What would be your response? Would you appeal to the editor by asking him/her to make the final decision, would you be weak and amend what you believe is right, would you argue back with facts, would you re-submit the paper to another journal?
If there is a clear and intuitive basis for disagreeing, then there is the option to rebut. Of a certainty, reviewers aren't always right, but sometimes authors also might not be willing to accept their own wrong. Either way, a rebuttal is a good way to go. Not only does it serve the greater good (the reviewer might be sincerely mistaken and would carry the mistake further along), it saves the author's time because, other things being equal, a revised and resubmitted work should spend less time in the peer review process than a new submission.
Your ultimate goal is to have a win-win situation, particularly if it is a reputable journal.
So, if you can't beat them, join them - be diplomatic in responding to their query.
Dear Mahfuz that is an unfortunate situation. It can happen when the paper goes to a wrong person who does not have the requisite experience or have a very highly prejudiced reviewer. In either case there is no point arguing with him/her as the Editor is likely to side with the reviewer and will not reverse the decision. If you are confident of what you are saying in your paper it is better to send it to a different journal. However if you are desperate to publish in the same journal for whatever reason as Ziad is saying join them by diplomatically agreeing for some suggestions and giving explanations why the others could not be based on other published references.
I would go either to justify or withdraw and go for another journal.
Dear Sir, I think the answer to your interested question depends on the author, the submitted work and the journal status as well. If he/she a mature researcher and applying the work to a high rank journal and faced a rejection of a solid work, he/she should appeal and contact the editors to make sure causes beyond unexpected reject. Also, If he/she a mature researcher and applying the work to a low rank journal and faced a rejection of a solid work, he/she should appeal and extremely contact the editors to make sure causes beyond unexpected reject. However, If he/she a new researcher and applying the work to a high rank journal and faced a rejection of a solid work, he/she should appeal and contact the editors to make sure causes beyond unexpected reject BUT should accept the result freely :) as he/she might missed major issues due to his/her lack of experience in meeting the journal's requirements. Also, If he/she a new researcher and applying the work to a low rank journal and faced a rejection of a solid work, he/she should appeal and extremely contact the editors to make sure causes beyond unexpected reject.
All in all, although he/she likes o publish in that specific journal; its not the end of life :) just turn on and go to the next.
Yours
Dear Mahfuz
If I disagree with the reviewer's opinion I would not do the suggested changes and sent the article to be published in another journal
I agree with Ziad. As we know, there is always the occasion of writing a response (= letter) with all details. The situation, dear Mahfuz, is never as flat as it appears. For the editor has always the possibility of deciding on the arguments provided by each part. The role of the editor should never be underestimated.
It all depends, as Ziad recalls, on the reputation of the journal, and the goal the author has set to him/herself. Of course there are always other possibilities - it goes without saying. But the reputation of the journal is a key aspect here.
In any case, in general a Journal is grounded on the reviewers, not on the authors.
The top journal in my field asked me for a revision of style whereby I change my own native English to Spanish-style sentence structure. I sent back specific objections about worsening my article with the suggested changes. I briefly cited grammatical authorities. The suggestions for revisions were immediately withdrawn. You need to be firm when you are in the right. If the journal is one of quality, the objector will usually yield.
Normally,editors go by the reviewers' report. The editor's stand in this case is unlikely to change.
These comments are my fate; I have to learn to bear with them. So, either I do the revision as per the editor's decision or send the paper to another journal.
If you receive this kind of report, then you should read very carefully what the reviewer has said regarding the manuscript and then decide what are the actions that you should execute.
1- If the comments made by the reviewer are very general without indicating the specific reasons why the manuscript is rejected by him /her, then you should reply to the editor indicating your position very clear with solid arguments why you disagree with the comments presented by the reviewer.
2- If the reviewer has made specific comments indicating very clear which are the arguments used by him/her to reject the manuscript, then if you are in disagreement with the majority of them, you should reply to the editor presenting your views on each of the comments made by the reviewer.
3- If the editor insist on the modification of the manuscript following the reviewer comments, and if you disagree with the majority of them, then the best action to be adopted is to find another journal for publishing the manuscript.
