From my experience, there are scientific journals with too high publication fees, in which, in general, a submitted manuscript has a good luck, independently of its quality. So, in this case, money, and only money, is the crucial factor for the publication of a manuscript. But, to be honest, Prof. Rahimi is right. I had an experience with a manuscript which was rejected by a journal, without substantial review, but it was accepted for publication in another journal, after a thorough review. Note that the manuscript was within the aims and scope of both journals and that the latter journal was better than the first, in terms of impact factor (Thomson Reuters). The possible bias against authors is just a barrier which must be overcomed, bearing in mind that the quality of scientific work is never lost.

Regards

Hello Hulya,

profound question,

Life is generally unjust and unfair , so too is academic world . The factors you mentioned affect success or failure of our  educational activities.  

From my experience, there are scientific journals with too high publication fees, in which, in general, a submitted manuscript has a good luck, independently of its quality. So, in this case, money, and only money, is the crucial factor for the publication of a manuscript. But, to be honest, Prof. Rahimi is right. I had an experience with a manuscript which was rejected by a journal, without substantial review, but it was accepted for publication in another journal, after a thorough review. Note that the manuscript was within the aims and scope of both journals and that the latter journal was better than the first, in terms of impact factor (Thomson Reuters). The possible bias against authors is just a barrier which must be overcomed, bearing in mind that the quality of scientific work is never lost.

Regards

Peer reviewers are not SUPPOSED to know who the authors are.  But editors certainly know.  

I think that editors may sometimes be biased against an author, but editors may also show favoritism to authors, or do "favors" for someone they know by accepting a marginal paper..

@Michael W. Marek: your claim that "peer reviewers are not SUPPOSED to know who the authors are. But editors certainly know"  needs further specification as this is very much field dependent.

What you describe is the so-called double blind peer review (the authors don't know the identities of the reviewers and the other way around), but, for one, most journals in physics or mathematics use  single blind peer review (the authors don't know the identities of the reviewers but the reviewers know who the authors are).

most of biological journal also use single blind review, so, reviewers certainly know who are authors. And yes, as an editor I may confirm - there can be some biases...

I agree with Dr. Aristidis Matsoukis explanation.

Regards

SM Najim

The reviewer always knows the name(s) of the author(s) but the author can mention the names of potential reviewers whom he(she) considers as biased.

There are many cases, where the reviewer does not know the name(s) of the author(s) and vice versa (double blind peer review), as Prof. Sergyeyev has pointed out. Also, there are many cases where ''the author can mention the names of potential reviewers whom he(she) considers as biased'', as pointed out by Dr. Uspensky.

And, yet, although the journal may follow the process of double blind peer review, from my experience, a reviewer may confirm the name of, at least, one author, during the review process, as it can be seen by the final publication.

Regards

In many cases the reviewer can know the name of the author even in the case of double-blind review because (i) he knows nearly all researchers working in the field and (ii) it is easy to know the author looking through the list of references.

Hi,

An editor of a science journal who accepts papers from scientists of many countries should not be biased against any category of scientists, but from the answers received to this question, it seems that this is not the case. Science does not beneficent from this state of affairs.

Dear @Ali Rahimi, @Aristidis Matsoukis, @Michael W. Marek, @Artur Sergyeyev, @Linas Balciauskas, @Salah Mahdi Najim, @Igor Uspensky and @Avishag Gordon,

Thank you for your interest and contributions! As a matter of fact that I have been baffled somewhat with your arguments, however, it could be much better to become conscious of some cases which are not as they seem at all in the academia.

Best Regards

Dear Hulya,

The science is as complicated as our life is. Be well and best wishes,

Igor

Dear @Igor Uspensky,

I will bear it in my mind. Thank you so much for your kind words!

Kind regards,

Hulya

Let's call a spade a spade, straightforward fair and profound attitude to life can reduce its injustice .

Amazing! I totally agree with you, Dear Prof. Rahimi. We need to behave so - no matter how unpleasant to face unfairness and misconducts in a way...

Regards

sure enough Hulya, undue   conservatism and a circumspect attitude is counterproductive and perpetuate the status quo .