Hi guys,

I have no experience in publishing papers and have submitted a first author one (but not sole author) to a mid level journal two months ago. Today I got a reply that peer review has been completed and I need to do revisions. Three people reviewed it and one person especially wants pretty extensive revisions (although no big re-writes). Some of the revisions are still classified as "major" though.

It would be a dream come true for this paper to eventually be published in that particular journal. My question is: if I complete revisions asked, how likely is it for my paper to still be rejected at that stage?

From what I know a paper can be rejected:

1. Editorially (without even being sent to the peer review)
2. Just straight out rejected after the peer review
3. Rejected after the revisions

I am hope that it is a good sign that I have passed first 2 steps??

Papers can go back and forth and you could still be asked to do more revisions even after this lot. I've had to make major revisions even after I had done everything the reviewers asked for. And as you say, it could still get rejected. Still, in my limited experience, if they've asked you for revisions, that's a very good sign - they wouldn't bother if they didn't think your paper was suitable. So, press on, get them done, and expect to see your name in print!

Hi Lostinoz, Sue,

I've had a few papers published. My experience is that it is a very good sign that you have gone through peer review and it has not been rejected. I think that is most likely that is will be published, if you manage to convince the editor and the reviewers that your paper is of an appropriate standard and relevant to the readers. Obviously the key point is how to do that.

I have been confronted with reviewers on one paper where one reviewer wanted minor changes only and another wanted major rewrites. I studied what remarks I thought were reasonable and then e-mailed the editor explaining the contradicting views and what changes I thought were reasonable to make. The editor then indicated that it was fine to do it that way.

So before making major adaptations it may be useful to know for yourself what changes you are prepared to make and to get the editors' opinion regarding that.
:-)

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Hi Lostinoz,

I had a very negative experience with one of the journals that I had submitted my paper to. The paper was peer reviewed and then the editor asked to me to do some very minor corrections which included only a few typos. After I resubmitted the paper, it did not have to be peer reviewed again as the revisions did not involve any editing, merely correcting the typos. I was positive that they were going to accept my paper because they had to objection to its quality or content. they kept me hanging for almost six months after which a new editor replaced the earlier one and this new editor straight away rejected my paper. To be honest, I was quite shocked by this unexpected response because I was expecting that as the revisions had been done, they would go ahead with publishing the paper. Obviously, I had assumed they wouldn't have asked me to do those revisions if they were not interested in my paper in the first place. I suspect the new editor was the one made this decision as the peer reviewers did not appear to have any objections. Whatever it is, in my experience, I would still not be completely positive about the paper being accepted even after revisions however minor, although this may not be the case for all journals.

However, I sincerely hope that your paper will be published by this journal :-)

Good luck! (up)

Hey! My last paper came back with one reviewer only suggesting minor revisions and the other asking for some fairly substantial ones. I was told it would need to be sent out to the reviewers again before a final decision would be made. I decided to go ahead and resubmit it because it was a really good journal and I wanted to give it a shot, but some of the reviewer's comments were really difficult to address because they were either irrelevant or they reflected an apparent lack of knowledge on their part with respect to the topic, and there were quite a few changes that were actually impossible to make (the reviewer had suggested that I should include literature that didn't actually exist and that sort of thing). So I made the changes I could, explained why I wasn't able to address the other suggested changes, and sent it back in. It was then accepted straight away without even being sent back to the reviewers- I guess the editor had realised then that some of the suggestions were a bit off the mark. So I think you should certainly give it a go- my supervisor always says that as long as you address all of the suggestions (or defend your decision not to make the changes) then most likely it will be accepted in the end. So go for it- and if the worst happens you can send it somewhere else anyway! Good luck! KB