Recently, one of my manuscripts has been rejected. Three reviewers reviewed that manuscript, and their comments seemed like minor revision. But editor-in-chief rejects it. The same thing happens with one of my friends three times. Is there anything to do?
It should be mentioned that a few of my co-authors were from different countries.
I can resonate with this. A similar situation had happened during my PhD, submitted to a nature publisher journal, after the first round of revision one reviewer accepted straight away. However, another reviewer could not provide any logical explanation of not accepting the article instead he came up with some out of context concern and hence the paper was rejected by the Editor. We did not have any time to challenge or request to review with another reviewer. In this line, I heard from my colleagues that if you request the Chief Editor with rationale they sometimes give another chance and paper gets accepted. Having said so it is so subjective and may vary journal to journal or case to case. But as a reviewer I sometimes reject an article, however, still, they get way with major revision after convincing the Editor. Not a straightforward route I reckon, however, I would write and try to convince the Chief Editor with best possible scientific way and then hope for the best. Good luck
Kawsar Ahmed
: Yes, the corresponding author emailed the editor to consider a revision. But, the editor did not consider it. Then again asked the cause of rejection, because it seems the reviewer’s comments are minor. And the editor did not reply to the last email.
Dear Sir
Is there any APC related issues prior to the submission? As sometimes Journals wants to be clear about it
Sayed Asaduzzaman No APC issues. I guess it's just about the author's affiliation or something else... I'm wondering because I worked as a reviewer (same journal), and I see one manuscript recommended for the major revision where one reviewer rejects that paper by saying there is no novelty, and I recommend for a major revision with a lot of issues.
I can resonate with this. A similar situation had happened during my PhD, submitted to a nature publisher journal, after the first round of revision one reviewer accepted straight away. However, another reviewer could not provide any logical explanation of not accepting the article instead he came up with some out of context concern and hence the paper was rejected by the Editor. We did not have any time to challenge or request to review with another reviewer. In this line, I heard from my colleagues that if you request the Chief Editor with rationale they sometimes give another chance and paper gets accepted. Having said so it is so subjective and may vary journal to journal or case to case. But as a reviewer I sometimes reject an article, however, still, they get way with major revision after convincing the Editor. Not a straightforward route I reckon, however, I would write and try to convince the Chief Editor with best possible scientific way and then hope for the best. Good luck
There may be so many reasons for rejection of a paper in general. But for minor mistake it should not happen. If it happens, one should communicate letter to the editor.
There should be a methodology to represent against the rejection. if it’s not there then try to Redirect your journal to another publisher. please do send the previous correspondence along with rejection letter, and copy of your representation as well so that it enables the second publisher to understand the irrelevant reasons for rejection. it will also help you to surmount any challenges to the publication at a later stage, if any.
that’s my take.
Our corresponding author sent an email to the editor to consider a revision. But, the editor did not consider it. Then again asked the cause of rejection, because it seems the reviewer’s comments are minor. And the editor did not reply to the last email. Yasser Kandel Sagar Maitra
Lilian Mboya,
There is no such issue. This is the most wondering for us, and the same thing happened with our corresponding author three times.
modify according to the correction apply for other reputed journals
Yes, Professor Dr.E.N.Ganesh . We corrected it accordingly and sent it to a new journal.
From my humble experience as both researcher and reviewer in some academic journals I quite reckon that it's a matter of unqualified reviewers. More straightforward, you may sumbit your manuscript to a well-reputed journal and you are more likely to get a rejection decision from one reviewer or more without any material and constructive amendments. Furthermore, you may get too simple commets with a rejection decision from one reviewer and at the same time get a material amendments from others with a minor decisions. I entirely think that the aforementioned cases could be decidedly attributed to the reviewer’s ability and experience in managing the reviewing process and forming his/ her decision accordingly. Therefore to eschew such situations, Editor-in-Chief should carefully and critically check the reviewers’ reports and then release his/her decision.
Mohammad A. A. Zaid
I agree with you that Editor-in-Chief should carefully and critically check the reviewers’ reports and then release his/her decision. But if the editor does not it and made a biased decision. And finally, referred to a paid journal to transfer, then what to do?
At times, reviewers' views are just to compliment the thorough jobs already done by the editors. Efforts of many reviewers are not commendable nowadays moreso if there is no monetary reward attached to the assignment. I had an experience on one of my papers accepted for publication with no comment/correction from the reviewers despite the popularity of the journal only for me to detect some mistakes while repackaging the manuscript to another publisher. Many editors who are really professionals in the field the manuscript belongs will like to read over such meticulously to safeguard the integrity of their journal. Thank you.
