Turns out, although all three reviews were quite positive, only one of the three reviewers recommended that the manuscript be published in this journal.
The other two recommended the dreaded "Appropriate for a more specialized journal."
I was rather shocked by this news. These (now totally loathed) two reviewers had written things like
" I found the results interesting and intriguing. They represent one of the first serious attempts to understand poogly-plugs at the cellular level. Thus, the work is of great importance and interest to the poogly-plug field. In addition, I believe that these findings are also of broad interest to researchers outside the poogly-plug field."
(Props to drdrA for the poogly-plug terminology.)
Also, both of these reviewers had given suggestions for a couple of experiments, and a couple of discussion points, to strengthen the paper. I always thought that if you were recommending "revise and resubmit" you would include these comments, whereas if you were recommending "turf it down a level, losers" you would be more likely to critique the novelty or the general interest of the findings.
A mystery indeed.
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edited 9.15
6 comments:
Oh, this is quite common nowadays. Review contents and recommendations for publication, especially at 1st and 2nd tier journals, don't have to be consistent at all.
My guess is that you'd be best off agreeing to do some of the experiments they suggested to 'strengthen' the paper. I hope your advisor is good at wheedling and your editor is willing to go to bat for you.
Good luck.
Well I can't say I've ever heard of this one. "No editorial decision?" How bizarre. You would think the editor would be permitted to just make a decision, end of story.
I'll cross my fingers for you and hope that your general interest paper makes it into the general interest journal.
Never heard of that! It sounds like it could be a good situation since the editor is on your side though.
Best of luck!
I have to say, this kind of shit is exactly the reason why I am starting to get on board with the notion that there should be *no* confidential reviewer comments to the editors or secret reviewer "recommendations" for a manuscript's disposition.
In fact, I have ceased giving confidential reviewer comments when I review papers except in the rare circumstances where something looks "fishy" to me. Unfortunately, the secret "recommendations" cannot really be avoided, because refusal to provide one is generally interpreted as a ding against the paper, rather than as neutral.
Yeah, I worked myself silly this weekend so we could send Editor a couple of new figures that the reviewers had requested, in the hopes that this will tilt the board in our favor. But it seems hard to figure out what we can do, given positive reviews and invisible damning.
If they thought it just wasn't that KEWL, I wish they'd have said so in the reviews. On the other hand, I guess the fact that they didn't is probably helping us right now. What a mind game.
I can sympathize! I'm presently working on revisions for a manuscript whose reviews all started out "This was a unique study with interesting and potentially significant results in a fundamental but understudied area of poogly-plug research". First reaction - yay! they like me! they really really like me!
Of course then said reviewers proceeded to hammer methods, analysis, and my hairstyle, with the net result that 2 recommended reject and one recommended major revisions. I guess the editor saw something she liked though, because it's accepted with revisions! I'll never understand how the mysterious world of journal review really operates...
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