4-If the editor accept your comments, but insist in some of the comments presented by the reviewer, then you could reconsider your position in order to accommodate some of the reviewer suggestions, if they are not changing the essence of the manuscript and you are not totally in disagreement with them.
Regrettably, some of the reviewers that are chosen by some editors of different journals are not the proper person to review certain manuscripts and for this reason their comments are in many cases very general and not very constructive.
I usually try to answer all questions in detail one by one, clearly indicate the answer to each question.
If again there is disagreement, I will send the paper elsewhere. If anyone disagrees, nothing terrible happened.
I had first to see my work from outside my personal box, just to be sure that I am not working in my personal castle like another Don Quixote... If I was sure about me, then I would simply reject that journal. There exist so many journal after all...
Something else:
if the author's arguments are not solid enough and
if his reply to the reviewers are not sufficiently consistent, and
if he for she still persists in arguing against the reviewer's comments
then it might happen that the doors might get closed to him/her for future papers in that journal.
Dear Mahfuz, my action depends on the substantive value of particular review. If there is objective and helpful revise of the faults, then I'm willing make corrections. But this must be something openning my eyes.
If the review is a collection of malignant comments without arguments, but shadowy politics behind, then my action is different.
We all know that peer review system provides a strong incentive for authors to heed the advice and to improve the paper. The problem is that authors, sometimes, face such a problem.
Dear Mahfuz and you all,
This very good question reminds me of unpleasant memories. It is useless to argue. When paper is submitted we must accept the reviewer's report. After discussion between authors, it only remains to work, to correct the paper and answer questions from reviewer(s)... And accept final decision...before submitting another journal for refusal ..."si l'on pouvait faire autrement; il y a longtemps qu'on l'aurait fait, ce serait plus aisé de publier ".
Regards. Jean.
My advice would be respond to the comment by strengthening your argument showing more explicitly how you cope with the reviewer's opposing viewpoint. After all the editor has sent you a request for revision and even if they reject the revision you have strengthened your submission to another journal.
Often, the problem is that we were not able to explain what we meant.
It is important to understand the point of view of the reviewer, determining if the evaluator does not know the subject or some concept; if he has a focus
different from ours; or if we just were not able to explain appropriately some concepts. Once we understand the source of the problem, it is easy to refute the contradictory arguments.
At the most they have suggested to refer some more recent publications etc. other than that I believe we had not received any hard comments for the publications what we published.
I've been in this situation - two reviewers suggested minor revisions and a third rejected it outright.
The approach I used was to critically evaluate each reviewers comments. Some things I changed, some I didn't and I defended each decision. The response to the reviewers comments was longer than the revised paper in the end. It was subsequently accepted with no further amendments requested.
Before you go and look for another journal, just remember that you chose that journal in the first place as the best avenue to reach your intended audience. Going for another journal might get you an easier review, but it might also mean you miss your audience.
I will respond to the reviewers' queries as they have taken a lot of time to provide constructive suggestions on the paper. Once the queries are addressed then I will resubmit to the journal and if it is a reject then I will probably try another journal.
I am in complete agreement with all the opinions of the friends.
It appears that a very important point is the choice of the journal in which the paper is submitted... Jean.
Once you choose to submit your article to a journal and your reviewer asked you to complete your article, then you should response it, that a kind of code of conduct. I agree with Prof. Kamal Bani-Hani.
I will write him/her a clear explanation on why I completely disagree. If s/he will not relent, I have to tell the in-house editors of the Journal that I cannot revise my paper accordingly.
I don't think, there is any point in explaining or arguing with the reviewer. I would rather send it to another journal. This is if Major Corrections are suggested. If minor ones, I think to revise, is the best option.
I think I would resubmit to another journal. Once the editors have made up their minds on your paper, no matter how much you try to argue it's a losing battle. There is something called confirmation bias where people have a tendency of accepting only the big hypothesis.
I must go for submission into new journal. But if , the reviewer mentioned any specific point, i have to review , then may be i can consider .