Rejection of any kind whether minor or major should provoke your research quest to work and rework for more improved output. Great work are usually criticised.
Dear Ali
If the reviewer comments are valid and require little additional work then you could make the revisions before submitting it to another journal. Alternatively, you could turn around and send it off to another journal the same day you received your rejection. That is, don’t lose sleep just move on. One should always have a list of journals in mind (sequential order to submit) when preparing and in the process of submitting your research paper to journals. Think of it as shopping around.
Dear Ali Newaz Bahar
I think Raymond A K Cox 's response is more pragmatic.
Life is not always fair! There is nothing you can do. Just save your time and submit your manuscript to other journal.
Just change the journal and try again. We sometimes do not realize editors behaviours
Please Go This Link:
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/58133/does-minor-revision-mean-accepted-with-minor-revision
Hi ,dr.ahmadpour , Your article may have a typographical error . Check that please , good luck .
Submit your publication through reputable publishers that publish several magazines on your topic. For example, Elsevier, Sciencedirect or IOSR.
Dear Dr. Volodymyr Chelyadyn Our first submission was in the reputable publisher. But unfortunately, we face such an undesirable situation.
An editor's letter that offers the author to resubmit a revised manuscript to be treated as a first-time submission can come from highly reputable journals.
We received a similar response regarding the resubmission. The remarks were corrected and the editors of the journal published our work.
Ali Newaz Bahar every researcher makes this or similar experiences during his / her scientific live. Personally, I would not argue with the Editor. Instead, I would implement all changes and corrections suggested by the reviewers and then resubmit the revised manuscript to an equivalent or even better journal.
Rejected paper(s) should not discourage you to re-improve your work by taking the reviewer's commonts and/or suggestions into serious consideration. I know multiple papers of my colleagues were rejected. They reworked on them based on the reviewer's comments, resubmitted and ultimately published in anthor reputable journals.
Regards,
I think you can't do anything with the same journal from where it's rejected. It's a better option to submit somewhere else. Best of luck
Its always the editors decision no matter what :/. Had two rejected that were accepted by other actually better journals. So yeah, dont get discouraged and submit to a better journal! Also, it doesnt matter what country the authors are from! Yes, and dont argue with the editor, I did and that kinda ended things quick haha.
To Trevan Flynn and Frank T. Edelmann,
I completely agree. For example, my single-authored paper (available at https://www.ams.org/journals/mcom/2014-83-290/S0025-5718-2014-02814-7/; the submitted version of this paper is available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233922797_A_search_for_primes_p_such_that_Euler_number_E_p-3_is_divisible_byp) was rejected in the journal Mathematics for Computation, but in the same form (i.e., with minor revisions), it was published in leading international journal in computational mathematics “Mathematics of Computation„ (published by American Mathematical Society, founded in 1943; https://www.ams.org/publications/journals/journalsframework/mcom).
Yeah, your are a PhD candidate and have more citations than I. I wouldnt worry about it. Send it to some huge journal! Just take the minor revisions into account before and you will be set!
@ Volodymyr Chelyadyn, unfortunately, our final decision was a rejection.
This, I agree with you, because the review has a comment minor but here is a editor role is important. They does not see the impact of paper, so it can reject the paper.
Dear Ali Newaz Bahar,
Some journals are following strictly the journal submission ethics. If your preparation of the work isn't satisfactory as per the ethics, then even though you got minor revision but the Chief editor can reject the paper. In that case, you can't ask anything to the editor.
Thanks
Dear Radha MOHAN Pattanayak
When I submit a manuscript to any journal, first I check recently published paper on the same topic/research area and scope of that journal. Secondly, our research does not relate to any human or animal issue. So, I believe there is no submission ethical issue that might cost the rejection. The only thing we addressed that is the editor suggested a newer and paid journal of the same publisher.
Thank you, Professor Frank T. Edelmann. It's really encouraging when I get some words from such a legendary researcher like you.
Dear: Take into account the reviews and try to amend the research and send it to another journal
I wish you success
Submit somewhere else; with or without (you decide!) the corrections suggested by the previous journal.
Simply make the necessary corrections, find another peer review paper and submit to them. Make sure to perform plagiarism test, take it for proof read and make work 100% original.
Dear Ali Newaz Bahar,
Even I also faced the same problem once. All authors are following the recently published journal and the ethics of the journal before submitting their work, into the journal. But, except this, there are some hidden rules for which the Editors are mentioning as ethics problems and rejecting the paper. You are a reviewer in the journal, hope you understand better about this.
Coming to the second point, it's better to satisfy all the comments put by the reviewers and then apply newly to any other journal.
