
27.9 weeks
28.3 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
2
Accepted
Motivation: The reviews were excellent. However, the first review round was extremely long, especially for a minor revision.
5.6 weeks
15.1 weeks
n/a
3 reports
4
3
Accepted
Motivation: There are both advantages and disadvantages to Nat Comms. Upon initial submission, the editor requested that we revise and resubmit. This took three months, and resulted in a much better paper. We then went through two further review rounds, so that it was finally about 8 months before the manuscript was accepted. It then took another two months before publication, which is bizarre given that we submitted publication-ready latex proofs, and this is an online journal. We received good feedback from the reviewers, which ultimately resulted in a much better paper (!), but we agree with other authors, that the process takes far too long. Our eProofs were sent back to us with far too many simple errors to justify the GBP 3,700.00 (tax included) publication fee. Shocking, and makes you wonder how much the Nature management are profiting, at the expense of the copyediting firm in Bangladesh, who actually do the hard work of the production.

If we have one recommendation for the Nat Comms team it is to stop claiming that this is a "rapid communication" type journal. Why claim rapid turnover (one month I think), when the actual review process takes much longer? Claiming it is once month from the point of acceptance to the point of publication is trying to make it look much more rapid than it is.

Still, an excellent journal, and supportive of junior academics.
7.6 weeks
15.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Accepted
Motivation: Reviewer comments helped improving the manuscript. Editor was fair and balanced.
13.0 weeks
15.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
3
Accepted
Motivation: + The main difficulty was to find reviewers
+ Once the first revision process came, the subsequent revisions were fine
+ The final result was useful to ameliorate our manuscript
25.4 weeks
25.7 weeks
n/a
1 reports
3
2
Accepted
Motivation: It took about two weeks for the editor to receive the first review, Five months later I enquired about the reason for the lack of progress. The reply was that the editor was still trying to obtain another review. One month after that the editor made a revise and resubmit decision based on the somewhat glowing review of Reviewer 1.Revised and resubmitted the next day and was accepted the day after that.
Immediately accepted after 0.9 weeks
Accepted (im.)
Motivation: This time around, ZPE reviewed my article quickly and, though the review process was internal, the reviewer informed us he consulted the article's content with another authority in the subject area, who was one of the main conversation partners of the article's argument. That's professional and encouraging.
10.9 weeks
10.9 weeks
n/a
0 reports
n/a
0
Rejected
2.0 weeks
2.6 weeks
n/a
4 reports
4
3
Accepted
4.7 weeks
11.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
4
Accepted
n/a
n/a
10 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
n/a
n/a
2 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Motivation: No reason given for the rejection: the editor only said that the manuscript was not appropriate for the journal. This is somewhat unconvincing because the topic of the manuscript falls within the scope of the journal, and they have published papers with similar aims and methodologies.
n/a
n/a
5 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Motivation: The decision was based on the manuscript not being fit for the journal. The editor gave good reasons for this decision, even though he praised the quality of the study,
6.1 weeks
8.1 weeks
n/a
1 reports
3
3
Accepted
Immediately accepted after 6.7 weeks
Accepted (im.)
Motivation: I have received excellent detailed feedback from the editor I contacted and from another member of the editorial team of the journal, which improved my piece greatly. Since then, I have published another article with them, with a similar experience.
n/a
n/a
9 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2.6 weeks
4.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
5
Accepted
Motivation: The handling editor was extremely fast. The reviewers were very knowledgeable of the topic, and although the experiments for the revision were very demanding, they accepted that we could only do some of them, and accepted the paper after the first revision. In addition, the status of the paper was very clear on the editorial manager, such that we knew one day before the official e-mail from the journal that the paper was being sent out for review. Moreover, the proofs were fast and looked amazing. It was overall a very good experience.
26.0 weeks
30.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
5
Accepted
Motivation: The professionalism of the editor is obvious. The editor does a great job of sending out papers to reviewers. The reviewers seem to demonstrate the international angle that the journal's title indicates. The reviews were helpful in improving the paper.
4.3 weeks
8.9 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Accepted
n/a
n/a
14 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
n/a
n/a
7 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
4.3 weeks
18.3 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Accepted
n/a
n/a
2 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
n/a
n/a
4 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
20.3 weeks
20.3 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
3
Rejected
Motivation: The reviewers offered precise comments, and suggested many changes to the paper.
7.7 weeks
8.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
3
Accepted
9.9 weeks
9.9 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
5
Rejected
Motivation: Quality communication, thorough feedback, all round good experience.
2.0 weeks
4.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
5
Accepted
9.3 weeks
9.3 weeks
n/a
1 reports
5
5
Accepted
Motivation: The editor to whom I submitted my article (via email - there is no online submission system) responded to confirm receipt promptly and informed me that the review process may take some time. Two months later, I received notification of acceptance, with two reviews: one by the editor to whom I submitted the article, and another by an external reviewer. The reviews were not anonymous: names were present in the comments. Suggestions for improvement (which were mostly minor) were genuinely helpful and resulted in an improved final product. The entire process was very professional and cordial.
33.9 weeks
40.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
3
Accepted
Motivation: Overall an OK, but rather slow, experience.
n/a
n/a
4 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Motivation: In spite of the unfavorable outcome I appreciate the very fast editorial processing.
18.4 weeks
18.4 weeks
n/a
3 reports
4
4
Rejected
2.6 weeks
2.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
4
Rejected
Motivation: The reviews came back within two weeks of submitting. One reviewer rejected the manuscript because we had made 'too many assumptions' in modelling our data, but did not specify what does assumptions were. The second reviewer suggested several model that we may use to analyse some of our data, which I found very useful.
2.3 weeks
2.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
4
Accepted
Motivation: The review process was extremely fast. The reviews were very positive and asked only for very minor changes to the manuscript.
4.3 weeks
4.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
4
Accepted
Motivation: The review process was fast and the comments were easy to implement.
5.6 weeks
7.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Accepted
Motivation: Reviews were reasonably fast and the comments were useful. I was overall very satisfied with submitting to this journal.
2.9 weeks
3.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Accepted
3.9 weeks
4.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Accepted
Motivation: The review process was quick and the comments made by the reviewers helped us improve the manuscript.
15.1 weeks
15.1 weeks
n/a
1 reports
1
1
Rejected
Motivation: The submission process was easy and the technical editor was very helpful and fast. The manuscript was sent for review soon after submission. Almost four months after submitting we got a single review (just three sentences) rejecting the manuscript. I felt that the quality was substandard, and it seemed like the reviewer probably only read the manuscript superficially.
2.3 weeks
4.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
5
Accepted
Motivation: The review process is very quick and helpful to improve the overall quality of the manuscript.
14.9 weeks
14.9 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Rejected