Hang in There ! Glean as much knowledge and understanding to improve the communication for future reports. Accept there will always be people who don't believe your company or trust it. I'm some cases , rightly in many cases. It will take time. No reason to halt progress.

How do you deal with corruption? be happy that you can recognize it (and that you are able clime the steps of ethical evolution :-) as mentioned in my book Book yogapsychologie

It’s challenging to receive destructive feedback, especially if it’s unfair. Nevertheless, like many other circumstances, this experience has two sides—both challenges and opportunities. I would like to highlight a few positive points in such situations:

1.

The Hopeful Ratio of Destructive Criticism: In many cases, reviewers tend to give positive feedback and constructive suggestions (if necessary) to improve the paper. Reviewers whose criticism stems from their lack of knowledge or subjective biases are relatively few.

2.

Manipulative Feedback as Recognition of Value: If a paper’s academic worth is intentionally undermined, it means the work has been recognized as valuable in the first place. Before a tree can be cut down, it must first be acknowledged as something standing. As Ernest Hemingway said, "If you kill me, it will make you feel more alive." Metaphorically speaking, such people need others' failure to confirm their own success.

3.

Struggles with Personal Insecurities: Destructive criticism and provocations may arise from the reviewer’s professional insecurities, lack of academic honesty, and heightened anxiety around someone else's success and advancement. As the saying goes, "Destructive criticism is the weapon of the insecure." – Unknown.

4.

Neutralizing Dangers: Some individuals who are well aware of their lack of intellectual depth and professional strengths try to create "a safer environment" for their academic progression by downplaying others' intellectual abilities and potential.

5.

Becoming a Source of Motivation: As Aristotle said, "The only way to avoid criticism is to say nothing, do nothing, and be nothing." That is to say, to avoid criticism, one should stop doing anything important or at least worth noticing.

To sum up, academic interactions have a versatile nature, bringing professional engagements with both constructive and destructive individuals. Manipulative people may try to make one feel incompetent or undervalued to protect their fragile and surface-level academic reputation. It’s important to understand one’s own strengths and weaknesses objectively, rather than measuring one’s intellectual abilities by someone else’s worldview limitations, personal insecurities, and lack of academic integrity.

When you receive good feedback, it's necessary to raise a toast to it. When the feedback is negative, you should also raise a toast. It doesn't matter whether it's with beer, wine, gin, whiskey... If the feedback is, in addition, violent, discourteous, or ill-intentioned, you should raise a double toast... :)

I remember only one time when we received very bad feedback, so bad that my boss wrote a response asking if there was a problem with racism involved (we are Latinos). Almost the worst insult to an academic. The Editor was profusely apologetic, annulled the entire review, and sent it to other referees... It was also rejected, but with a fair evaluation.

Many thanks for the constructive feedback. Perhaps I should also say that the review consisted of six bullet points - in poor English and unrelated to the text. It was a paper by one of my PhD students, who put a lot of effort into it. Of course you can reject papers that don't meet scientific standards, or do not match the thematic focus of the journal, but you should do so with respect and constructive criticism. What particularly annoyed me was that the editor followed this review and not the two others who suggested a major revision. All major publishers have ethical guidelines, which have been trampled on here. And for something like that, the reviewer might get an Orchid entry, which some universities honor. I think I'll contact the publisher.

...and sorry for my bad english... Once, many years ago, I receiveda rejection of a germany journal, with only three bullets en paragraphs and a short phrase: "the manuscript could not be considered to publication". About 2 years later, I understand the mistakes and fixed it, from a wrong epidemiological perspective, I turned to an ecological perspective...

Hi Aldo,

a few thoughts on your last comment:

- I'm not a native speaker either and I make my mistakes; but if I as a reviewer criticize the authors' writing style, I should already speak good English myself;

- I don't think the nationality of the editor or reviewer should matter;

- if a reasonable justification is given in three indents, such as: the paper does not meet the scope of the journal, then I can accept that as an author.

I am mainly concerned with the respect of a reviewer towards the authors, with ethical standards to which publishers and journals commit themselves, and with the fact that if I accept a review, I also have the obligation of a proper evaluation and feedback. If these points are neglected, then the review process is rendered null and void.