Recently I received a rejection letter from a journal editor (including some comments). However, when I checked the reviewers comments (from two reviewers), I found that their comments do not seem to be sufficient to reject the paper. Given these comments, I would have expected the decision to be "...
I do not think that any comments are actually needed for a rejection. In the end it is the decision of the editorial board. In addition it might be that the editor received more information than the comments which were forwarded.
Did you receive any information as to why your paper was rejected? Right now, it seems like you are dissatisfied with the rejection simply due to the low number of comments – which does not indicate that anything was awry: I once recommended to reject a paper with a single crucial comment, which toppled the entire paper.
"six comments that I have enough justifications for." Enough justification for what? Major revision? Minor revision? Or something else? Please be clear on this
Are you sure you have all the information? In the fields I am familiar with, the reviewers can enter both "comments for the author" and "comments for the editor" - and the latter ones are only seen by the editor, not the author. They may have commented to the editor that while there are no major problems with your paper, it is simply not interesting enough for the journal, or relevant enough for its intended readership.
It doesn't matter if you feel the comments aren't enough to warrant a rejection. It's not as though the paper is default to be accepted unless the reviewer can prove otherwise. There is nothing you can or should do about it except improve the paper as best you can on the basis of the comments you received and move on to the next journal.
My old professor once told me "Rejection is default. You need to convice me otherwise." One comment would be one too many. Zero comments would still not warrant publication.
@winny: That is pretty harsh and I do not agree that ine comment about a typo should be enough to reject a paper by itself. Indeed I have probably never read a paper without a typo. In my ideal world, such a typo would be pointed out and corrected by the author, but a good paper should not be rejected because of that.
@winny: I do think that every editor etc. applies this rule today -- do you not? Otherwise, there would be no paper at all. (When I review a paper, I do as a say - I point out "there is a typo" but once single typo does not effect my recommendation about the paper).
@winny: Ah okay, thank you for the clarification! (Your comment sounded like you would give this advice"One comment is one too many" to the OP".) (It sounds like the prof just wanted to avoid work "Hey! I found a missing comma in the introduction, so I write this down and can recommend rejection and the review is done!"
Discussion on question by AlFagera: R…
Discussion on question by AlFagera: R…