It depends on a journal, but I have attended several 'how to publish in top journals' sessions at conferences and every time, some well-known academics have said that they get rejected quite often, too. The reviewers won't know who the author is - e.g. a PhD student or a 'guru'. Still, editors make the final decisions about acceptance or rejection and the space for articles is limited. So, if the reviewers think that the paper is almost ok but not 100% perfect, then some editors may accept papers written by 'gurus' (as such get cited more) and reject those written by PhD students while some may also decide to give a chance to PhD students and reject papers by more experienced colleagues.

It depends on a journal, but I have attended several 'how to publish in top journals' sessions at conferences and every time, some well-known academics have said that they get rejected quite often, too. The reviewers won't know who the author is - e.g. a PhD student or a 'guru'. Still, editors make the final decisions about acceptance or rejection and the space for articles is limited. So, if the reviewers think that the paper is almost ok but not 100% perfect, then some editors may accept papers written by 'gurus' (as such get cited more) and reject those written by PhD students while some may also decide to give a chance to PhD students and reject papers by more experienced colleagues.

I do not know for sure. But, I believe, most of the path breaking inventions and discoveries in human civilisation had happened outside the ambit of high impact factor journals and sophisticated research labs. I believe, what a researcher needs to pursue is an idea and should not limit the idea within the boundaries of the formats. I also believe that it is not necessary to become a English language expert to be able to conceive an idea and produce a paradigm. Rather, history of human civilisation has taught us otherwise. So I would align myself with the viewpoint that suggests that the academic journals are in many cases unfair while evaluating manuscripts (if not biased). The primary focus of the journals have been on the format rather than the ideas. That does not mean a general statement. There are journals that do promote ideas to the extent possible even with a compromise with the format. Thus, the issue in context is highly debatable.

In particular, I find difficult to publish in American journals indexed in Journal citation Report (Thomson Reuters), which often have a series of demands that I don’t find in other countries journals the same level of impact factor.

Conducting research in parapsychology most (virtually all) mainstream psychology journals only publish research that indicates that psi is a dysfunctional belief but will not publish experimental findings in support of psi… I do not consider this open minded science. There is indeed prejudice at work in academic journal publishing which maintains a rejection of taboo areas of research even, and especially, if they are based on scientifically sound principles.

At least theoretically reviewers and editors are impartial in reviewing or publishing an article. Practically there might be some favoritism.

Many are, some are not.

I think that the journals are unfair when evaluating the manuscripts that will be published. Most of them depend on the names of researchers, their scientific status, their research achievements and even the countries to which they belong.

Many journals use blind or double-blind reviewing, so the purported unfairness is irrelevant.

For whatever reason the journal has on rejecting the paper is based on their own criteria, we can choose to dwell on the feeling of unfairness or decide on which other channels to get our research work recognized by our peers. It would be wonderful to always get our works published in a standard journal but we must accept the fact that it's not going to be that way. Thus, the most important thing is that we keep on with the passion for research writing. Keep moving forward everyone.

Any perceived lack of fairness by academic journals would soon become widely known through academic social media, such as RG.

Yet another widely-known (?) blog for disaffected academics.

Complainers always need an outlet to air their grievances.

Very naive indeed.

It depends on the Editor (s).....

To Peter Breuer:

What I wrote was entirely appropriate.

Are you seriously objecting to a personal view I have of the website you uploaded, namely "Wall of shame"?

I have a very open mind, and I called a "blog for disaffected academics" exactly as I saw it.

There is no need for a retraction.

The meaning of "disaffected" is "no longer supporting or being satisfied with an organization or idea".

I wrote: "Complainers always need an outlet to air their grievances."

That is what the "Wall of shame" blog does.

I made no judgment as to the veracity or otherwise of the grievances.

"Very naive indeed" was in reference to your previous message ("that attitude is naive").

What is the problem?

To Peter Breuer:

Your Answers are hardly becoming, or academic.

Perhaps you should try harder.

Please do not blame me if you do not understand the meaning of "disaffected".

Everything is depending on the view of selected reviewers. Unfortunately, some reviewers are not enough honest towards the process of peer-review process as the respected editorial teams ask them to share invaluable comments about the content of target papers. To be more precise, the main goal of scientific publishing is helping each other for sharing high-quality data instead of immoral competence with others.

If we cannot deal with a paper for providing expert comments, we should simply refute involving with its peer-review procedure. Generally, publishers are almost neutral in the case of scientific publishing because of the fact that editorial teams try to do their best in accord with provided recommendations by reviewers. Showing our true colors helps us to create a moral scientific society for sharing our outcomes.