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Rejecting a paper based on one report by a referee that previously reviewed the paper?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Junior writes:

A top 10 generalist journal rejected a manuscript of mine on the basis of one referee report. The one referee said that they had rejected an earlier version of my manuscript elsewhere. I know that editors can have a hard time finding referees, but should editors base rejections on reports provided by one such referee?

This is a good question. I've seen a few conversations about this topic before on social media, and I'm curious to hear what people think. Personally, given just how much different referees can disagree over the merits of a given paper, I'm inclined to think that journals should give authors a chance with new reviewers who haven't reviewed it before. Then again, I'm not a journal editor, so I don't know how feasible this is as a general rule.

What do you all think?

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13 responses to “Rejecting a paper based on one report by a referee that previously reviewed the paper?”

  1. Some editor experience

    Editors of selective journals do not care about one particular author and their papers. They have many other papers they can publish. Move on and submit it elsewhere.
    Often it is very difficult to find even a single reviewer for a paper. I’m currently trying to find reviewer – first nine scholars I have contacted so far have decline to review.

    Reply
  2. Michel

    On the referee side, I recuse myself from refereeing work for which I’ve recommended a rejection in the past. Referee assignments are a bit of a crapshoot, after all, and it’s plausible that sometimes I’m the crap. It seems only fair to the author and the paper to give them another kick at the can.

    Reply
  3. Olle B

    Surely this depends on the details of the case, but I don’t think there should be a general rule against this. If the referee’s report makes valid critical points that justifies a rejection, and the editor agrees with those points and the justification, then I don’t see why the editor should not reject the paper based only that one report and their own judgement. This is especially true if the paper is in an area where the editor has some expertise. I also think that an editor should in some cases desk-reject a paper based only on their own assessment, without relying on any referee report (again, especially if the paper is in an area where the editor has some expertise). The fact that different referees, as well as different editors, can disagree over a given paper’s merits does not seem to be sufficient reason to require rejection to be based on at least one “novel” referee report (but of course, it will depend on the details of the paper as well as the “old” report).

    Reply
  4. Junior

    I am the OP. To boot, I received this review 7 months after submitting it. That said, I understand how difficult it can be for editors to find referees.

    Reply
  5. Referee

    I have been a referee in a situation like this, and I have revealed to the editor that I refereed and rejected the paper for a different journal. They nonetheless told me to proceed. I understood the position that I was possibly putting the author in by rejecting the paper again, so I tried to make up for it with a very lengthy and a very detailed referee report (even more detailed and more lengthy than the first report for the other journal) that encouraged the author to continue working on the project.

    Reply
  6. G

    I also had this happen as an author and I found it unfair.
    When it happens to me as a reviewer, I check whether the paper has substantially changed, otherwise I recuse myself.

    Reply
  7. Douglas W. Portmore

    Editors are seeking both testimonial evidence concerning the quality of the paper and a recommendation on whether to publish it based on that quality assessment. Depending on the reviewer’s expertise and past history with the journal and editor in question (e.g., how good were their past reports), they can be in a better or worse position to give reliable testimonial evidence and a trustworthy recommendation. But their reliability and trustworthiness wouldn’t, I think, depend on whether they reviewed an earlier version of the paper for a different journal. So why should an editor not rely on the most trustworthy reviewers that they can find? What’s unfair about that?

    Reply
  8. Overseas Tenured

    I consider this effectively a form of ballot stuffing against the paper. I think it’s unprofessional, I never do it (I don’t even tell the editor why I decline the request), and I judge people who do it very unfavorably.
    We referees are highly fallible beings. I’ve got many terrible referee reports, and I have no reason to assume that the referee reports I write are always awesome. You didn’t like the paper; fair enough, you had your say. Let the author roll the dice again and don’t assume that your judgment is so important that you should vote twice.

    Reply
  9. referee who declines in these cases

    Douglas,
    I think some other commentators have addressed your rhetorical question in comments posted before yours. Perhaps your disagree with their answers, but there have been attempts to answer that question, including even in the main post.

    Reply
  10. Two Cents

    I agree with Marcus, and others, that one should recuse themselves if they have already reviewed the paper. However, I would like to add to a point made by Overseas Tenured. If you are going to recuse yourself because you have already reviewed the paper, do not tell the editor this is why you are not reviewing the paper. If you tell them you have already rejected a version of this paper, you are telling the editor information that can make them more likely to reject the paper. In other words, this defeats the purpose of recusing yourself to give the paper a new reviewer’s verdict for the editor to consider. This point might not be obvious to many. Just my two cents.

    Reply
  11. whatever

    Michel’s is the correct attitude (indeed, the only correct attitude as far as I am concerned)

    Reply
  12. Shocked

    I am on the editorial board of a highly regarded generalist journal. I recently recommended that a paper be rejected on the basis of a single referee report from a referee who had previously reviewed the paper for a different journal. One important reason for my recommendation: the referee revealed the the author had incorporated into the submission – without attribution or acknowledgement – several hundred words from the earlier referee report.

    Reply
  13. academic migrant

    My most cited paper (which also happens to be the most cited paper in the relevant debate) has been rejected by a particular referee several times. It almost got rejected again, but this time I pointed out that the referee basically copied and pasted the same set of comments without noticing how the paper was revised in light of some of the comments, directly quoting things that were not in the most recent version of the manuscript. Apart from that, I think I also used this opportunity to point out how the referee basically fundamentally misunderstood the paper, and luckily the editors were willing to hear my case out.
    I think the world would be better if some referees had a bit more intellectual humility.

    Reply

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