Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Zoological Letters
4.9 weeks
6.3 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
5
Accepted
Geophysical Journal International
7.1 weeks
29.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
3
Accepted
Journal of Structural Geology
10.0 weeks
10.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
5
Accepted
Motivation: Quick process in general and no fee for a print version that includes black and white figures.
Great job of the editor in handling the reviews.
Just a few weeks to wait from the submission time for getting a reference number to track the manuscript.
eNeuro
2.4 weeks
2.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
5
Accepted
Motivation: The review process was very great. The comments in first round review were excellent, from both methodological and theoretical aspects, and it's done in 17 days! When we resubmit it, the editor just accepted our article few hours later. I was very satisfied with all the processes.
Social Psychology of Education
34.7 weeks
43.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
2
Accepted
Motivation: Very, very slow at returning initial reviews. Repeated email contact was politely replied to by an office person (not the editor) but didn't speed up the process. Finally accepted a year (almost to the day) after initial submission.
Circulation
7.6 weeks
7.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
4
Rejected
Australian Journal of Primary Health
6.9 weeks
7.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
4
Accepted
Patient Education and Counseling
n/a
n/a
7 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
PLoS ONE
13.1 weeks
17.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
3
Accepted
Motivation: Once reviewers were found the process was quite quick. However, considering PLoS's claims of rapid publishing times, we found the process quite lengthy. We were contacted one month after our initial submission asking us to nominate an academic editor. Two weeks later, the academic editor contacted us again to ask us to nominate reviewers. Considering the fee to publish, it felt a little like we were doing their jobs for them.
Heart
5.4 weeks
5.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
3
Rejected
BMC Family Practice
12.3 weeks
18.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
4
Accepted
BMC Family Practice
22.1 weeks
28.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
3
Accepted
Journal of Neuroscience
4.9 weeks
4.9 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
4
Rejected
Motivation: While the manuscript was rejected after the first review round, the reviewers' comments were respectful, fair and in-depth.
Acoustical Science and Technology
6.6 weeks
6.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
4
Accepted
Motivation: Their turn-around time is generally very short. I have submitted three papers, and I have received the decision letter within 2 months.
Critical Public Health
15.6 weeks
21.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
5
Accepted
Linguistic Inquiry
16.3 weeks
64.1 weeks
n/a
3 reports
2
2
Accepted
Motivation: For a 9-page short paper, every turn-around time took very long. Mostly the comments were not very helpful, asking very specific questions.
PNAS
5.4 weeks
10.9 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
5
Accepted
Language Learning
8.0 weeks
16.3 weeks
n/a
3 reports
4
5
Accepted
Motivation: Very thorough review process. The editor was very helpful, taking care to read reviews carefully and advising on the best way to approach the required revisions.
European Societies
66.1 weeks
113.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
3
Accepted
Parliamentary Affairs
6.3 weeks
21.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
5
Accepted
Motivation: I was positively surprised how quickly I received the responses: the editorial team seem very efficient. Going through a second round of revise & resubmit is always daunting, but the reviewers have been excellent and helped me to make the most out of the data that I had.
Nature Communications
6.4 weeks
13.7 weeks
n/a
3 reports
5
3
Accepted
Motivation: Very slow editorial decision making and review times for a journal that asks reviewers to send reports in 10 days. After acceptance, multiple back-and-forth changes about text also took considerable amount of time as did final online publication of the paper. In the end, positive outcome in good quality and rigorous journal but be prepared for the editorial process to take much longer than e.g. Cell Press journals.
Nature Communications
n/a
n/a
17 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Nature Methods
n/a
n/a
20 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Genome Biology
n/a
n/a
9 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Group and Organization Management
5.9 weeks
5.9 weeks
n/a
3 reports
5
5
Rejected
Motivation: Quick but rigor process. Really great reviewer with lots of useful and positive (also sometimes over-critical) remarks. Fast process. Minor remark: Decision to send paper out to external review was not shared with us.
Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing
21.7 weeks
25.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
3
Accepted
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
15.6 weeks
29.7 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
5
Accepted
Motivation: In addition to the external reviewers, we also received helpful comments from the Associate Editor and the Editor (I did not count them as reviewers). I have submitted to this journal in the past and the turnaround time and quality of reviews have greatly improved in the last decade.
