Hi Mehrdad,

I have had a few unpleasant situations with editors of journals, which I found both unfair and unethical. Unfortunately, editors-in-chief can behave like baby dictators. Unless they are governed by a professional society, there seems little recourse for authors. I would forget about it and submit elsewhere.

May I suggest to keep posted the name of the journal and year of the MS submission to make people aware?

Hello Mehrdad,

It is the prerogative of the editor in chief to summarily decide that a submitted paper is, for whatever reason, not appropriate for the journal. That is what probably happened here. However, rather than sending out a polite rejection message, he forgot about it. Therefore, the journal staff, when looking in the database, supposed that the paper was still under consideration, which it was not.

Your message to the editor in chief reminded him of his oversight, and, rather than humbly apologizing, he decided to launch a frontal attack. Stupid, highly inappropriate, impolite and showing, like @Paul Grossman so aptly described, his baby dictatorship. It seems there are even countries where such behavior, high up in government, has become the norm.

When I read about your experience I immediately thought that you should disclose the name of the Journal - so that everyone will be made aware - this kind of attitude is principally wrong and cannot be tolerated. Academia is a small (not very small) place indeed, but it is also a place where we fight for top standards, including ethical standards. And these top standards will prevail, at the cost of keeping the size small by pruning what does not belong in Academia.

P.S. However, it is important to remember that top standards hold for both sides of the 'publishing barricade'. There appears now a growing number of authors - those submitting to (gold) open access journals - who think that they can publish anything because they pay for it. The reality is that the worse the manuscript, the more difficult - if at all possible - is to find reviewers and the more work and time it takes to review it. In cases where the authors attack me (as a handling editor) I do recommend that they withdraw their submission citing the argument just drawn. In your case it appears that emotions went off the rails, for one or both sides - something that should not have happened as it is not emotions which are supposed to be published but results.

Thank you everyone for sharing your invaluable comments here with me. I am not thinking about revealing names here as I have my own moral standards that do not allow me go beyond the legal process unless I see no other choices. But, it is a relatively good journal, a peer-review journal associated with Taylor and Francis. That is very unfortunate indeed!

Mehrdad F. Falavarjani I had a similar experience, and I support your decision not to expose the journal's name here. There are better measures to correct this behavior. However, you can advise anyone asking for your opinion not to submit their manuscript to this journal in private. It's the logic of word-of-mouth marketing.

For your manuscript, you may withdraw your manuscript or request rejection for it as long as the editor-in-chief himself said that he does not think it is suitable for publication. Quick rejection is better than waiting for a long time, especially with the letter from the journal’s editor-in-chief, so you will not be blamed if you withdraw your manuscript or request for rejection.

Best regards

I empathize with your feelings regarding the response of the editor-in-chief and I see that every setback sends us feedback. In this case, the feedback will be that world around us differs from what we perceive. In your frame of mind, the editor-in-chief is "unethical" but we have not seen the world around the editor. In any case, the editor-in-chief has possibly not received training on Language & Behaviour ( We call it LAB in Behavioral Psychology). In this case, you should let go of such incidents rather than harping on it. What about finding the next fit Journal for your well-deserved article?

Indeed, it may be so. Honestly, it did not occur to me that it was possible that editors-in-chief might not receive training on the way of dealing with authors, especially those journals published by reputable publishers. I will take this information into consideration in the future.

thank you sir Gautam Mukhopadhyay

Gautam Mukhopadhyay Thank you for your response. I am now swamped with writing of my dissertation! So, I have no time to search and find out a new journal. It is now sleeping in one of my desktop folder on my laptop. BTW, I moved on, although it is not right things to deal with these sorts of people anywhere especially in academia.

https://thevarsity.ca/2023/10/22/opinion-psychological-safety-in-academia-is-overlooked/