Jean-Michel - you could take Christopher's advice - but I doubt that you will get any joy from the process and doubtful that you will even get feedback. If you do - it would probably be the standard sort of response i.e. 'we receive a lot of good quality manuscript submissions that are worthy of publication but they can only accept a proportion of them and/or your article might just fall outside the scope of the journal. My personal advice would be to move on to the next journal in line on your list.

I agree with Dean that there is not much point in trying to get an editor in chief to change his or her mind about a decision like this. So, best to start over elsewhere.

FYI the kind of work that you put in is typically only appropriate with a decision of "revise and resubmit." A great many journals will say that you are free to resubmit after an outright rejection, but this does not imply any kind of ongoing commitment from their point of view.

Jean-Michel Clairand , I think you can give a last try by contacting chief editor to reconsider the decision. If it is not possible, just submit elsewhere.

Hi,

According to your description, the editor rejected the paper the first time, but the reviewers asked for revisions, that is, we have here two decision types. Generally, there is a decision of the chief editor based on reviewers' comments. This is not the case here. I think you should approach the chief editor and ask him to elaborate on his decision to reject the paper while the reviewers thought otherwise.

@Jean-Michel Clairand give it a try. You are not losing any way. If you get the standard response, then resubmit somewhere else. You already got free review for your manuscript. Be happy

Try your article in another journal. The Editor's decision is final and writing to them won't change the decision.

As you addressed all the points highlighted by the reviewers, the paper should be better now. So I suggest not to contact the journal rather than to submit to a new journal (you may have the chance to publish it in a better journal). Otherwise they will waste your time.

I concur with those who suggest another journal. Since you now have feedback and a revised manuscript, it would behoove you to try elsewhere.

A rejection with the recommendation to resubmit should indicate that a revised paper addressing the issues raised by the reviewers will be reconsidered.

It is helpful to be aware that the editor-in-chief will have access to any eventual private remarks made by the reviewers specifically for his or her attention, as well as the reports intended for the author. The editor-in-chief is not likely to be immersed in the details of the work being performed in the specific area of interest of the author, so when a reviewer explains the overall issues that he or she wishes to have addressed, the result can be that his or her time is not wasted by considering a paper twice if the changes made are inadequate. Such comments made specifically for the editors might concentrating less on specific details and provide more of an overview of the quality of the work as a whole, with this in mind, remarks like "substantial changes are required to bring this work up to the quality required for reconsideration" should be considered to indicate the scale of improvement required.

Over the past decades, pressure to produce a tremendous number of papers to obtain funding has resulted in papers becoming marginal. I would suggest that ensuring that every paper includes a clearly sufficiently substantial body of work might reduce time wasted in the review process. In the specific case of a physics journal, the inclusion of further experimental work to produce a paper that has clear merit in terms of the addition to present knowledge is likely to result in a second round of reviewing. Point out that you have addressed every point raised and added fresh results, indicating the section of the paper or the figure in which these have been presented.

Consider the reviews obtained carefully, responding to every point. You do not need to agree with the reviewers, but you should provide a serious discussion of the point raised, and if the remark results from a misunderstanding, check your paper to see whether your explanation can be improved.

When you consider the reviews impassively, if the more positive report does not show evidence that the reviewer has considered the paper carefully, you might question whether the reviewer has really considered it seriously, and if not, approach a new journal. We all wish to have our work accepted, but excellent researchers appreciate receiving serious reports that assist them in understanding, interpreting and improving their work. (For instance, I understand that the prediction of the Higgs boson was brought out by the penetrating remarks from a reviewer who pushed for a more complete interpretation.) I would be inclined to approach a new journal if the reviews were trivial and lacked perspective.

Out of consideration for the members of the research community, I would run your paper past the journal for a decision on its suitability post amendment. This is because every paper subjected to a full peer review will demand a significant investment from two members of the research community and the editorial staff, but this does not take into account the number of researchers whose mail boxes have been filling up with requests to review your paper and countless others.

Prior to returning your paper, you might reflect on how it might be improved in other ways, then include suitable communications for the different people involved: Journal staff do not generally read the papers in the large publishing houses, whereas the editor-in-chief is likely to have dozens of papers to consider, and the reviewers will be interested in the content at a specialised level): Given this, a brief letter to the editorial staff is helpful as they are likely to look positively on a succinct statement:

"A new section presenting fresh results on... has been included and all remarks made by the reviewers have been addressed. This version of the paper benefits from...":

For the reviewers, a list of specific changes made or a marked up version of the paper should be provided for ease, but remember that the editor overseeing the review or the editor-in-chief will also be looking at these, so make sure that the real value added is clear as this could assist in getting a paper to be reconsidered. Finally, make sure that the addition of a new section or fresh results affect the abstract, the introductory paragraphs, the interpretation and the conclusions in an appropriate manner to emphasise the improvement.

Finally, if this fails to result in another round of reviewing, when you approach a new journal, suggest different potential reviewers as those suggested the first time will have had a chance to accept or decline already. For each round of reviewing, make sure that your work benefits from the additional attention received. The manuscript will hopefully be read more widely as a result of improvement.