Just a thought for those of you who are submitting papers for publication- I received an outright rejection on one of my papers a few months ago and was a bit hacked off because I thought it was a decent paper and that the comments were really unfair. One reviewer basically completely slagged the paper off because it was written from a different viewpoint from his/her own and he/she was not willing to consider any alternative views. When I showed my sup the comments she was really annoyed and emailed the editor of the journal, defending the paper and saying the the reviewer had been inappropriate and asked the editor to reconsider the rejection and ask for more reviews. Luckily he agreed, and after a revise and resubmit my paper has now been accepted as it stands.

Just sharing my story because it shows that it is possible to turn things around if you genuinely feel that a reviewer has been unfair. Of course reviewers might be critical and disagree with your viewpoint, that is only normal, but they should be judging your work on whether it is of scientific merit, not whether they happen to agree with it or not. So if you feel you've been hard done by and you really want to stick with the same journal rather than resubmit elsewhere then give it a go (or ask your supervisor with their 'big name' to give it a go!).

Best, KB

Well done KB for believing in your work and turning it around!  It takes confidence in your own approach to ask for reconsideration and you have shown that it can be done. Thank you for sharing this.