Ali Newaz Bahar
Try to improve the quality of the manuscript by incorporating the constructive feedback of the reviewers and submit it to another journal. Wishing you all the best.
I think your insights and the thought of the editor may differ. It seems
minor correction to you but it might be of major concern to the editor. My advise is take it as a positive step and carefully consider all the comments provided even though they seemed to be minor and restructure the manuscript carefully and submit it to another journal.
Dear Ali Newaz Bahar it's now 4 months ago that you asked this question. Would you please tell us what happened to your manuscript in the meantime? Has it been resubmitted?
Nice question sir, I think we all face this problem during initial submissions. Very useful question.
I have submitted my manuscript in a journal that follows a binary decision to accept or reject a paper.
There were two reviewers of the paper. Reviewer 1 gave a minor correction, and reviewer 2 gave a major revision before resubmit.
Ultimately the editor gave me a chance to resubmit the manuscript.
I revised the manuscript according to the review of both of the reviewers. During the second review process, reviewer 1 was satisfied with the answer that he challenged. But reviewer 2 asked a few new set of questions. Mentionable that the reviewer 2 challenged the questions were also present in the first submission e.g., reviewer 2 has not asked questions on the new component added after revision.
If the 2nd reviewer asked these questions in the first review, I could easily answer those comments.
Every researcher must learn how to cope with occasional rejections.
Every researcher has faced this kind of situation once in his/her career. It is a common problem. I think, Forget and Move on to another journal; that’s the only rational way to handle it.
Dear Professor Frank T. Edelmann, we submitted it to another journal. It's under review, now.
Dear Ali Newaz Bahar many thanks for sharing this information. I cross my fingers that your valuable paper will be accepted! 👍
Do the corrections recommended by the Reviewers and resubmit it to the same journal or any other reputable journal
This is one of the challenges authors commonly encounter during the course of making publication. The Reviewers comments can be addressed, after which you can submit to another Journal
In the fist place the editor was hesitant to accept your paper but nevertheless sent it to the referees. After reading their comments he had a second thought and reject it.
Ali Newaz Bahar
Dear Researcher,
This is a very common trend that you have mentioned in your discussion. Generally, nowadays the trend is that even after a peer review, the decision to publish the article is the final decision of the editor. This is particularly seen in case of the not so famous journals. You can easily argue that if the editor is taking the decision then what is the necessity of getting it reviewed by reviewers. Well, that is not clear to me even. But these days, it is a very common trend.
In my personal life, I have seen that when an editor has taken a decision to reject an article, after that it is very difficult to convince that editor to publish the article.
So I would suggest you, to please choose another journal for getting your article published.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Anamitra.
Sometimes from reviewer's comments it seems a minor revision because few reviewers are very judicious in economy of words and include a deep thought. The reviewer's comments of just 2-3 lines may churn the mind. In such cases editors of reputed journals arbitrarily reject the manuscript
Dear Professor Omvir Singh ,
Maybe you are right. Our reviews were not in detail. It was more look like editorial corrections.
Dear Frank I endorse your view and the word aribitrarily was wrongly used by me in my last post
Dear Professor Frank T. Edelmann, you are absolutely right, the Editor of a reputable journal does not reject a paper arbitrarily and they also consider the author's argument with respect. Recently one of the papers got rejected from a very old and reputable journal. In this case, we point out all the concerns and write the Editor that those are not major concerns and we can easily address them. The editor consider our argument and allow us a resubmission.
Ali if it was rejected it means your paper wasn't meant for that journal. I'm sure there's a better journal out there waiting to welcome your paper.
I follow the reviewer comments and then either resubmit to the same journal or other one
Kindly go through the reviewers comments and revise it carefully with supporting references and submit it to more focused journal.
You should revise the manuscript in the light of those suggestions, write a response to reviewers' comments document, and appeal the journal editor to review his/her decision by telling that the revisions are minor and that you should be given a chance.
Dear Ali Newaz Bahar in my experience this is a very rare case that a paper is rejected even though the reviewers suggested minor correction. The question is if all reviewers suggested minor correction? When you have e.g. 3 reviewers and only one of them votes for rejection, then it is quite likely that your paper is rejected in the end.
Dear Professor Frank T. Edelmann
There was no way to know the actual decision of the reviewers. But the reviewer's comment seemed that it was a minor correction.
Dear Ali Newaz Bahar actually, there isn't much you can do to revise this decision. In my personal experience it isn't really worth the effort arguing with editor of the journal. The best thing to do in this situation is to revise the manuscript according to the reviewers' comments and submit it to another (better?) journal. Perhaps is will be accepted by a journal with a higher impact factor than the original one.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics
- Philology
- Classical Philology
- Manuscripts