Monday, January 06, 2014

Fake Review Contest Entries #17-20

These may be the last ones(?). Voting to come soon.

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17. TC

The topic of this paper is not of critical importance to furthering knowledge.

Sent from my iPhone

18. DM (generalized from real review, with no further elaboration of what is not correct)

The authors proposed to study phenomenon A by using methodology XYZ. The calculated results were largely consistent with experimental results. However, I don't think the method is correct in principle. 

19 (formerly 21). FR (another mostly-real one)

Dear Authors -

We regret to inform you that we cannot accept your paper. Although we made you do two revisions which cost you time (4 months) and energy; we still will not accept your paper.

The reason we cannot accept your paper is because a "prestigious professor" [PP] (who I, the editor, wants to collaborate with in the future) at a famous university thinks that you should had done XX (minor technique) in the way that professor described. Although four other reviewers thought that the paper was sound and "accepted without revision" after the second revision; I am not foolish enough to piss off PP in any way. I will be kissing his ass for foreseeable future.

Your truly
Ass-kissing-associate-editor

20. IDL (this one is apparently entirely fictitious)

I am very pleased that I accepted to review this fascinating and compelling paper. Below are some constructive comments to help you make your significant paper a bit more clear for readers. Mostly, however, I found the paper to be extremely well written. I thoroughly checked all equations and found them not only flawless but also instructive. The discussion section should be essential reading for all of us in this field. This paper is transformative and should be published immediately with only minor revisions.

3 comments:

Alex said...

What happened to reviews 17 and 18? Did Reviewer #3 put the kibbosh on publishing them?

Anonymous said...

21 sure hits close to home! I once had a paper rejected from two journals despite excellent reviews from all but one reviewer (and revisions to address all comments), due to someone I'm positive reviewed both papers and whose work my paper contradicted. When I gave a talk on the results at the major annual meeting in my field, the session chair went on and on about how important the work was and how he was sure it would be published in the top journals. He was stunned when I informed him that I couldn't get it published.

Anonymous said...

@Alex I thought the same thing. Surely they are from reviewers that are simply sending in their reviews after the deadline. Be patient.