Forests

The reputation of MDPI is not good. Forests is one of the better journals in the MDPI publication. There are very few forestry journals, and it can be said that Forests is only second to top-tier journals like Forest Ecology and Management and two comprehensive forestry journals in Europe. Even the scope of submissions for Forests is broader. Many indicators of this journal should rank at the level of 15-20 among forestry journals, which is better than the median level of English forestry journals.

The editorial board of the journal consists of many renowned forestry scientists, including Chinese scientists. The quality of the papers can be said to be good and bad, with most of them being more biased towards the lower end.

Submission is very convenient and there are templates available. Reviewers recruited are also top-notch professionals in the field of forestry from around the world. The review process is also fast. However, the time given for reviewers to provide feedback and for authors to revise their manuscripts is extremely short. Usually, major revisions are given only 7 days, minor revisions 5 days, and the second round of minor revisions only 3 days. Even small adjustments are given only one day. In fact, such a short time frame does not allow for substantial modifications and improvements to the articles. Neither the second round of review by reviewers nor the authors' revisions can bring about significant improvements.

Compared to Chinese forestry journals, it seems to be similar to top Chinese forestry journals such as Forestry Science and the Journal of Beijing Forestry University. It can be said to be suitable for the level of Zone 3 in the classification table. This year, it has been upgraded to Zone 2.

It is more suitable for papers of average quality, and it feels like many papers that are expected to be published quickly can be submitted to this journal.

I wrote a Chinese thesis of over 20,000 words, which translates into nearly 40 pages in English. It is likely the longest article published in Forests. It was a bit of a loss to submit to this journal, considering it does not limit the page count and has a fast publication process. The reviewers were chosen directly from the editorial board, with three different foreigners from various countries. It took 6 days for the initial review, as the elderly members of the editorial board needed some time to thoroughly read it. The external review took 10 days to receive feedback. I was given 5 days for minor revisions, but due to the length of the article, I couldn't finish them all and requested an extension of 5 more days. During this process, I utilized the MDPI language editing service for 320 euros. The final review by the academic editor also provided some suggestions for minor revisions. I believed the quality of the paper was already at its peak, but it still required two rounds of minor revisions. The peer review process was very formal, and I wonder if those who claim this journal is not rigorous have ever submitted their work here.