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Makes me glad I am not a sociologist!

The same basic problem occurs in all fields in that many reviewers and editors are basically idiots. When you get a rejection you look through the reviewers comments for the useful suggestions (mostly these are about spelling or grammar, but occasionally you will get a real gem) and send it out again. Whatever you do do not change the paper to suit the reviewers or editor. Just shoot it out again as quickly as possible.

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This is a risky strategy - your paper can end up back in the hands of the same reviewers from round one.

Yes this can occur, but supringly rarely. What always amazes me is how rarely the reviewers ever agree on anything. Getting published is just a matter of sending out your work until you get two or three reviewers who say accept.

I have had the situation where all three reviewers said publish and the editor rejected the paper - of course this paper has gone on to get over 600 citations so it was not the best decision that editor has ever made.

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