Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Motivation:
It is obvious the editor does not have enough knowledge in this area! last year I have published a lesser work of mine in this journal, and now I have received this comment.
Motivation:
The time it took was exceptionally long (24 weeks), and resulted in only 1 reviewer report. The editor apologized for the long waiting time, but it still was a major drawback for this paper.
Motivation:
Although the manuscript concerned a protocol article (which was clearly indicated int he submission process), the review process handled it as if it were a regular article manuscript. we therefore wrote a rebuttal, which was successful, but altogether it took 10 months from initial submission until acceptance, without delay from our side. In addition to this long wait, the Journal was not able to find appropriate reviewers from the mental health field.
Motivation:
Everything was clear, from the editor instructions to the referee comments.
Motivation:
Hard to beat insufficient enthusiasm. The reviewers suggested ways to take the manuscript into different directions, but nothing wrong with it.
Motivation:
11 months for a decision, only one review and one major comment.
Motivation:
The review process was very fast. From the comments provided by the editorial board, I got the impression that the manuscript was read thoroughly. A clear reason for rejection was provided. The editorial board also suggested alternatives for publication.
Motivation:
Nice and professional experience overall. It took 2 weeks to find the editor, but the reviewers returned their reports very quickly. The reports were carefully prepared and they were helpful, better than what I usually I get from specialised journals and conferences in my field. I did not have much interation with the editor, but he was efficient in the process with quick turnarounds. I like the policy that they don't judge the novelty and impact of the work, so in theory a technically and scientifically sound paper cannot be rejected due to the subjective view of a reviewer and/or editor. Once the paper was accepted it was published quicker than my previously published work with Elsevier and other major well-known publishers. I did not give a perfect score because there were some small annoying things: for figures they accept only ancient TIF and EPS formats and the process of their submission is tedious, the LaTeX template supports only rudimentary citing (no \citet command), the manuscript has to be submitted without figures included (which makes it difficult to read and it's non-sense), and the publisher doesn't send the proof of the typeset PDF to authors before publication (so the final published paper may contain errors; mine luckily didn't have any errors but I can imagine errors may happen). Furthermore, once the paper was accepted, the production department returned it to me for very minor things they could fix themselves in a few minutes. Overall, in my case PLOS ONE gave an impression of a serious, professional, well organised and efficient journal and I think that I will submit to PLOS ONE again.
Motivation:
The initial reviews were unscientific (i.e.: based on personal experience and opinion without citing a single reference). Those reviews citing references wanted those ones to be cited in our manuscript ....
We rejected all those statements with supporting data and still got similar reviews in the second round.
The editor, even if not expert in the field should at least try to read the reviews and reject those obviously bad.
The last round of reviews after a long complaint letter removed the problematic reviewer and added new ones. These new reviewers wanted a comparison with a tool that is similar and was published in the mean time (submitted after our submission and accepted after a few weeks ... tool doesn't work by the way). One review was without any text and merely selected some grading criteria not visible to us.
Finally, a rejection was based on 2 positive reviews in the first round and one negative (by a reviewer that should have been disregarded due to quality of review) and additional 2 OK reviews, and one without any text.
This process is completely intransparent and I stopped reviewing for that journal and will not submit there again.
We rejected all those statements with supporting data and still got similar reviews in the second round.
The editor, even if not expert in the field should at least try to read the reviews and reject those obviously bad.
The last round of reviews after a long complaint letter removed the problematic reviewer and added new ones. These new reviewers wanted a comparison with a tool that is similar and was published in the mean time (submitted after our submission and accepted after a few weeks ... tool doesn't work by the way). One review was without any text and merely selected some grading criteria not visible to us.
Finally, a rejection was based on 2 positive reviews in the first round and one negative (by a reviewer that should have been disregarded due to quality of review) and additional 2 OK reviews, and one without any text.
This process is completely intransparent and I stopped reviewing for that journal and will not submit there again.
Motivation:
Response to all submissions was prompt and professional. The reviewer comments and suggestions were very helpful and improved the manuscript.
Motivation:
I received the following message:
Prior to the allocation of manuscripts to reviewers, we review each manuscript for the inclusion of a conceptual framework and literature review, the clarity of methodology and the elaboration of findings within the manuscript. Further, we look for the ways authors have situated their studies within the context of the international community of teaching and teacher education research. After our reading of your manuscript we decided that it would not be suitable for publication in Teaching and Teacher Education.
We wish you success as you seek publication in another outlet. We will be happy to review other papers you might submit in the future.
Prior to the allocation of manuscripts to reviewers, we review each manuscript for the inclusion of a conceptual framework and literature review, the clarity of methodology and the elaboration of findings within the manuscript. Further, we look for the ways authors have situated their studies within the context of the international community of teaching and teacher education research. After our reading of your manuscript we decided that it would not be suitable for publication in Teaching and Teacher Education.
