ADVANCED SYNTHESIS & CATALYSIS

This journal nitpicks on Chinese people, especially using academic ethics as an excuse. A friend of mine had previously submitted an article without mentioning that it had been submitted to another journal before. It was discovered, and not only was it not sent for review, but the journal also banned them from submitting to ASC for a year (in reality, this journal has an inflated sense of self-importance, as there are plenty of other good journals to submit to, and it wouldn't matter if they didn't submit to ASC for ten years). When I submitted an article last time, I cited my previous work, and the journal claimed it was excessive self-citation, an issue of academic ethics. This time, I learned from that experience and tried to minimize citing my own work, only including the most relevant ones. However, they still claimed that the necessary citations were missing, once again citing it as an academic ethics issue. Therefore, there is no need to cater to such a low-cost, poorly-attituded journal towards Chinese people. I will not submit to it or cite it. Additionally, it seems that the impact factors of the other journals in this series in Europe are not great, barely surviving.

It took about 8 months of ups and downs before it was finally accepted. The quality of the reviewer was average, and they were irresponsible, as they sent me the review comments from another article. I contacted the editor but received no response, so I only replied to one of the reviewer's comments. After revising, they claimed that I did not address the reviewer's comments and when I tried contacting the editor again, it was fruitless. I explained the situation in the response letter during the revision. Upon resubmission, the editor added two more reviewers, but luckily their comments were acceptable (they were all trivial comments with no significant quality). After making the revisions, the paper was accepted. Because of the editor's and reviewers' irresponsibility, it took a long time. Fortunately, I had already met the graduation requirements, otherwise it would have caused a delay. I still have lingering fear, and I won't dare to submit again in the future. Judging from the quality of the article above, it is average and not of the same high quality as JOC, and it is even inferior to the quality of organic chemistry in China. It seems to be a journal with low standards.