@Mahfuz: I was asked to put in more references, and so I did that. The reviewer commented that my research on music mnemonics is encouraging 'mere' memorization. In this, I disagreed and did 'argue back with facts'. The paper has been re-submitted.
Dear Colleague,
I had two personal cases as examples:.
* When major revision was required (ie increasing sample size for a clinical study),and because it wasn't impossible to do in the time allowed for answering (one month), and as I had sufficiently justified my sample size, I sent it to another journal, answering to the editor before that it wasn't impossible to do. And it was accepted in the second journal.
*In an another case, I thought that the argumentation from a reviewer, even world known in the field (so don't discussed by the editor in chief; the journal provided the name of the reviewer; what is rare), wasn't appropriate, and that he hadn't really well studied the data and my paper. So, I gave my point of view, argued, and asked to the editor in chief to appoint another reviewer. He studied my arguments and said: "that' exceptionnal, but Yes, we choose another reviewer".
Unfortunatly, each case is a particular case, and no rules for that, depending on each journal.
To my mind, and because it takes a lot of time in general for the process, now I wait for the "reasonable" time (to define) , I ask again for the reviewer responses, and after receipt of answers, if I think that there is a problem, I dont' argue and I inform the editor that I stop the process. Then, I send my paper to an another journal. There is more than 6000 ones, so a lot of choice; and they are "rivals" in the "market" of edition.
Regards
Didier
First attempt, I would like to REFUTE the reviewer and try to educate him/her with proper answers and with necessary citations. If the reviewer is optimistic, in couple of reviews the article will get accepted, if not, the issue can be raised to the handling editor; if it happens to fail again, then I move it to the Editor-in-chief. In many occasions they understood and only in few occasions have I had to move the paper to another journal.
The problem is that it depends on the journal.
Most of them, especiallly with IF 2 and plus, don't accept that the recommendations of reviewers are discussed.
In general , we receive a letter (mail) as following: "We are sorry to inform you that you paper untilteld "..." has been judged as non suitable for publication in ...". This response occurs often at the step of review by the editor in chief, without sending it to reviewers.
When the paper is sent to reviewers, and the same final result, they only join the different report,s to the same letter, and that's all. It seems to "close" the discussion. And if you contest, sometimes you have no more response.
In general, you can discuss if there is contradiction between the appreciation of the 3 reviewer (a minimum). But if there is only one negative , and two positives, it can be examined again by the editor, but in general, he decides to reject.
If you have 2 negatives and one positive, it leads the editor reject directly.
At this step, you can argue sometimes.
That's sad, but often the reality.
Best regards
Didier
I will consider the reviewer's comments and try better explain my thoughts before I submit again. If the first reviewer's concerns were valid, and one has fixed the ambiguities / possible mistakes etc., one should re-submit.
The paper is generally reviewed again by another independent reviewer, who may be less critical and pass it. The opposite can also be true - good first round review and rejection on second.
There are probably as many opinions on any subject as there are people.
Everything goes wrong in the second round - give your paper a good rework and try publish somewhere else.
As a last resort, write an article for a magazine - magazines usually only requires the eyes of the editor and are not peer reviewed, so be careful what you write - you are on your own and prominent scientists have lost face in the scientific community because of an understandable misinterpretation of their data.
Don’t think anybody is perfect. I respect the reviewer comments even if extensive revision is asked; this means something still good in the paper. However, the comments should be logical and follow the commonsense; otherwise a justifiable reply should be written. Sometimes, it depends on the journal rules and regulation to accept scientific argument from the author. One case happened with me in the area of sport biomechanics when I submit my paper to a journal in physical education in general; the comments were off records which tell that the reviewers were not in the field. In this case I would rather to withdraw the paper and respect least argument. As the the saying goes(Missing something does not give).
I think we should adopt the attitude that the riviewer is 'always right'. If an 'outrageous review' is received, one should think what made the reviewer form the poor opinions. Could it becasue the presentation or the language did not convey what you really wanted to say? There is always something positive out of a review.One should always respond reviewer's comments.
