JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

I submitted the article in early February this year and it has been under initial review ever since. I have urged them twice. After waiting for two months, they responded in early April saying that the similarity index was higher than 20%. So, I checked it myself using Turnitin and found that the similarity index was only 15%. I made some changes and managed to reduce the similarity index to 11%. Then, I submitted it again and waited for nearly a month with no updates. I urged them twice again before it finally moved to external review.

After a month, on May 30th, I received the external review results. The first reviewer asked me to provide more explanations regarding the figures (minor revisions or approval). The second reviewer thought it was written quite well and suggested minor revisions. The third reviewer rejected it outright, stating that the article lacked novelty and had too few samples, only 8. They mentioned a bunch of other things, all indicating that there were too few samples and insufficient evidence. The problem is that I conducted a thermal simulation experiment, where the same sample was tested 8 times at different temperatures, so there were 8+1 (initial) = 9 samples. I felt that this expert was extremely perfunctory and uninformed. Finally, I received the rejection message with a suggestion to revise and resubmit.

The opinions of the first two reviewers were acceptable, and I will make the necessary revisions as per their requirements. However, I will not choose this journal again. Firstly, the speed is extremely slow. Secondly, some reviewers are extremely careless and irresponsible. Thirdly, I'm afraid that if I submit it again, it will end up in the hands of the same reviewer and be rejected again.

Please be cautious when selecting this journal as there is too much uncertainty and the speed is extremely slow.

Posted on 20210629, the translation and proofreading were all done by LetPub's advanced proofreading service, costing over 20,000.

On 20210905, a reminder was sent, and it was notified that the submission had not been sent for review. Then, a new associate editor was assigned, and the plagiarism check showed 17% similarity, mainly due to words like "Basin" and "stone." LetPub mentioned that the American editors couldn't help reduce the similarity, so I changed all of them to abbreviations, and the crosscheck showed 7% similarity, and it was resubmitted.

Returned on 20210923.

On 20211127, during the second round of revisions, there were three reviewers, with two minor revisions and one major revision. One of the reviewers was a recommended reviewer. However, the associate editor pointed out that the language structure was a bit verbose. The review comments were sent back to LetPub, but LetPub stated that the reviewers did not mention any grammar issues and refused to provide further proofreading unless additional payment was made. Therefore, I made the revisions myself using Grammarly and Deepl and had an English major friend check for any errors.

Minor revisions on 20220127, and both reviewers agreed to accept. One of the reviewers was an acquaintance and not a recommended reviewer. The associate editor made handwritten changes to over 100 words and uploaded the PDF. It was quite difficult to read.

Another round of minor revisions on 20220326, only a few words were changed, and it felt like a waste of time.

Accepted on 20220422.

Throughout the process, there were ups and downs, but seeing the acceptance, it truly felt like a natural and expected outcome.