Hello, Dolores, I had a similar experience here in Brazil. I don't know how things work in your country, but what I did was just go ahead and submit my paper to a different journal - where it was finally published.

Do you think that maybe the second reviewer is someone that knows you? And maybe he/she wants to take advantage of your work? Maybe you should consider registering your manuscript or sending it to your own e-mail, in case somenone shows up with a "similar" paper published somewhere else.

Best,

Michele

Thank you! We will of course send the paper to a different journal. But first I think I will write a very polite letter to the editor explaining why I think there has been a mistake...

Dolores that is indeed the best answer. I too have had a similar experience and it was definitely a conflict of interest since I could identify the reviewer based on his comments. Giving a bad review to papers that he felt were trespassing on his patch was his standard procedure. In this case the editor actually accepted my paper, if you believe a conflict of interest is behind this review it might be an idea to ask the editor to investigate this especially if there are reasons why you wanted to publish in this particular journal.

That’s happened to me more than once because I generally approach topics from different perspectives. My favorite was when I was rejected because my references were outdated. “But professor, at the insistence of a colleague I first submitted this to CMCS. They gave me all the references I needed to update the paper through this year and the man who did it is an expert in the field.” Be nice, suggest you know the reviewer (and name him) would have a conflict of interests, and request another reviewer. Most editors are removed from the subject matter they publish, they’ll work with you to some extent. Just make sure you provide specific reasons for why their rejections are invalid with looking emotionally involved. They don’t want drama.

Thank you!

But why did the reviewer say the method was wrong? If he claims that this invalidates all the results, he must accompany specific key points that fail, or else it would be an unfounded consideration. I am very surprised that the method can be rejected outright without exposing the evidence leading to that conclusion. Under normal conditions, when a reviewer goes too far or involves too much personally, you can respond with a postscript after the conclusions, dealing specifically with the insidious aspects of the review, in scientific terms, referring it to the editors with the suggestion of re-evaluation by other reviewers.

He says we should have used a more sophisticated thechnique. This is the strongest critique. Our method is not so sophisticated but perfectly valid. Then he goes on to point several "invalid" or "absent" methods used. These come either from reading the manuscript too hastily (everything is there) or from not understanding the kind of sample we are working with. Every one of his points can be answered... But we are not given this chance. I think maybe the editors are overwhelmed with work and are just too happy to have a "reason" to dismiss the paper... I sincerely dont.know.

The problem is many colleagues review papers not for what the papers are, but for what the papers should be in the reviewer's mind.