By the way, I am an editor of influential journal. I have enountered many cases in which the papers are poorly written, the literature review is not comprehansive enough and the original contributions are not spelt out agains current state-of-the-art.
In the case a hostile review, one should also write to the handling editorwho should see through an unfair review.
In my experience, when a major revision is requested, it means that the Editor thinks that the paper is interesting and can be rendered publishable; otherwise it would have been directly rejected after the first round of revision. Taking this optimistic point of view in mind, I generally try to yield to the Reviewers's remarks when (and only when) I find them reasonable and proper. As to the remarks for which I find that the Reviewer is mistaken, I simply do not yield, and try instead to explain my point of view to the Editor, together with my reasons for rebuttal. Along my career, this has worked well, and in most cases a request for major revision has finally resulted in acceptance after the second round of revision.
If the paper is finally rejected, then I try to revise it carefully, taking into account the remarks of the previous Reviewers (those which I find reasonable and constructive), and submit it to another journal. I must say that, in general, the feeback I have received from the Reviewers has resulted in considerable improvement of the manuscript in comparison with the first submitted version, and eventually in acceptance for publication elsewhere.
In most cases, I am happy to say that the feedback I received from the Reviewers (even if recommending rejection) has been nice, helpful and constructive. In only two cases, I received comments and criticisms that were either rude, prejudiced, or resulting from clear misunderstanding of the experimental setup. In both cases, I complained to the Editor, who invited me to resubmit the manuscript. In my experience, these resubmission are useless, as the Editor is already prejudiced againt the paper. So it is probably better simply to resubmit to a different journal.
@Isabel: That is true. Unless you follow the reviewer's suggestions completely it will rarely be accepted. The option I have followed in similar situations is to change the journal.
i think that it is more appropriate to respond by objective and clear scientific arguments to the reviewers comments, even if we don't agree with them. And resubmit the paper for a second revision. If the paper is rejected, try to understand the objectiveness of the critics, and improve the paper for another journal. However it is unaffordable and not logical to try to fight for publishing a research work already approved, financed, assessed by advisers, and may be finished or has evolved to another step. Do researchers turn into good or bad writers? or do journals become the right path for research approval for the different labs? or may be another scheme is needed?
Reviewers are selected by the Journals because of their knowledge. I believe also that after it is reviewed it goes to the Editor before it comes to you. None of us want to hear that we have more work to do after we have submitted a paper for publication but each journal has their rules for submission. So you can either rewrite based on the suggestions or try submitting the document elsewhere. I am not sure appealing to the Editors will make much difference but you can certainly try.
Well, I would like to dig into something else:
Why do those rejections of a paper affect us so much? Our egos resent negative comments as a matter of principle. A researcher - just like any body else, should be able to both learn and be adaptive, while fostering his/her own robustness.
Let's keep in mind that our friend Mahfuz focuses on: "completely disagree".
I would write to the editor and let him/her know about my objections to amend what I believe is right . If it does not work, I will withdraw and send the article to another journal.
Yes Carlos,
but unfortunatly, in a lot of country, you can obtain your first position, then progress in your carrier by the way of evaluations considering mainly your "publication score". Publications are the actual way of researcher evaluation, so for him/her to obtain a job.
So, really only a problem of our Ego put in question ?
The reason why I said in an another topic, that we have to "refund" research and researcher evaluation.
And this "scale" of evaluation leads to major biais like self-citation, practiced by some journals to increase their IF. And at the moment, Reuters, at the origin of the classification, excludes from the ranking 100 journals for this reason each year (for those who don't know "self-citation", you can find it explained of specialized websites)
Regards
Didier
Dear Mahfuz
I would explain my reasons to the Editor, preferably supported with references that would be in line with my point of view. If the editor would stick to he's/her's first decision I'd simply withdraw the ms and submitt it to another jornal.
Best,
JP
Dear Didier, of course I agree with you. How couldn't I?
My concern - going a little bit beyond the fine spirit of Mahfuz's question is that a academicians and scholars (and yes: hence after also researchers) are just doing the task, period. Not all of them, of course, but still many.
We are being evaluated all around the world by impact factor, rankings, and the like.
