How to react to unfair reviewer comments?

Take a very deep breath. The only way to react to a review that you believe to be in bad faith is to act as the bigger person. You can definitely mention that the reviewer disagrees with the other reviewers, but don't say anything about motives to the editor - there is no way that it can benefit you. The editor will have noted a difference in tone themselves and decided what they think about it. If you complain, and the editor has decided the review is valid, you just look defensive and bitter. If they have already decided that the third review is unfair, then you'll make no difference.

If its possible implement the reviewers suggestions, do so unless you think it seriously harms the paper. Whether you think they are fair or not, as long as they don't hurt the paper, do it. This goes double for citing papers if they relevant; 90% of citations in a paper will be read after the work it done.

"How should I behave for a positive outcome?" Open a bottle of champagne, celebrate your paper, be thankful you got through it despite the reviewer and forget about it. There is nothing you can do about this sort of thing. If you really want to do something support movements for open peer review and next time submit to a journal that practices it.


It certainly appears as though the reviewer is making an unreasonable demand, yes. Unfortunately, this situation is too common: reviewers as experts, and thus often active participants in the field, have their own conflicts of interest and biases. Since your paper is conditionally accepted, I recommend you let it go.

Try to ignore the reviewer's intentions, but instead objectively evaluate whether you can meet his demands without compromising your paper in terms of quality or ethics. Specifically:

(1) I feel that since your paper is not yet published, assuming the suggested sources are indeed relevant, it is worth mentioning them for the benefit of your readers. In my own field (chemistry), where it is common for related (or identical) studies to come out during the publication process, we often include a note to the effect of: "After submission of this paper, several relevant and independent studies were published (ref. XXX)." This way, you can point the reader to them (which both the reader and authors of those papers will appreciate) and make it clear that your research was done without knowledge of theirs.

(2) Write a note to the editor to explain what happened: that you did not "forget," but are happy to cite those references. If the reviewer's intention is really to make sure your citations are complete, they should be satisfied.

I guarantee that the editor knows what a bad-faith reviewer looks like, and you taking too much effort to point that out will only backfire. It will make you seem petty and dramatic. Instead, you should focus on feeling happy about the publication of your paper! Congratulations!


If the papers the reviewer is pointing you to actually have impact on your paper, the reviewer is doing you a favor, potentially extending the useful lifetime of your published work.

Read the papers, and incorporate them if it makes sense. If it doesn't, don't, and explain why.If you feel compelled to make the point that you didn't "forget" to include them, but that they were published after your submission, feel free, but it likely won't help or hurt your chances of acceptance (so long as you do it nicely).

The review you got does not seem out of line, or at least out of the ordinary. Your reaction to it seems too dramatic.