Remote Sensing
5.0 weeks
7.1 weeks
n/a
3 reports
3
4
Accepted
Motivation: Short review cycle, good quality reviews, editorial staff respond to emails quickly
Pattern Analysis and Applications
15.1 weeks
15.1 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
2
Rejected
Motivation: The quality of review reports was OK, but it took a very long time to receive the reviews.
ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
5.9 weeks
15.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
4
3
Accepted
Motivation: High quality review reports but the review cycle is long.
IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters
7.4 weeks
15.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
2
3
Accepted
Motivation: Very short review reports only commenting on minor issues.
Molecular Biology Reports
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 130.7 days
Drawn back
Motivation: After almost four months of the status being "Editor Assignment Pending", we have contacted the editorial office. The answer basically boiled down to "wait a bit more". So we did. After a few more of weeks of the status remaining unchanged and us not hearing from them, we finally sent an email requesting the manuscript to be removed from their system.
Then we waited for another week or two to see the paper actually removed from the system. Which did not happen: the manuscript remained in the the system with the same status.
Eventually, we decided to ignore them and submitted it to another journal.
Checked the system these days (about a month and a half later), because the paper is about to be accepted for publication in this new journal, and found that the manuscript is still in their system with the same "Editor Assignment Pending" status.
As a colleague of ours had an identical experience, we suspect that this is not an outlier.
Almost amusing.
Empirical Economics
n/a
n/a
58 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
Motivation: Editorial rejection took too long (about two months).
Journal of Affective Disorders
4.0 weeks
4.0 weeks
n/a
4 reports
1
2
Rejected
Central European Geology
13.0 weeks
13.0 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
5
Accepted
Motivation: Central European Geology is fair in publishing anything of scientific value based on local geology, if it is worth the attention of other geologists.
Catholic Biblical Quarterly
17.3 weeks
18.3 weeks
n/a
2 reports
5
5
Accepted
Motivation: The reviews highlighted some blind spots in my argumentation, and also showed that some of the examples were distracting from the main point and could be cut.
International Journal of Public Health
25.0 weeks
68.6 weeks
n/a
1 reports
0
0
Accepted
Motivation: Can't recommend this journal at all. Would never submit again.
Scientific Reports
7.1 weeks
11.7 weeks
n/a
3 reports
2
1
Accepted
Motivation: The paper was "transferred" from Nature Communications - but this is bogus because it was not transferred at all. Scientific Reports is not tied in to other NPG accounts and required a new upload of all documents plus adding in all the information regarding funding and co-authors (this should have been transferred directly from Nat Comm). The paper was then delayed in being accepted for review due to some minor copy editing issues, and then further delayed because one author was deceased and had no valid email address. The first round of reviews were slow and only asked for minor changes in content. In the second round of reviews, the paper was not accepted because revision was needed to change the title and one figure legend sentence. In any other journal, this would be an "accept" with very minor modifications decision. The final version was followed by an unnecessary "unsubmitting" action at Scientific Reports with no instructions given as to what the issue was. Paper was resubmitted as it was and accepted. The whole process with this journal was exceptionally tedious and aggravating. Our entire team was quite distressed at the length of time needed for the reviews and the silliness in unsubmitting the paper continually. Staff at Sci Rep were apologetic but there seems to be no effort on the part of Scientific Reports to bring the journal up to other NPG journal standards.
Planta
4.6 weeks
7.6 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
4
Accepted
Sustainability
5.4 weeks
5.4 weeks
n/a
2 reports
3
1
Rejected
Motivation: We sent in a paper and we got it back after one round of revision with fairly minor comments. We addressed the comments and resubmitted thinking it was going to be accepted fast.

To our surprise, the second round of review took a lot longer than the first, and the outcome was a rejection motivated by a long review by the editor in which he had a lot of critiques, completely different from those expressed by the two reviewers. Most of what the editor commented on 1) showed he did not understand the paper and/or 2) was relatively trivial staff that could easily have addressed in the revision, had he given his comments to the original submission.

Very weird experience overall. Handling time was decent, at least.