The odd point is that many of us just follow the rules. In science (as in life) when you react you are lost, it seems...
No Problem Carlos, I agree totally with you.
Your thought, which could be understood on a"philosophical" point of view , and which is also my philosophy (lack of humility in humans can stop their progression) make me remember our "poor" conditions :-) (relative compared to other problems) to make progress science in the world, for the good of Humanity. And Yes, we have not to be afraid to change a "system" if we think it doesn't satisfy, and all together
Regards
Didier
Every researcher has his opinion standing on different levels of research and methodologies, and the reviewer should be open minded to accept different destinations of thoughts. so if the reviewer asked for revision depending on some alteration in order to arrange reaching researcher's goal, in this case definitely the researcher will appreciate that. otherwise the researcher has his own decision.
For me, I will fight to prove my idea... I think it's the main researchers goal.
Thank you @Ismat for agreeing my view. As authors or as reviewers we must have the objectiveness of science, i don't think that a way of thinking could influence our scientific thinking. As scientists we have same scientific language and methods independently from our cultural or way of thinking behavior. Science is built on theories, experiments, analyses, proofs, calculus, mathematics, ....etc, it couldn't be biased by any form of way of thinking from authors, reviewers, or editors. Unless science could loose its basic pillar of objectivity ie. truth; authors, reviewers or editors must built their comments on scientific arguments from theories, experimental setups, methodology, logical reasoning, references, mathematics, etc...
Publishing ones research is a way of sharing with colleagues ones work. Is a way to discuss its scientific validity, to improve its content and to let it available for others who could be interested by some of its components. So assessing research works or research career on IF or H index when environments are not same, scientific fields not equally funded or are time consuming than others, looks like assessing best seller writers, movies or musics. I think that scientific research is a more serious and more deep question than any star like system...that no true scientist could approve or follow
That's it Abdalla. I do exactly the same both as editor and as author.
Best regards,
JP
Dear Prof. Mahfuz Judeh, thanks for the question. The policy of most scientific journals is to pass the reviewers' reports to the author. In the case you mentioned, my work then begins to show that the manuscript is correct and better explain to the reviewer the results and theorems in the manuscript and perhaps adding some explanations to the manuscript. Usually, the reviewer accepts the author's explanations and additions to the manuscript; if not then one has to withdraw the manuscript and submit it to another proper journal.
I would like to talk to him on the issue. I would put forward some of my strong points which would be in the favor of my research and ask him the reason behind revision and try to clear my research more to them.
Regards,
Nitish
My duty is to respond... as an author, I must answer reviewer's comments.
If I comnpletely disagree with reviewer, then
1. I argue to Editor
2. I argue to Reviewer (both with fact/citations/data/results of analysis/statistics)
After that, depending on the outcome:
1. Paper is published
2. Retracting and go to another journal.
By the way:
1. If reviewer is totally incorrect, Editor may decide him/herself
2. In the absolute most of cases there is at least SOMETHING good in the review.
Dear @Ismat Aldmour; my opinion is based on my experience in my field Mathematics; where you can show mathematically that your theory is true and therefore the reviewer has to accept your work otherwise you can explain this to the editor in chief who should be able to judge if the journal is specialized in the field. Your experience is based on Lab output. Is not it? Thanks for sharing opinion.
Dear @Ismat Aldmour; I agree with you that both the author and the reviewer should help in producing an excellent article.
Dear Prof. Ismat and Prof. Kamal, I am proud of your friendship on RG and thank you for sharing your ideas and thoughts.
Dear Professors Kamal, Ismat and Abedallah
Your words are very honoured and I subscribe them all. I do feel very gratefull for the outstanding learning experiences I've had from distinguished personalities such as you.
My point of vue in this particular matter is exactly the same: colaboration, instead of "war-like Exchange of egos?", between authors and editors/reviewers are fulcral for producing goof papers and science. Many of us have both roles so I am sure this would have the chance to be motivating and reported to the scientific community.
Thnaks again for sharing your wisdom.
Best regards,
JP
Dear Prof. Costas Drossos, thank you for your words and supportive ideas.
