What do you think is the criterion for accepting an article in a scientific journal, and why are articles published in some major journals rejected in lower-grade articles?
A Preprint Repository study will be more helpful . Since the Preprint reflects the acceptance of the proposed Article . Statistics study will be more helpfull.
Preprint CITATION METRIC AN APPLICATION TO h i-10 INDEXES
Each and every journal have their own review guideline. However, rejection and acceptance largely depends on the comments made by the reviewer. Review coments largely depends on the knowledge level of the reviewer. If a reviewer is well aware about the topic and found interesting then recommend for pulication identifying small errors as the point of improvement. However, when some one is not very confident on the review topic,then the problem arises. Also, due to narrow line of the scope, some good article rejtion happens.
There are several factors that are taken into consideration for publication. First, is the match of article with the aims and scope of a journal. If the editor thinks that the match is not close enough or the priority for the readers is low, papers are desk rejected. Second, the quality and rigor of research. High quality or ranked journals prefer papers that have used sound and robust methodology and appropriate methods. Finally, the comments of the reviewers. In addition to these factors, other factors are quality of writing, strength and support for the arguments, logical flow, and sometimes politics. I have observed that some journals only publish papers of authors from selective countries. Some journals are biased towards authors from developing countries.