We wish you success as you seek publication in another outlet. We will be happy to review other papers you might submit in the future.
Motivation:
The quality of the review reports was excellent. The only negative aspect was the duration of the review process.
Motivation:
The review process were too long and bad. After 7 month, my manuscript was rejected. It took long too much and the reviewers' comment were not very scientific.
Motivation:
Great comments from only one reviewer
Too much time for taken for all process
Too much time for taken for all process
Motivation:
At least it was fast
Motivation:
While we did not receive the outcome we were hoping for (paper rejected), we got 4 reviews in a very timely manner (<2 months), all of which had helpful advice for improving the paper for submission to a different journal in the future.
Motivation:
I received the following message:
Thank you for submitting your manuscript to the International Journal of Nursing Studies. The Editorial Committee has considered your paper. We regret to inform you that it has not been accepted for publication.
We are only able to publish a small proportion of papers submitted and so this sometimes happens with perfectly good papers which we are unable to make a priority to publish because competition for space is high or the fit to the journal's aim is not sufficiently close. You might wish to consider submitting your paper to a more specialist journal, such as the Journal of Nursing Management.
We hope that an early decision gives you opportunity to pursue publication elsewhere. We wish you luck and hope that you will consider the International Journal of Nursing Studies again in the future.
Thank you for submitting your manuscript to the International Journal of Nursing Studies. The Editorial Committee has considered your paper. We regret to inform you that it has not been accepted for publication.
We are only able to publish a small proportion of papers submitted and so this sometimes happens with perfectly good papers which we are unable to make a priority to publish because competition for space is high or the fit to the journal's aim is not sufficiently close. You might wish to consider submitting your paper to a more specialist journal, such as the Journal of Nursing Management.
We hope that an early decision gives you opportunity to pursue publication elsewhere. We wish you luck and hope that you will consider the International Journal of Nursing Studies again in the future.
Motivation:
We submitted a replication of a study that was previously published in Learning and Individual Differences. The original work was rife with errors between the results, analyses, and interpretation of these results.
Our findings demonstrated that the original results did not replicate and we even refined the previous work within a larger, more diverse sample. We do not believe that our manuscript was free of faults, but it was a major improvement over the original work.
Two out of three of our reviewers suggested publication of our manuscript pending edits, however one reviewer flat out rejected our work without strong rationale for doing so. They stated that we misquoted and misinterpreted the original paper- which is not true at all. We provided direct quotations from the original manuscript!
The editor then took 7 months to reject the manuscript, stated that the manuscript had its strengths, but then indicated it wasn't an appropriate fit for the journal. Again, this was a replication of work that was previously published in Learning and Individual Differences... so how does it not fit within the journal four years after the original study is published.
10 out of 10 would NOT recommend.
Our findings demonstrated that the original results did not replicate and we even refined the previous work within a larger, more diverse sample. We do not believe that our manuscript was free of faults, but it was a major improvement over the original work.
Two out of three of our reviewers suggested publication of our manuscript pending edits, however one reviewer flat out rejected our work without strong rationale for doing so. They stated that we misquoted and misinterpreted the original paper- which is not true at all. We provided direct quotations from the original manuscript!
The editor then took 7 months to reject the manuscript, stated that the manuscript had its strengths, but then indicated it wasn't an appropriate fit for the journal. Again, this was a replication of work that was previously published in Learning and Individual Differences... so how does it not fit within the journal four years after the original study is published.
10 out of 10 would NOT recommend.
Motivation:
They will not send the manuscript to the same reviewers, hence new corrections will be asked each and every time. Finally after 1 year, they will accept the manuscript by saying "While there are still improvements in language and the study would be stronger with the added information, I'm inclined to accept it at this stage simply because of the length of time it has been with us, and the work the authors have put into it".
Motivation:
Three high quality reviews and a helpful action editor. Really rapid turnaround. We submitted to Collabra for its expert editorial board and novel institution-backed open access publishing model. We were not disappointed.
Motivation:
The editor rejected the revised version of the paper based on the decision of the 2nd reviewer's point, which was completely based on the type of data used for the analysis and nothing else. The 2nd reviewer pointed out that they did not even bothered looking at the revisions due to the fact that the use of cross-sectional data cannot be used to disentangle hypotheses as proposed in the paper. The journal had already published several similar papers using cross-sectional data to draw upon similar theses/causal mechanisms - under the same editor. Further, if this were to be an issue, the editor should have desk rejected it not make it go through a one year review process and have such positions made clear in the "about the journal" section and or instructions to authors.
Motivation:
Unlike our previous experience, the review process was swift, and we had (I believe) 7 different reviewers who were generally very positive and very constructive. I believe the paper did end up being much better due to the review process.