Dear Prof Mahfuz, for me if the reviewer comments are so professional and correct, is ok. But some time the comments are really meaningless and better for them to say out of scopus rather than giving unprofessional and unsuitable comments. TQ
The reviewer provides professional constructive comments. A significant percentage of us have both roles; authors for their researches and reviewers of others` researches. We all know that it is better to argue back for facts, but do you think that the reviewer will easily be convinced with the author`s viewpoint.
IF a reviewer is not convinced by your rebuttal, it would better to withdraw the paper and submit it another journal, unless the editor is on your side.
If one is completely disagree then withdrawal is the best option.
Now a days it is not uncommon to receive a reviewer report asking for a major revision of a paper since there is a stiff competition to produce a quality paper from a quality journal (if it is top tier journal), secondly, in one sense it may be some satisfaction that the paper was not rejected but requires some major revision, thirdly it appears that reviewer spent much time on the paper so that the paper can be improved and acceptable.
I prefer challenges! You have always chance to publish your results, but few chance for rebuttal!. So i would conduct few rounds of rebuttal, with the referee before quitting. Then if he/she was convinced everything would be ok, else improve your manuscript but amending it using referees comments and suggestion and re-submit your work elsewhere.
It happened to me yesterday. I received a negative comment from a referee, who claims that my basic idea is wrong, and accordingly the conclusions are flawed. Trying to communicate with this person,through the editorial office of the journal,would only "close the door" for future submissions to this journal.So, although I am sure that idea which I have used is correct, I shall verify again, and then submit somewhere else.
When I receive 2 conflicting reviews on a same paper, I (as an editor) will invite a 3rd reviewer (ideally a world authority on this subject) to provide further commonts.
I think receiving two contradicting reviewers comments is a not a big problem as long as it is in the hands of the editor, But the problem, as Shafig said, that if these two contrdicting comments are received by the author.
A good editor should provide guidance and would not let the authors to ponder on waht to do --- satisfy one reviewer in preference another. If the editor has not made this advice, the author should contact the editor and seek the advice. If clear advice is received, the author should indicate this in the respons to the reviewers with something like 'As the two reviewers had opposing view on ..., I am advised by the Editor to do ...' before gidng the related response.
Ideally the editor should seek a 3rd opinion or give his opinion when contact the author in the frist place.
As editor, I agree with "Ideally the editor should seek a 3rd opinion or give his opinion when contact the author in the frist place." I do this, most cases.
As author, I use "the two reviewers had opposing view on " without referring to Editor - and never ask Editor's advice.
My experience is: standard are three voices and opinions and then decision for a proposal (acceptance, work again, reject).
Consulting with a senior colleague. Maybe I am the one who is wrong; i should not exclude this possibility even if i am completly sure about my disagreement with the proposed modifications. If my senior colleague confirm my stance on the matter, i would go on with trying to persuade the assigned editor to assign my ms to a 3rd reviewer, or make the decision about acceptance/rejection himself. Goes without saying that aiming for the latter requires a lenghty and professional justification.
If the editor can't be persuaded, i would politely withdraw the ms.
I don`t think that the editor can take a viewpoint different from the reviewer. Can s/he?
It depends on the content of the reviewer comments and the reply given by the author. Sometimes it is not very difficult to prove that the comments made by the reviewers indicate that they are not very familiar with the content of the paper that they are reviewing. In this case, the author can make this situation clear to the editor and convince him/her either to publish the paper with the necessary modifications or to find other reviewers.
@ Mahfuz
To my mind, No he cannot.
But he takes the final decsion according to the advices of reviewers (also the first decision, often limitating the process at the first step, to send your paper to some reviewers or not).
Most of journals choose 3 reviewers to be sure not to be in the case quoted, to have a contradictory analysis only with 2 reviewers, which would lead to a difficulty to decide. And always to my mind, as that's the editor who send to you the reports of reviewers, you cannot discuss directly with them but you send your responses to the editor who transmit to the reviewers (or not, if your argue, because you are not in agreement with a reviewer, and if the editor doesn't agree with you).
Best regards
Didier
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