43
votes
What happens if two reviewers have incompatible recommendations for a paper?
The editor decides
As you yourself said, the reviewers only make recommendations; it is always the editor who makes the ultimate decision to accept or reject. So it is entirely possible for a paper ...
- 134k
38
votes
Accepted
Why do journals refuse to see substantially revised manuscripts after rejection?
This situation happens when the editor believes that the quality of the research in the paper is not up to the journal standards, regardless of correctness. The reviewer might see that the paper has ...
- 7,859
38
votes
Accepted
The Zentralblatt asked me to review a worthless paper, what to do?
Zentralblatt as you know is a repository of short reviews used as a way to find articles. As a mathematician, you are supposed to scan the Zentralblatt (or reviews) to identify papers in your field. ...
- 24.9k
36
votes
Accepted
Politely suggesting to the editor that they should invite more reviewers
I don't think it is advisable at all. First, to "inform" the editor that they should invite more reviewers, rather than, say, "asking" them if they might consider seeking ...
- 11.2k
35
votes
My result is accepted in a journal as an errata, but the editors want to change the authorship
Short answer/summary:
I take it that you felt as if you were submitting more or less an "original work", even though it's very much based on correcting an error in a published paper.
I think ...
- 126k
33
votes
Accepted
Do editors pretend that someone asked for you to review to make acceptance of review requests more likely?
No, this is not something that is common practice for editors.
Perhaps there is some editor, somewhere, who has decided that telling this kind of white lie is a good way to improve the acceptance rate ...
- 21.4k
29
votes
Speed of review with respect to the paper's quality
For the vast majority of peer reviews, the deciding factor is when the reviewer finds the time for it amongst all of their other duties. Quality doesn’t factor into this.
My peer-review workflow is ...
- 63.6k
20
votes
"Decision in process" after the median number of days from submission meaning
If the median is 10 days, that means that half of decisions take longer than that.
Plus, among the half of decisions that get taken in 10 days or less are presumably all the desk rejections that ...
- 37k
19
votes
Accepted
Speed of review with respect to the paper's quality
Very bad papers are easiest to review. The reviewer needs to point out one fatal flaw (e.g. see this paper which got the same results ten years ago; or Proposition x is wrong and here is why) and the ...
- 24.9k
19
votes
Asking editors for similar journals
As a journal editor, if I see that something is obviously a good fit elsewhere, I recommend that journal in my rejection email. If you're really stuck on where to try to publish the work, consider ...
- 190
18
votes
Politely suggesting to the editor that they should invite more reviewers
No, it is not advisable to do that. People generally don't appreciate others telling them how to do their job (with exceptions for trainers, supervisors, mentors, people that where asked for help, etc)...
- 45.3k
15
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to edit name in a paper at the stage of pre-proof correction after acceptance?
Yes, editing mis-spellings and other obvious mistakes is possible at this stage. Contact the editor, journal staff, or the person with whom you have communicated about the proofs as soon as you can, ...
- 102k
14
votes
Accepted
Does a research paper of a Phd student get equal attention in top category math. journal?
Your premise is wrong when you say "Because it is difficult for an editor in half an hour to fully judge the paper quality." As an editor-in-chief of a Q1 journal, I see a lot of papers and ...
- 102k
14
votes
Accepted
Asking editors for similar journals
wished me luck publishing this elsewhere
This is just polite language. They probably do not care about your manuscript specifically; they certainly have also experienced papers being rejected, though,...
- 126k
13
votes
What happens if two reviewers have incompatible recommendations for a paper?
I +1'ed Nate Eldredge's answer, and will add that some journals might have a policy where if an editor decides to accept a paper with a reject review remaining, another editorial board member must be ...
- 134k
12
votes
My result is accepted in a journal as an errata, but the editors want to change the authorship
You cannot force a journal to publish your paper if it doesn't want to. Perhaps they were wrong to reject your paper, but it's their decision and there's no point in dwelling on it. There are many ...
- 197k
12
votes
Accepted
Asked to suggest referees 9 months after submission: what to do?
Yes, you can suggest people you acknowledge in the paper. It should be obvious to the editor that there is some relationship and that the likelihood is of a positive review. You should, however, point ...
- 385k
11
votes
Accepted
Are editors of top-tier journals biased in their decisions by the authors names and affiliations?
There're a lot of studies that indicate that the answer is "yes". Here's a recent example.
Our analysis shows that editors tend to be more likely to invite high-scoring manuscripts for ...
- 134k
11
votes
Asking editors for similar journals
First, I think you have to ask yourself, "Why would the editor of a journal that rejected my paper know better than I do where else I might publish the piece?" It certainly isn't obvious to ...
- 11.2k
10
votes
Speed of review with respect to the paper's quality
The quality of a paper can affect the amount of time that it takes to perform a good review in a number of ways, as noted by other answers.
However (and I realise this isn't something you asked, but ...
- 9,987
10
votes
My result is accepted in a journal as an errata, but the editors want to change the authorship
First off, based on your responses to all the comments, I think you have a very mistaken view about the prestige of being an author of this errata. This is not something to be proud of or to put your ...
- 9,803
10
votes
My result is accepted in a journal as an errata, but the editors want to change the authorship
Let me put my Editor's hat on...and for clarity I'm not affiliated with the journal you're dealing with.
First, an Errata is generally sent by the authors of the original paper to point out an error ...
- 151
9
votes
Accepted
desk reject without reason - email to ask?
Yes I think it's reasonable (despite being an impersonal template email). Desk rejection usually implies the paper is not up to the standards of the journal for whatever reason. Further explanation ...
- 9,494
9
votes
Why do journals refuse to see substantially revised manuscripts after rejection?
The answers so far assume that the main reason for rejection is that a manuscript is not a good fit for the journal, be it in terms of relevance or scope. However, in half of the cases where I ...
- 63.6k
7
votes
Accepted
Journal editor demands changes to article published online two years ago
I would agree that this is strange. For one, a rewrite of this scope would invalidate all the reviews. Of course, as is often emphasized on this site and elsewhere, the editor can basically disregard ...
- 37k
6
votes
What does the Editor-in-chief do with the Associate editor recommendation? How much is him/her involved?
High-throughput journals may have multiple editors "under" the editor in chief, and each such editor will have multiple associate editors. Thus, the workload for every single editor (and AE) ...
- 37k
6
votes
Why do journals refuse to see substantially revised manuscripts after rejection?
Note that there are different editors and journals and potentially different attitudes in such a situation.
Reading and reviewing submissions takes time and people have lots of things to do. Some ...
- 11.9k
6
votes
My result is accepted in a journal as an errata, but the editors want to change the authorship
Your description lacks details, so this answer also draws on generalizations based on what you described.
The editor chose to publish an erratum. Errata are minor, almost by definition. Here's how ...
- 134k
6
votes
My result is accepted in a journal as an errata, but the editors want to change the authorship
I guess that this question relates to the same paper as your earlier question (An editor thinks a correction should be posted on the author's website rather than published. Is he sticking to the ...
- 21.4k
6
votes
Are the peer reviewers of a journal article allowed to voice surprise to the editor at a "minor revision" decision?
Since it is typical for the journal to send reviewer comments to the author(s) and there is no suggestion here that it hasn't been done in this case, "Minor Review" might be nothing more ...
- 385k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible