What's the most ridiculous Reviewer 2 comment you've ever received?
Day 1: Submission
Bhaskar Pandey submits a paper to a top journal.
Feels like a genius.
Sleeps peacefully for the first time in six months.
It will be the last peaceful sleep for a while.
---
Day 3
Checks email 47 times.
Nothing.
Checks again.
Still nothing.
Refreshes Gmail.
Gmail has not changed in the last four minutes.
Bhaskar does not trust Gmail.
---
Day 45
An email arrives.
"Your manuscript is under review."
Bhaskar celebrates.
Tells his lab mate.
Lab mate says,
"That's just an automatic email."
Bhaskar does not mention that this completely ruined his evening.
---
Day 127
Another email arrives.
"Decision on your manuscript."
Bhaskar's hands start shaking.
He opens the email slowly.
"We regret to inform you..."
The word "regret" does all the damage.
Everything after that is just noise.
---
The Reviews
Reviewer 1
"This is an excellent and well-written paper. The methodology is sound and the results are impressive. I recommend minor revisions."
Bhaskar smiles.
Reviewer 1 is a good human being.
Reviewer 1 understands research.
Bhaskar would like to buy Reviewer 1 a cup of tea someday.
---
Reviewer 2
"I have serious concerns about this manuscript."
Of course you do.
"The authors claim novelty, but this work is clearly inspired by Zhang et al. (2019)."
Bhaskar looks up Zhang et al. (2019).
He has never seen the paper before.
He reads it.
It is about something completely different.
Reviewer 2 appears to have read neither paper.
Reviewer 2 continues.
"The results in Figure 3 are suspicious."
Figure 3 is a straight line.
It is supposed to be a straight line.
It is literally evidence that the system is stable.
Bhaskar stares at Figure 3 for ten minutes.
Figure 3 stares back.
Neither of them understands what Reviewer 2 wants.
Reviewer 2 continues.
"The authors should compare their work with state-of-the-art methods published in 2024."
The manuscript was submitted in 2024.
Those papers did not exist yet.
Reviewer 2 exists outside the normal flow of time.
Final comment:
"This paper requires significant work before it can be considered for publication."
Significant work.
Six months of research.
One patent.
Two hundred simulations.
Significant work.
---
Bhaskar closes the laptop.
Eats dinner in silence.
Comes back.
Opens the laptop.
Starts writing the rebuttal.
---
The Rebuttal
What Bhaskar writes:
"We thank Reviewer 2 for the valuable and insightful comments. We have carefully addressed every point and substantially revised the manuscript."
What Bhaskar actually means:
"Reviewer 2 clearly did not read the paper. Figure 3 is supposed to be a straight line. Zhang et al. (2019) is about something entirely different. We genuinely have no idea what you want."
---
His supervisor reviews the rebuttal.
Supervisor:
"Change this sentence: 'We respectfully disagree.'"
Bhaskar:
"What should I write instead?"
Supervisor:
"Write, 'We thank the reviewer for this excellent observation.'"
Bhaskar:
"But the reviewer is wrong."
Supervisor:
"That doesn't matter. Just get the paper published."
---
Three months later.
Paper accepted.
Bhaskar wonders who Reviewer 2 was.
He will never know.
Reviewer 2 is anonymous.
Reviewer 2 is everywhere.
Reviewer 2 is nowhere.
Reviewer 2 is the darkness itself.
THE END
Dedicated to every Reviewer 2 who has ever existed.
If you've survived a paper rejection and kept going, you're not alone.