We recently received an offensive review which accused us of plagiarism, dishonesty and fabricating observations. Three editors considered this a fair review, and a representative of the publisher did not reply to an email asking her to pass on my complaints to an authority policing unethical reviews. Throughout my correspondence with the editors they acted as though I was asking for our paper to be reconsidered. I had made it clear that this was not the case. This strategy was used to avoid having to respond to my complaints about the reviews and editorial handling of our paper.
My support for the peer-review process is actually not based on the quality of the reviews that I have received. Many have actually been nearly worthless as assessments of my work (in my opinion). I support the process specifically because it is, in most cases, double-blind. My thoughts, my arguments, and my conclusions are not being evaluated based on my reputation, relationships, or history. I value that kind of hands-free assessment of my work.
After reading the correspondence you shared, Dr. Shaw, three items strike me as worthy of comment: (a) the disclosure by a reviewer that he reviewed your manuscript is a violation of the process, and he should have recused himself if he thought he knew the identity of the author; (b) you submitted a manuscript that was not in compliance with the journal's submission criteria and should not have expected for it to be sent out for review; and (c) the conclusion that this rejection is a clear example of a conflict of interest and unethical does strike me as a bit out-of-bounds.
The editor was clearly alerted to your concerns that a reviewer may have been biased against your arguments and clearly extended the journal's resources to find a second reviewer. This is how the process works, and I might even go so far as to suggest that a disagreement in the reviews may have resulted in yet a third reviewer of your manuscript, or at least the dreaded editorial conclusion that "he tends to agree with reviewer 1 who rejects the manuscript."
I'm aware of these types of situations, and other professional researchers that I worked with have experienced rejection events similar to yours. We did not request nor submit a review of complaints so I can't comment on that aspect. However, there are actions that you, as an author, can take: 1) If the harsh and/or biased reviewer(s) are known, you can request those person(s) not be reviewers for a submitted manuscript (usually this is done prior to submitting the manuscript); 2) submit to another independent journal; 3) request or propose potential reviewer(s) to the publisher that are familiar with the manuscript's subject matter; or 4) have the lead or chief editor review the manuscript. The lead/chief editor has the authority to over-rule subordinate reviewers and their decisions, and/or remove those individuals as potential reviewers for the future. I hope that helps you, and good luck getting your manuscript published!
Thanks Stacia, These are good suggestions. I am more concerned with publishers taking action when reviews are unethical than getting my paper published. Young researchers are dissuaded from working on controversial topics when reviews are biased to the point that they are unable to get good and innovative work published.
My support for the peer-review process is actually not based on the quality of the reviews that I have received. Many have actually been nearly worthless as assessments of my work (in my opinion). I support the process specifically because it is, in most cases, double-blind. My thoughts, my arguments, and my conclusions are not being evaluated based on my reputation, relationships, or history. I value that kind of hands-free assessment of my work.
After reading the correspondence you shared, Dr. Shaw, three items strike me as worthy of comment: (a) the disclosure by a reviewer that he reviewed your manuscript is a violation of the process, and he should have recused himself if he thought he knew the identity of the author; (b) you submitted a manuscript that was not in compliance with the journal's submission criteria and should not have expected for it to be sent out for review; and (c) the conclusion that this rejection is a clear example of a conflict of interest and unethical does strike me as a bit out-of-bounds.
The editor was clearly alerted to your concerns that a reviewer may have been biased against your arguments and clearly extended the journal's resources to find a second reviewer. This is how the process works, and I might even go so far as to suggest that a disagreement in the reviews may have resulted in yet a third reviewer of your manuscript, or at least the dreaded editorial conclusion that "he tends to agree with reviewer 1 who rejects the manuscript."
Thank-you Peter Kindle for your careful attention to my question. Like you, I have received reviews that I consider worthless. I have also received reviews and comments that I find offensive and think there is a clear distinction between worthless and offensive. Unfortunately, my work is commonly assessed based on my reputation and history.
Regarding the length of our submission, the editor was informed in our covering letter that it was longer than the journal’s guideline, and we asked for special consideration.
I consider one of the reviews to be unethical because it includes, to my mind, false accusations of plagiarism, dishonesty and fabrication of observations. I requested that the facts be investigated to determine if these serious accusations are true or false and am concerned that the publisher is unwilling to conduct such an investigation.
As for conflict of interest, there is a fierce dispute between the proponents of the glacial and the flood hypotheses on the formation of subglacial bedforms. This dispute has important implications for glacial geology, paleoglaciology, paleoclimate and paleoceonagraphy. I am a leading proponent of the flood hypothesis, the Associate Editor who handled our manuscript and his friend and coauthor Reviewer #1 are leading proponents of the glacial hypothesis. They were coauthors of the review which claimed to refute the flood hypothesis, which I argued in my letter to the Associate Editor was biased and based on poor science. I did not know at the time I wrote this letter that Reviewer #1 had been assigned to review our submission. It is his review that I find offensive. Thus, our paper was assigned to a reviewer who the Associate Editor knew to be predisposed to reject it. Further, this editor and reviewer had an incentive to suppress our conclusions. These are the reasons I believe they were in conflict of interest.
Yes, It happened twice in 3 decades! That was about 25 years ago, The problem was a clear case of conflect of interest. My paper was sent to 2 reviewrs, all is Ok for one of them, all is "No" for the other neither the title nore the subject the form sheet of 12 questions had 12 NOs. The editor rejected the paper because that particular reviewer had a Gourou status in that narrow dicipline " Historical Seismicity" I profoundly modified the paper, and sent it to another journal who send it to 2 reviewers, one of them happened to be the same Gourou once again, he repeated the same harsh rejection pretending he saw this before and nothing was changed. I met with him in France 2003 at a kickoff meeting conference for a project, my lecture challanged some of his ideas which certainly went through the revision processes because of his Gourou status, the colleagues present that day remember how he fled the conference room without trying to answer any of the points raised. He died few years ago, I forgive him, RIP but still have both of his reviews and very breif comments. The paper was published finaly in a double conference proceedings in 1995 it is available on Researchgate under the title "re-evaluating the seismicity Of the Jordan Dead Sea Transform" have a nice time.
This happens quite often in India. However in most of the time review is double blind process.
Thank-you Anirbid Sircar. The double blind review system doesn't work if there are only about three people in the whole world working on a topic. As well, reviewer #1 was kind enough to sign his review. I don't think he is a bad person. He simply got carried away in a scientific feud. Perhaps he felt threatened when he doesn't need to be--he does very good and interesting work in a part of the Scottish Highlands I love. He was very gracious when I got similarly carried away in an email correspondence with him.
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