Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Motivation:
Extremely rapid. Valuable comments.
Motivation:
The editor seemed to have had little bagage to either select appropriate reviewers, or evaluate the quality of the reviews. The whole process took ages (of which nearly a month just to decide whether to send out for review). Over a month after formally going into review a former colleague of mine (one with whom I have published previously) was asked to review the manuscript. One single Google action by the editor would have made it clear that this is not an appropriate request given our previous ties. It seems to me that the only reason my colleague got this request was because he has a study in revision with Nature Communications so that his name was in their system. Naturally he reclined and apparently a different reviewer was invited. The reviews I ended up getting were of poor quality, attacking points that were very explicitly controlled for in the study. I did not read a single point of valid criticism by any of the reviewers. I've decided taking my business elsewhere, I will not be submitting with Nature Communications again, the turnaround time for a high impact journal is huge (even though they pride themselves on being fast), and the editor does not seem up to speed in our field (Cognitive Neuroscience).
Motivation:
Paper submission management system is fast and effective.
Motivation:
Quick feedback from editor and reviewers, except for the final decision.
Relevant comments in general
Relevant comments in general
Motivation:
Good reviews in reasonable delay
Motivation:
The paper was sent to peer-review and the process took more than 3 months. One of the reviewers provided a sustained feedback which revealed an attentive reading of our paper, highlighting many flaws which we were able to correct thanks to him/her and prepare the paper for further submission to another journal. The second reviewer however was sarcastic and very condescending. He/She provided a two line review stating that the paper had a major methodological flaw which made it unworthy of further comments. When submitting a paper to peer review in a top journal, we expect to get a report based on a objective reading of the paper and not on reviewer's "methodological ideologies". Through the provided report, it was obvious that the reviewer in question did not even read the paper thoroughly and just decided it was unworthy of even considering it.
Motivation:
The reviews were good, but it was the work of the very knowledgeable and capable editorial board that really helped improving this manuscript during the review process. The editors managed to keep the balance between the opinions of the reviewers and our intentions as authors, and worked actively to make the manuscript fit for publication.
Motivation:
Slow, editor comments suggested cursory reading of reviewers.
Motivation:
The editor-in-chief sent us a very polite rejection email, highlighting why the article was not a good fit for JPS. He also suggested submitting another journal to which to submit, an unusually helpful thing for an EiC to do. Definitely the best desk rejection there could be.
Motivation:
The journal provided me with external review and gave no specific reasons for rejecting my manuscripts. I suspect that what I received was a generic paragraph sent to all the author whose article suffered the same fate as mine:
'I regret to inform you that the editorial board did not accept your manuscript for publication in Novum Testamentum.
I wish you all the best in your academic endeavours.
Thank you for having considered Novum Testamentum for publication of your research.
Yours sincerely,'
'I regret to inform you that the editorial board did not accept your manuscript for publication in Novum Testamentum.
I wish you all the best in your academic endeavours.
Thank you for having considered Novum Testamentum for publication of your research.
Yours sincerely,'
Motivation:
Prompt reviewing process. Constructive comments from reviewers and editor which helped us improve the article.
Motivation:
This is one of the few journals that provided us with an expected duration of the review process (4 months) at the time of submission. The journal was very prompt (only 2 months) and after sending us reviewer comments, Dr Sheikh, the editor, was very prompt in his communication with us.
Motivation:
The submission process was not automated (November 2016; submission is via email). This may prove to be problematic; submissions may get lost, it is difficult to keep track of things, etc. However, I experienced no problems. Actually, the editorial office was very responsive and provided me considerable information on how the process was to proceed.
Motivation:
Almost a year for a first response, with only 2 reviewers, one of the reviews was very shallow, more superficial than a conference review, the other one pushing references that were presumably "related" and should be included in the manuscript.
Motivation:
Review was prompt and the quality of the review feedback was good. However, the journal advised that the article be substantially revised and resubmitted to a different (new) journal instead. It appeared to be simultaneously a rejection from this particular journal, and an invitation to revise and resubmit to a different one, with no explanation of why (or if) this alternative journal was more appropriate, if indeed that was why the decision was made in this way.
