Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Year
n/a
n/a
1 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2020
n/a
n/a
2 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2020
n/a
n/a
2 days
n/a
n/a
n/a
Rejected (im.)
2019
6.6 weeks
14.9 weeks
n/a
4 reports
Accepted
2018
Motivation:
Overall: not enough editorial filtering.
One of the reviewers flagged a statistical query, which is what got a statistical reviewer involved. The first review was easy enough to address, requiring clarifications and some additional statistical analyses to rule out confounding (which we were able to do). The second, third and fourth rounds were only with the statistical reviewer as the others were satisfied with the first response. I understand that statistical reviewers are important in population-level studies, but there has to be some editorial sense-checking of the comments coming in. They cannot allow comments that contradict previous suggestions and just leave the authors to go back and forth catering to every whim and fancy. We had to deal with one comment that was so bizarre, that it required us to produce a two-page long table that added nothing to the material presented in the manuscript, and is unlike anything published in the field.
However, another issue is the copy-editing and house style of the journal. There are way too many deviations from SI systems, and these all become the author's problem to incorporate. It is especially challenging for graphing, where restrictions by colour palette, and the unique method of writing units mean that every graph required special formatting syntax. Additionally, we had so many conflicting comments from the copy editors in subsequent reviews: change LDL Cholesterol to LDL-cholesterol and then change LDL-cholesterol to LDLc.
A journal need only bother with formatting figures down to colour schemes etc once they have accepted a manuscript, so long as the figures are legible and clear. Starting from the first revision to the third we were saddled with minor formatting requests, that could easily have all been pooled at the end. It would also be helpful if journals in general gave dpi requirements for grayscale and coloured images instead of simply saying what is sent across was inadequate.
One of the reviewers flagged a statistical query, which is what got a statistical reviewer involved. The first review was easy enough to address, requiring clarifications and some additional statistical analyses to rule out confounding (which we were able to do). The second, third and fourth rounds were only with the statistical reviewer as the others were satisfied with the first response. I understand that statistical reviewers are important in population-level studies, but there has to be some editorial sense-checking of the comments coming in. They cannot allow comments that contradict previous suggestions and just leave the authors to go back and forth catering to every whim and fancy. We had to deal with one comment that was so bizarre, that it required us to produce a two-page long table that added nothing to the material presented in the manuscript, and is unlike anything published in the field.
However, another issue is the copy-editing and house style of the journal. There are way too many deviations from SI systems, and these all become the author's problem to incorporate. It is especially challenging for graphing, where restrictions by colour palette, and the unique method of writing units mean that every graph required special formatting syntax. Additionally, we had so many conflicting comments from the copy editors in subsequent reviews: change LDL Cholesterol to LDL-cholesterol and then change LDL-cholesterol to LDLc.
A journal need only bother with formatting figures down to colour schemes etc once they have accepted a manuscript, so long as the figures are legible and clear. Starting from the first revision to the third we were saddled with minor formatting requests, that could easily have all been pooled at the end. It would also be helpful if journals in general gave dpi requirements for grayscale and coloured images instead of simply saying what is sent across was inadequate.
4.7 weeks
12.7 weeks
n/a
3 reports
Accepted
2012
8.7 weeks
8.7 weeks
n/a
3 reports
Rejected
2013
Motivation:
The Associate editor said "whilst there is some interest in how this work has been done, the three reviewers had varying views but on overall the feeling was 1. the work would not change the overall view of this area given recent FDA pronoucements and 2. that the statistical aspects were potential problematic in places. Overall, taking all things into consideration, the paper would not be currently competitive against other papers submitted to the journal."
We believe that when reviewers flag methodological concerns it is a concerning if editors make the inference that there are potentially problematic statistical issues without feedback from the authors - reviewers may not necessarily be as well versed in the methods as the authors and thus this situation reflects editors simply acting as gate keepers.
We believe that when reviewers flag methodological concerns it is a concerning if editors make the inference that there are potentially problematic statistical issues without feedback from the authors - reviewers may not necessarily be as well versed in the methods as the authors and thus this situation reflects editors simply acting as gate keepers.