All reviews received by SciRev

Motivation: A manuscript I submitted was initially rejected, and one of the reviewers provided a clearly biased evaluation. I later submitted a revised version. After submitting two or three additional manuscripts, including one on a topic somewhat related to the previously rejected paper, I was asked by the journal to discontinue submitting any further work. In my view, this response was unprofessional. Journals should evaluate each manuscript on its own merits rather than making decisions based on the number or perceived similarity of submissions from a single author.

Motivation: The manuscript was dealing with a controversial topic, which was critical on the government of some countries. In the second round, both reviewers were biased. Political bias and disagreement dominating >80% of the comments, while <20% of the comments window-dressed the review comments appealing to research method (thus making it sound - while every method have got its strength and weaknesses).

I made an appeal to the editor, highlighting the ethical issues in the review process (An appeal was allowed according to the website). But the editor provided a generic rejection letter with fairly high rate of GPT-generated (as per GPTZero and ZeroGPT), which made me skeptical on whether he seriously considered my appeal, or he has done his job.

Motivation: The manuscript was submitted on Sept 21 and on Sept 25, it was desk rejected without any real assessment or reason. The desk rejection was rebutted and the manuscript was sent for review. Two reviews were received. Nothing substantive in the reviews about why the work is flawed or incomplete, just some circular reasons for rejection. Very poor experience, wasted time with formatting in a journal-specific template. No consideration for authors', time, effort, and funds put into the work.

Motivation: My manuscript remained in "Editor Assigned" status for approximately five months without any substantive update on its progress. I contacted the editorial office twice to inquire about the status; the second response appeared to be a generic template reply that did not address the specific situation of my manuscript. I also wrote directly to the handling editor and received no response. Given the lack of communication and the extended delay with no indication that review had actually begun, I ultimately withdrew the manuscript. Based on this experience, I would not recommend this journal.

Motivation: I am writing this review not because of the length of time it has taken to process my manuscript, but because of the complete lack of meaningful editorial communication throughout the review process.

I originally submitted the manuscript in July 2025 and did not receive a revise-and-resubmit decision until April 2026. During that nine-month period, multiple inquiries requesting a status update went unanswered. Because of the lack of communication, I ultimately withdrew the manuscript, assuming it was no longer being processed. I was genuinely surprised when the journal subsequently issued a revise-and-resubmit decision. Since the manuscript had not yet been submitted elsewhere, we made the unfortunate decision to revise and resubmit it.

Since resubmitting the revised manuscript, the communication has been no better. Multiple emails asking simple questions such as whether the manuscript is still under review, whether reviewers have been secured, or when a decision might reasonably be expected, have gone unanswered. Instead, I have repeatedly received the same generic response from a third party:

"Thank you very much for your email and please accept my most sincere apologies for the lack of updates on your paper. I have just taken a look at the status of your manuscript and I am pleased to tell you that it has successfully passed our Quality Check process. Your revised manuscript has now been sent back to the handling Editor for further consideration. Please be reassured that we are always in regular contact with the Editorial Board Member to ensure that your manuscript moves through the publishing process as swiftly as possible. Your patience while we do this will be greatly appreciated."

This identical message has been sent to me repeatedly over several months, without providing any substantive information or answering my questions.

Authors deserve honest status updates, even if the answer is simply that the journal is still seeking reviewers or awaiting an editor's decision.

Based on this experience, I cannot recommend this journal and will not submit another manuscript here in the future.

Motivation: My experience with the *Journal of Child and Family Studies* was disappointing overall. The review process took approximately ten months and involved multiple changes in reviewers and editors, resulting in substantial delays and limited transparency about the manuscript’s status. Communications from the editorial assistants were often vague and did not clearly explain the reasons for the delays. Although the final reviewer comments were detailed and included several constructive suggestions, many of the concerns appeared addressable through major revision rather than rejection. I appreciated the reviewers’ recommendations regarding methodological framing, clarity, participant reporting, and terminology. Some of the comments seemed to be generated with AI or used with AI-assistance. However, the timeliness, communication, and overall management of the editorial process could be improved to better respect authors’ time and effort.

Motivation: The evaluation by the handling editor was detailed, so, even though the outcome was a rejection, the overall satisfaction with the journal was positive.

Motivation: The lack of a reason felt very rushed

Motivation: The manuscript spent almost three months under editorial assessment before being sent for peer review, making the overall process unusually slow. Although rejection after review is a normal editorial outcome, the lengthy initial editorial stage significantly increased the time before a decision was reached.

Motivation: The reviews were tough and definitely gave constructive comments.

Motivation: Reasonable, timely, and helpful review process.

Motivation: It took a long time for peer-review process, however, we felt that the reviewers gave us very insightful comments. The process of the revision was so tough, but we believe that the revised manuscript became much better than the original draft. It is very good journal.

Motivation: I had an excellent experience with this journal throughout the entire submission and review process. The editor handled my manuscript professionally, communicated clearly, and managed the process efficiently. The reviewers provided constructive, thoughtful, and detailed comments that significantly improved the quality, clarity, and overall strength of the paper. The review process was fair, rigorous, and supportive, making it a valuable experience as an author. I highly appreciate the professionalism of both the editorial team and the reviewers, and I would be pleased to submit my future work to this journal.

Motivation: My experience with JMIR Aging was mixed. One reviewer provided thoughtful, constructive feedback that genuinely improved the paper. The other repeatedly returned with what felt like generic, repetitive comments that showed little understanding of scoping review methodology and often asked for things that were impossible to provide given the available evidence. We ended up resubmitting three times in response to essentially the same questions, despite giving detailed replies at each stage. Several of the comments were so formulaic and disconnected from both the manuscript and our responses that we strongly suspected they may have been AI-generated. Frustratingly, this should have been identified much earlier through editorial oversight, and it cost me a considerable amount of unnecessary time and effort. However, once I contacted the editor directly to explain our concerns, the response was very professional. The review history was reassessed and the manuscript was accepted almost immediately. The post-acceptance process was much more positive, although publication still took around three months due to extensive copy-editing, production queries and slow turnaround times. Overall, I was happy with the final outcome, but a stronger editorial intervention earlier in the process would have saved months of unnecessary revisions. I have avoided resubmitting to this journal due to my concerns with AI-generated reviews, but I do have colleagues who say they’ve had more positive experiences so maybe we just had bad luck.