Motivation:
The reviews were considered and insightful, and the editor was very engaged with the reviews and brought them together to request changes to the manuscript that enhanced the contribution to the literature and aligned to the journal scope and purpose.
Motivation:
All comments from the reviewrers were so superficial. One of the reviewers preteded to check the literatures which we cited to compare with our data and mentioned that the reviewer could not find any direct statements while they were obviously in the sentence!! I am so disappointed that eLife editors trust their superficial comments from the low quality reviewers.
Motivation:
I am very disappointed by this journal. The board of editors considered the manuscript very valuable. Before sending it out for review, the editor then gave a set of comments that clearly showed lack of efforts invested in reading the manuscript. We then provided a rebuttal on these comments and then the editor rejected the manuscript. I will never consider this journal again.
Motivation:
The person reviewing my manuscript, though acknowledging the article's cogency, criticised me for not achieving something which, however, the article never purported to do. I'm not sure this ought to be attributed to a misunderstanding occasioned by fact that the reviewer was not a native English speaker (neither am I, for that matter) or to the reviewer's strong opinion on the subject. Also, the article was criticised for something, which is normally accepted in the journal itself (i.e. analysis of a manuscript on the basis of digital images rather than personal inspection—a normal procedure, esp. in the digital humanities era).
Motivation:
The editor for this paper (who is also the editor in chief) waited 20 days to issue his rejection letter, after all reviews have been submitted.
Motivation:
The reviewers had no interest in the subject of the paper, and it was obvious that they only read the first 1-2 pages and the conclusions. It took 10 months until the last reviewer submitted his comments. The main rejection argument by the assigned editor was that the paper is not suitable to the journal. He was unaware of several related publications published by the same journal, and that the current submission was a continuation of a paper I published with the same journal back in 2002 (which since has been cited 80 times). The problem that Mechanism and Machine Theory has is that it receives way more many manuscript than its editors can properly handle (850 submissions in 2015 up from 479 in 2010). Consequently, the quality of the reviews has plummeted. Elsevier should consider splitting Mechanism and Machine Theory into two different journals.
Motivation:
Although the paper presented a systemic modelling work with R-programmed Morris sensitivity analysis that could be useful for other models, the decision was "your paper is a bit too narrowly focused and hence doesn't fit within the scope of the journal".
Such a decision came after 1.5 months, which is quite long given that no further constructive comment was provided.
Such a decision came after 1.5 months, which is quite long given that no further constructive comment was provided.
Motivation:
The review was quick and efficient. 2/3 of the reviewers sent extremely helpful comments that improved the manuscript considerably.
Motivation:
Quick turnaround compared to other journals in the field, particularly considering the allowed length of the ms (up to 10k words). Handling editor didn't just forward the reviews as is sometimes the case, but had clearly read both the ms and the reviews and pointed out which suggestions to prioritise. Handling editor was also quick to respond to a follow-up question of mine.
Motivation:
This was my first and very positive experience with this journal. The reviewer comments were helpful and helped me to improve the quality of the paper.
Motivation:
We were very reluctant sending our manuscript to this journal because we were not sure it fitted the scope. We first contacted the editor to check whether the manuscript fitted the scope and he honestly admitted that based on the title and the abstract it may not be a very good fit, but the decision to send it out for peer review ultimately depends on the field editor. We took the risk, submitted the article and 18 days after submission, we were happy to see that our manuscript was "under review." The review process took 4 months, which is fair for the complex manuscript we submitted. All three reviewers were positive and had very little comments. The editor accepted our manuscript pending minor revisions. Once we submitted the revised manuscript, it was accepted the next day. We are of course very happy that the manuscript was accepted without the need for lenghty revisions. However, it is difficult to judge the quality of the referee reports. All three reports were positive and very short. Maybe we submitted a very good manuscript? In any case, we learnt from this case that you should not be discouraged to submit to this journal, even if you are not entirely sure your manuscript fits into its scope. Overall, we are very happy.