Journal title
Dur. 1st rev. rnd
Tot. handling time
Imm. rejection time
Num. rev. reports
Report quality
Overall rating
Outcome
Motivation:
Desk reject. It was indicated as a better fit for another journal, but I feel like that was just a courtesy. The review process took a reasonable amount of time.
Motivation:
Almost 23 weeks to decide "not to consider for publication"
Motivation:
A standard rejection letter was sent that was word for word the same as a previous rejection letter I received for an entirely different study. The letter states something along the lines of " no amount of peer review would make this an acceptable article" with no specific reason given at all given the harsh tone of the letter. More specific reasoning e.g out of scope would be more helpful for reviewers who have spent a lot of time and effort on the submission.
Motivation:
The review process of this journal was extremely disappointing. We waited over eight months with the status stuck at “evaluating recommendation”. After two more months and many reminder emails, we requested withdrawal. Only then did the journal release three reviews—none negative, mainly asking for revisions—yet still issued a rejection.
This was the most unprofessional experience I have had with a journal.
This was the most unprofessional experience I have had with a journal.
Motivation:
It was a politically-sensitive paper in Chinese language area. The EIC should have handled in a more neutral manner but he instead passed the paper to an editor from China, who desk-rejected my paper with no reason.
Motivation:
Rather long editorial review process produced a perfunctory response.
More detailed justification for the decision should be provided. Simply saying "limited theoretical impact" is vague and not helping improve the paper.
More detailed justification for the decision should be provided. Simply saying "limited theoretical impact" is vague and not helping improve the paper.
Motivation:
Dear Dr author,
Your manuscript "title" has now been assessed. Regrettably, your manuscript has been rejected for publication in Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health.
Various factors contribute to the decision to publish an article in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. We evaluate each submission with respect to its fit within the scope of this journal, the overall quality of the study or argument, the strength of the rationale, the appropriateness of methods or frameworks used, the importance of the findings and conclusions, the context of the work within the existing literature, relevance for our readership, and clarity of writing. We also must consider whether similar content has been accepted or published recently in the journal. Additionally, we receive many more submissions each year than we can consider for publication.
Thank you for your interest in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. I wish you success in the publication of your work and hope you will not be deterred from submitting future work to Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health.
Best wishes,
Editor
Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health
Your manuscript "title" has now been assessed. Regrettably, your manuscript has been rejected for publication in Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health.
Various factors contribute to the decision to publish an article in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. We evaluate each submission with respect to its fit within the scope of this journal, the overall quality of the study or argument, the strength of the rationale, the appropriateness of methods or frameworks used, the importance of the findings and conclusions, the context of the work within the existing literature, relevance for our readership, and clarity of writing. We also must consider whether similar content has been accepted or published recently in the journal. Additionally, we receive many more submissions each year than we can consider for publication.
Thank you for your interest in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. I wish you success in the publication of your work and hope you will not be deterred from submitting future work to Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health.
Best wishes,
Editor
Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health
n/a
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159 days
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n/a
Rejected (im.)
Motivation:
The journal has significant potential and consistently publishes high-quality work, which motivated us to submit our manuscript. However, the time required to reach an initial editorial decision (desk rejection or acceptance for peer review) exceeded six months. Although we understand that these processes are rigorous and necessarily require time, such an extended delay risks rendering the manuscript’s findings outdated and limits the possibility of submitting it to another venue while awaiting the first decision. Streamlining this initial stage would prevent authors from losing valuable time and would enhance the journal’s editorial efficiency. Moreover, one of the major challenges of publishing in Spanish-language journals is precisely this issue: editorial timelines are often excessively long, which ultimately leads many authors to translate their manuscripts and opt for English-language journals instead.
Motivation:
The rejection was actually immediate, leading to saving time.
Motivation:
The editor claimed that the work was not novel, but did not provide a reference to explain why.
Drawn back before first editorial decision after 72.0 days
Drawn back
Motivation:
After submitted my manuscript to HSSC I receiving no updates. I followed up with the journal after 62 days to inquire about the status. In their response, they explained that they were facing significant difficulties securing a handling editor and had not yet found the right person to take on the paper. They noted that their editorial board consists of a voluntary external panel, meaning members have the autonomy to decline manuscript assignments. This made the situation clear: the bottleneck was not a lack of peer reviewers, but a more fundamental issue at an earlier stage. The process was entirely stalled at the internal editor-assignment level before peer review could even begin. Because the submission was stuck at this preliminary phase with no resolution in sight, I withdrew my manuscript and have since submitted it to another journal.
Motivation:
My experience with PLOS ONE revealed a deeply flawed, mechanical, and highly inefficient editorial process entirely unsuited for time-sensitive social science research. Despite my manuscript on political discourse analysis being marked as "Under Review" for over three months, the journal office ultimately admitted that not a single reviewer invitation had been accepted and that the Academic Editor now needed to be replaced entirely. Furthermore, when I proactively suggested independent, world-class experts to help resolve their bottleneck, my assistance was summarily dismissed with generic, automated templates, while the staff offered nothing but evasive, boilerplate responses until I was forced to issue a hard deadline. This total lack of transparency, monitoring, and genuine editorial oversight makes PLOS ONE a highly risky and unreliable venue for researchers managing strict academic promotion timelines.
Motivation:
Review times were unreasonably long
Motivation:
Excellent
Motivation:
The decision process was relatively fast and clear. It seems they sent it to the internal advisors before rejection.
During that time, the manuscript status changed several times, progressing through Submitted → Under Consideration → To Editor → To Advisor → From Advisor → From All Advisors, before ultimately being rejected.
During that time, the manuscript status changed several times, progressing through Submitted → Under Consideration → To Editor → To Advisor → From Advisor → From All Advisors, before ultimately being rejected.
