It has been almost 15 years since my first submission of a manuscript for journal publication. Some of my recent experience, grateful and furious, makes me decide to write such a post. After completing the rebuttal, I feel the rebuttals worth more than the paper itself, for young researchers, regardless of the result for publication (the manuscript was finally accepted recently, available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1540748920303606).
The post is pretty long and contains images so I attached the post as a file. I hope it would never be helpful to you.
One of our manuscript was rejected at the end of the third round of revision as one reviewer remained adamant and obstinate refusing our rebuttals and elaborate explanation from published literature. Another manuscript was reviewed by five reviewers and one of the reviewer was objecting the publication and demanded a fourth round of revision. The editor finally intercepted and accepted the manuscript for publication based on our response and rebuttals to some points. Bias in the review process (either by the editor or the reviewer) is unavoidable. Because there is no grammar for research. One can not continue to argue that a result is either right or wrong in many cases. Sometimes, rebuttals hit the ego of the reviewer or editor prompting to reject. One can defend the biased reviews based on the fundamental knowledge and past research works in existing literature. However, it does not always guarantee a change of attitude of a reviewer and subsequent acceptance of the manuscript.
Very important discussions. Helpful for every newcomers in the field of research.
It is a nice example of clearly written rebuttal. It also in an example for 'how to handle tough reviews' with to the point rebuttals for new researchers like me. At least I found it quite useful.
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