In reputed journals, we could find certain research articles that do not contain required significant research contributions and still such articles are published in journals. Apart from research contributions, what else is also judged? Non-native English authors: What are your experiences?
They shouldn't do. The process should be blind to the reviewers and their collective decision should decide what is accepted or not. Of course, it is a double-bonus if the reviewers accept the manuscript - and it turns out that the author/s is a reputed academic in the field. It probably just appears that reputed authors 'always' get accepted. That's a flawed view though and probably biased in itself. As an editor myself, I would actually be hesitant about accepting a manuscript from a reputed author if it was not of good quality; that would appear bias. That said, a poor quality submission from an experienced author with a good reputation is unlikely. They have 'learnt the game' and have probably recruited good support mechanisms to assist.
@ Dean Whitehead Thank you for sharing your experience and opinion. I have question.
How non-native English authors can improve their writing? Would you suggest reading materials?
No problem Harshadkumar. That's a tough call question. There are a number of other threads on RG that debate resources etc for English as a second-language issues. They are probably your best bet. There are so many reading materials available - both academic and non-academic - that it would be very tricky for me to pick a small or singular selection.
This process is crystal clear: http://ijaridea.com/Editorial-Workflow
In my personal opinion, unfortunately, sometimes and not always, editors are biased towards authors' reputation/image when making decision about final selection or rejection of submitted work!!! I have seen examples of papers which are just a literature review of other papers and they are published at 4* journals.
Dear Prajapati
To be honest, editors feel its a waste of journal space to publish an author's work that they feel will not be cited either because the author is unknown (has no reputation among his peers in the field) or because there is little or no contribution. Editors pursue reputation and quality work. If the journal has one journal space left to take only one more article for a particular issue, and an unknown author submits a quality work while a reputed author submits a low-quality work, the editor will most likely consider the reputed author rather than the quality because the reputed work will be cited and the journal's ranking would increase. This practice is very common in 3* and 4* journals in almost every field in academic research.
A general advise is that the unknown/early-career researcher should begin publishing in 2* journals where this kind of bias is almost non-existent or little. Publishing by targeting 2* journals helps because it shows that the new author is a new peer in the field. After this, the early-career researcher can then work his way up to publish in 3* and 4* journals (it's not that easy but it is possible).
Academic publishing is a business, and editors are the marketers for journals to increase journal ranking via citation counts and other metrics. If articles from a specific journal is no longer cited by anyone, the editor will be removed. So now you see why editors have to make the hard-choice between 'accepting simple papers from reputed author' and 'accepting high-quality work from unknown peers''
As much as we think that editors are biased, this is how journal publishing works. At some point in our research career, each of us will become a journal editor and we will have to do this. Finally, I had one experience that changed the way I think about the double-blind process. I submitted a paper to a journal many years ago. The editor searched my linkedin profile and didnt see much to convince him that I am reputable in my field so he rejected my paper. Today, I have now been published in some reputable journals that are better than his journal, and he has recently sent me an email asking me to consider publishing in his journal. The point I am making here is that editors can be really biased about an author's reputation/quality simply by judging from what the author has put-up online as their academic profile.
I hope this helps!
Regards
Peterson
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