Often arguments for rejection or correction were given, which are absolutely not important! While in the same journal the same or gross mistakes of certain persons happen! Do you Have the same ecperience?
What can be done?
Having reviewed and submitted a good deal of work in the last months, let me add a few points:
1. To make this clear, some papers simply get rejection because they lack the quality to be published in the respective journal (and of course, journals like Science and Nature are more demanding here than smaller journals facing few submissions anyway). Perhaps the findings do not contribute to relevant debates, or the methods have flaws, or the paper is badly written, or the paper does not fit the scope of the journal.
2. The peer review system is basically dependent on the work (and skills) of the editors and reviewers, and as they are human beings, they might well make mistakes (especially as they work under a lot of time pressure) or have certain preferences - or simply disagree in their assessment. I've submitted papers to one journal and the reviewers strongly criticised the method, while with a similar high-ranking journal (re-submission of the same paper), the reviewers and editors considered the same method as a major asset of the paper. Also, different editors and reviewers (even of the same journal) can have different views about which proxies, data gaps, supplementary information, degrees of robustness etc. are acceptable and which are not. Again, I reviewed a paper that I perceived to not match the established standards of the method (and I know that similar papers with a higher degree of methodological elaboration have been rejected), but my two fellow reviewers and the editor disagreed.
3. Then, of course, journals are looking for readers and citations, which are crucial for their reputation and impact factors. So sometimes, they may not accept very good papers on a topic they consider irrelevant, while they are less strict on "hot topic" studies (with spectacular results). Of course, the degree to which journals do so varies considerably. They same might be true for "big names" (who are usually cited very frequently), but this is more of a speculation.
4. The North-South/West-Non-West issue seems to be a bit of an elephant in the room here. Obviously, I can only speak from my own perspective as a scholar located in the global north and only for my research fields here. I've reviewed quite a few papers on local conflict dynamics written by Middle Eastern and especially African scholars (their identity wasn't revealed to me, but this was pretty clear from the methods/field research sections). Several of those did very good research which ended up in bad papers (and when submitted to prestigious journals, this often leads to rejection). Three problems were particularly acute: a) lack of language skills, b) no discussion/acknowledgement of the wider/related/relevant literature, c) large parts of the paper were devoted to policy advice for decision makers of one specific country. My guess is that this is due to financing restrictions of universities in the global south (limiting access to journals, conferences, further training etc.) and also to different academic cultures, but I'm certainly no expert here.
5. That said, my overall experience with the peer review system of journal is good. At the very last, a good deal of my work has benefited immensely from the comments of the reviewers and editors (which sometimes implied rejection of the manuscript).
I have not seen such an instance in my life. I am not speaking about those journals which publish with so called 'processing fees'.
When our MSS get rejected in good journals we feel psychologically dejected and think in that way.
About science magazines I cannot tell anything but they must be giving preference to popular scientific topics than purely academic ones considering the target readers.
Language
Structure
The logical sequence of the subject,
the scientific methodology,
the rigorous statistical analysis and the results,
are all factors that scientific journals rely upon to accept the publication of research
I would like to add a bit more.
Scientific magazines have their own staffs-members whose reports usually get considerable preference over others.
This happens specially in those journals published from the western countries. The referees and the editors often ask to include an aspect for which we don't have the facilities while articles by the natives with similar details get published!! Once, the editor of the journal 'Nematology' visited our department while I was a Ph. D. student. I complained the same with the proofs in my hand. He just tried to change the topic. What I can say is that the scientific world is not that honest.
including affiliations from western countries are always bring power to your manuscript, try to keep your work international as i learned.
Irrelevant reviewers with the content of a paper and unfair decision make by editor (team) are the most effective reasons !
The evaluation of good and bad articles are not absolute but it is relative, what is good for a referee my be bad to others/
د پۆلا بۆجی دیار نیت؟
Dear Dr. Kamal
after having more than 20 publications together, do you think I can not decide between good and bad paper?
@Dr. Kamal
If that is the case then the referee is in need of some other engagement but not review of manuscripts. How can he/she be that exceptional? What I do believe is that the black for me must be black for others too.
When we are reviewers, we look at the new ideas that the research has come up with and do not look for refined things, even if they are of good quality
Having reviewed and submitted a good deal of work in the last months, let me add a few points:
1. To make this clear, some papers simply get rejection because they lack the quality to be published in the respective journal (and of course, journals like Science and Nature are more demanding here than smaller journals facing few submissions anyway). Perhaps the findings do not contribute to relevant debates, or the methods have flaws, or the paper is badly written, or the paper does not fit the scope of the journal.
2. The peer review system is basically dependent on the work (and skills) of the editors and reviewers, and as they are human beings, they might well make mistakes (especially as they work under a lot of time pressure) or have certain preferences - or simply disagree in their assessment. I've submitted papers to one journal and the reviewers strongly criticised the method, while with a similar high-ranking journal (re-submission of the same paper), the reviewers and editors considered the same method as a major asset of the paper. Also, different editors and reviewers (even of the same journal) can have different views about which proxies, data gaps, supplementary information, degrees of robustness etc. are acceptable and which are not. Again, I reviewed a paper that I perceived to not match the established standards of the method (and I know that similar papers with a higher degree of methodological elaboration have been rejected), but my two fellow reviewers and the editor disagreed.
3. Then, of course, journals are looking for readers and citations, which are crucial for their reputation and impact factors. So sometimes, they may not accept very good papers on a topic they consider irrelevant, while they are less strict on "hot topic" studies (with spectacular results). Of course, the degree to which journals do so varies considerably. They same might be true for "big names" (who are usually cited very frequently), but this is more of a speculation.
4. The North-South/West-Non-West issue seems to be a bit of an elephant in the room here. Obviously, I can only speak from my own perspective as a scholar located in the global north and only for my research fields here. I've reviewed quite a few papers on local conflict dynamics written by Middle Eastern and especially African scholars (their identity wasn't revealed to me, but this was pretty clear from the methods/field research sections). Several of those did very good research which ended up in bad papers (and when submitted to prestigious journals, this often leads to rejection). Three problems were particularly acute: a) lack of language skills, b) no discussion/acknowledgement of the wider/related/relevant literature, c) large parts of the paper were devoted to policy advice for decision makers of one specific country. My guess is that this is due to financing restrictions of universities in the global south (limiting access to journals, conferences, further training etc.) and also to different academic cultures, but I'm certainly no expert here.
5. That said, my overall experience with the peer review system of journal is good. At the very last, a good deal of my work has benefited immensely from the comments of the reviewers and editors (which sometimes implied rejection of the manuscript).
Very important notices explained by Dr. Tobias Ide
I fully agree with
Ethnic partiality has been observed by many researchers on several counts. It exists in the scientific publishing world.
Hmmmmm, scientific competition can play a role in the whole publication process. For example the quest for recognition of precedence of discovery or innovative research results, or even the academic institution submitting the article can bias the decision to accept articles for publication. The classic example of this is of course A R Wallace and C Darwin - a shameful event indeed.
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