PLoS Pathogens

The submission was made before the end of 2022 Christmas, only to find out that the entire magazine company would be on a 20-day vacation... It wasn't until mid-January when the magazine company resumed work that it was quickly sent for review.

The first review took a month, with major revisions suggested. All three reviewers highly praised its novelty, with only a few experiments needing to be supplemented. PLOS PATHOGENS requires that if more than three experiments need to be supplemented according to a reviewer, the recommendation would be to reject the submission. They also mentioned that the English writing was terrible.

Then, two months were spent on conducting the experiments. After one month, Reviewer 1 provided minor revisions, mainly pointing out the issue with English. Several reviewers carefully made modifications on the PDF, pointing out every error. It was embarrassing...

However, the response to the minor revisions was somewhat careless, as some description problems were not answered seriously. A few days later, the editor replied, saying that I did not answer every question seriously, and even though some of the questions did not require modifications in the article, they still needed to be explained in detail in the response. It was frustrating...

After submitting the revised version again, it was finally accepted.

PLOS PATHOGENS magazine has a fast processing speed. The submission usually reaches the editor's hands the next day, and the feedback is also given quickly.

The editors are experts in their respective fields, and their names are publicly available for verification. The review comments are objective, fair, meticulous, and have strict requirements.

PLOS PATHOGENS does not only publish popular articles in order to pursue impact factor. Articles in various fields of pathogen research can be published as long as they are innovative and complete.

Although it took a whole six months to be accepted, the overall experience was good.

Already submitted and accepted with revisions,
Received: February 9, 2021
Accepted: June 30, 2021
Published: July 23, 2021
The first review took one month, with three editors providing around 30 suggestions for revisions. The major revisions took two months, and I procrastinated in editing my manuscript for a long time. The second review took approximately one month, and in principle, it was accepted. After that, there were three rounds of formatting changes before it was finally accepted. The original data needs to be uploaded. The journal has a good reputation and word-of-mouth, and the opinions of the editors and reviewers are very fair. The only downside is that the impact factor (IF) did not increase much. I hope it continues to develop better and better.