All reviews received by SciRev

Motivation: The editor (Dr. Parker) was very constructive in his remarks and granted us more time to do the necessary experimental procedures that were needed for the revision. Review process was within the time allocated and reviewers comments were constructive.

Motivation: The comments from Editorial Office and from the referees were in general insightful, the weakest point is that the overall process took quite long time

Motivation: The editor explained what was wrong about the manuscript, and advised some brief changes that could be made in order to be considered for peer-review in the same journal.

Motivation: The overall review process was not properly managed by the Editor. We submitted two companion papers to the same journal, highlighting, in our letter to the Editor, that they were related to the same topic and suggesting to handle them together. After 3 months, apparently, the Editor was not able to find any reviewer for our manuscripts. After almost 5 months, just one paper was sent to one reviewer. Unfortunately, the reviewer received only the second paper, without any information about the companion one, and he could not evaluate it. The conclusion was that he rejected the paper, while after five months, apparently, the Editor was still looking for a reviewer for the first paper. At the end, we decided to retire both the manuscripts. They were both submitted to another journal (Carbon Balance and Management), which provided a revision, from two reviewers, in three weeks. The first paper is now under publication and the second is under revision, after having recieved the comments from the reviewer.

Motivation: Good referee comments, which improved the manuscript; yet the editor did not seem to dare taking decisions. Despite positive remarks, he insisted on several rounds of further revision before it was finally accepted.

Motivation: Quick peer review process, good comments, but due to lack of novelty rejected.

Motivation: Review process was fine, but unnecessary slow editorial process and quality check period after first submission and then again after second submission.

Motivation: Extremely fast reviewing process. Fairly adequate comments and suggestions. Editing and type-setting phase is proper.

Motivation: Excellent and timely handling. Good comments and the editor made some additional good points.
Proofreading stage was also very impressive and of high quality.

Motivation: Our paper was accepted, so my poor ratings are nothing to do with sour grapes. However, the editor did not seem especially well-informed in this subject area. While this can't be expected of a specialist journal, a massive enterprise such as PLoS One, with its legion of Editors, should be able to find a suitable editor (or to accept the Editor recommended by the authors). This caused difficulties because she did not challenge some of the frankly ridiculous comments/requests of one of the reviewers. Instead we had to make more and more changes (5 sets of revisions!), although to my mind the law of (exponential) diminishing returns was evident after the second revision. The Ed contented herself with (reading and then...?) following the requests from the reviewers for continual additional revisions. Eventually in complete exasperation, we challenged the reviewer to 'put up or shut up' and they finally conceded that they lacked unawareness of the literature. At that point I was very willing to withdraw the paper and send it elsewhere.
I also found the editor to be particularly thin skinned and frankly patronising, with her parting comment: "I WOULD LIKE TO CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO ONE ISSUE (WHICH MAY BE OF IMPORTANCE FOR YOUR FUTURE COMMUNICATION WITH EDITORS): all my communication I did address to you (by your name), all your communication to me had been addressed to "[Dear] Editor". I would recommend you to call your future Editors by name. this is just a good communication style" (all caps in original). Now, I agree that it is a courtesy to an Editor to use their name and title, but it is difficult to take lessons about "good communication" from someone who waited until the 6th(!) decision to letter to inform us that her feelings had been hurt! We could have used her name if she pointed out this trivial oversight after letter 1. Moreover the nature of the decision letters (to amend according to the wishes of the reviewers) did nothing to dispel the idea that one was dealing with a nameless automaton. Anyway, no more PLoS submissions for me, I think!

Motivation: The review process was rather fast. The reviwers' questions were not difficult for us, yet they were useful and straight to the business.

Motivation: Noted some conficts of interest in the review process.
Also, errors introduced at multiple stages in the proofing/printing process by the (outsourced) printing people/group.

Motivation: It took about 3 weeks before the paper was even sent out for review.

The editorial process was problematic for us. Our paper was rejected despite one positive and one negative, but flawed, review. Rather than attempting to obtain another opinion, the editor took it upon himself to reject.