Motivation:
The reviewers demonstrated no subject expertise and no familiarity with contemporary methods such as pre-registering experiments. Most comments were arbitrary formatting preferences or unrelated opinions.
Motivation:
One of the worst experiences ever. The editor-in-chief initially said that I was very interested in the article, but then required me to add passages against capitalism and the West, which were not at all the focus of my paper. He rejected my article without giving any reason.
Motivation:
One positive review and one very negative. Negative reviewer wanted a completely different set of experiments unrelated to the manuscript, listed numerous critiques that had already been in the manuscript but the reviewer overlooked, and criticized it for methodological/statistical reasons but themselves seemed to lack a knowledge of basic statistics. It is unfortunate that the editors were unable or unwilling to recognize this or carefully consider the manuscript themselves.
Motivation:
Although the eventual result was acceptance of my article, I feel the review process was unprofessional and unethical. After a very lengthy first-round review, after prodding the editorial contact, I eventually received a single review that was clearly AI-generated. (Not only did it feel AI-generated but an AI detector strongly confirmed my suspicions.) Although the points were quite sensible, I consider it unethical to give confidential manuscripts to generative AI, especially without declaring to the authors that this was done. This cannot genuinely be called "peer" review.
Motivation:
PLOS Medicine recruited excellent peer reviewers who understood our manuscript and gave constructive advice that improved its quality. The journal clearly prioritizes high-quality research, and brought in an additional expert to review the manuscript after the original peer reviewers. On the downside, this emphasis on quality creates a lot of work for the authors, including a fair amount of finicky formatting. This (plus the high-quality peer reviews) slowed down the publication process.
Motivation:
Fast and clear.
Manuscript under submission - 24th February 26
Manuscript received - 24th February 26
Editor assigned - 25th February 26
Manuscript under consideration - 25th February 26
Editor Decision Started - 5th March 26
Manuscript under consideration - 6th March 26
Decision sent to author - 6th March 26
Manuscript under submission - 24th February 26
Manuscript received - 24th February 26
Editor assigned - 25th February 26
Manuscript under consideration - 25th February 26
Editor Decision Started - 5th March 26
Manuscript under consideration - 6th March 26
Decision sent to author - 6th March 26
Motivation:
I DON'T recommend that any researchers submit their work to this journal. The editor agreed with the comments of a reviewer who was newly assigned in the 2nd review, concluding that "the cause-and-effect correlations were not fully supported." However, our paper was not intended to estimate causal effects, as clearly stated in the original manuscript. We also submitted an appeal in late April, but it was referred back to the same editor who rejected our manuscript. Then, we had to wait for over nine weeks to receive the final decision (rejection).
Motivation:
A statistical review was only introduced in the 4th review round. The editor agreed with the statistical reviewer's comments and rejected the manuscript around 9 months after our submission. I believe the 4th review round was too late to add a statistical review, and at the very last, the editor should have given us an opportunity to revise and respond to the reviewer's comments.
Motivation:
A negative reviewer's report looked biased, since he/she gave negative feedback to all questions of the review, including adequacy of the reference list, which was strange. This reviewer suggested that the presented graphics were "heavily processed" with no procedures described, which was wrong since just raw data were presented, and concluded that the manuscript does not contain transparent results. The other two reviewers gave constructive reports; however, the Editor's decision was not balanced.
Motivation:
Wiley SPE is a good venue for software engineering research. The review process was fair but a bit lengthy; even the second round will take almost 3 months.
Motivation:
The Empirical Software Engineering journal (EMSE) is well-reputed and maintained in the field of software engineering. Apart from a disappointment of the rejection decision, their feedback is gold standard for a researcher. They suggested dividing the manuscript into two papers, and following their feedback, I did that and addressed all concerns, and one part of it is not accepted for publication in the Journal of Systems and Software with minor revisions within 4 months. I personally suggest that the software engineering researchers, if you require a masterclass on software engineering research and if your manuscript clear their desks; EMSE will not disappoint you.
Motivation:
Personally, the prestige the journal holds is not reflected in their review process. Expect 1-2 reviewers; the comments were too general. Even a reviewer copy-pasted their comment two times just to increase the feedback, and the editor forwarded the comments as is without even checking the duplicates. For example, a reviewer's comments were like the following: Data Selection Bias (Major Issue): Adoption behavior is unexplained; the model only uses repository-level metrics. This is not the way to justify the rejection. I personally suggest not wasting time to submit to this journal. I agree that rejection is natural in academic publishing, but without justification, rejecting someone's idea is not what EAAI is known for.
Motivation:
I have a good experience with the Journal of Systems and Software. I will give 50% credit for this manuscript to the JSS reviewers because they rejected this manuscript two times, although I acknowledge that the standards of the previous drafts were too low for the JSS. But I have improved it a lot, and it got accepted with minor revisions within 4 months.
Motivation:
My domain is software engineering, and considering JSS as a good tier venue, I usually submit my manuscript there. The review was rigorous, fair, and timely. There were no personal adjectives mentioned in the review; total objective language was used, and I am extremely happy to see the standards of the Journal of Systems and Software.
Motivation:
There are actually 3 rounds review. The rirst, the editor asked to check if my paper's topic was related to ESWA. It turned out that several ESWA papers were related to mine, so I cited them. I thought that was normal. After that, I resubmitted it for review. The first review had major comments, and I needed to revise many things. The second round of reviews was minor, and after that, it was accepted.
Motivation:
I was happy with the peer review process, but I wish that the time from revise and resubmit to online first was faster.
Motivation:
The process was handled quickly overall. The reviews were very good, tough, and genuinely improved the paper, and the editor was responsive and helpful.