Breaking the Reviewer 2 Law!

Huaguo, Rongcheng Radio and Television University, dormitory building.

Qi Hao opened his browser and entered the address of the journal's submission system.

The page loaded slowly. He didn't know what had gotten into the campus network lately, but it had somehow slowed down, and even opening an overseas academic website meant waiting through endless loading.

Qi Hao stared at the spinning loading icon on the screen, his heart beginning to race without him realizing it.

It had been more than thirty days since he submitted the paper, and only a little over ten days remained before the task deadline.

According to the review-cycle data he had found, it was normal to get a result around this time, but for someone waiting for that result, every day was agony.

The page finally finished loading.

Qi Hao entered his username and password and clicked Login.

The submission system dashboard popped up.

His eyes went straight to the manuscript status field.

"Decision: Minor Revision (editor's decision: minor revision)"

Qi Hao froze for a second.

Then his first reaction wasn't joy.

It was: I'm screwed.

I have to revise the paper!

More than a month of waiting, and he hadn't gotten an outright Accept!

He took a deep breath and opened the detailed comments and review reports.

One minor revision, one major revision, and the editor had ultimately decided on a minor revision?

Qi Hao thought the combination was a little strange.

According to the accounts he had read online, when one reviewer called for a major revision and another for a minor revision, the editor would usually choose a major revision. So why had the final decision been a minor revision?

He opened Reviewer 1's comments first.

"The core proof relies heavily on Russian-language literature... the reviewer cannot verify it... the cited literature is old... there is a lack of cross-validation... reliability is questionable... the author is advised to reproduce complete proofs of the cited lemmas..."

The last line read: Major Revision.

"Fuck."

He was all too familiar with Reviewer 1's logic.

Put in plain language, it meant: I can't understand the literature you cited, so I don't think your proof can be verified unless you reprove what other people have already proved for me.

If he actually did as Reviewer 1 asked, that would mean adding complete proofs of more than a dozen lemmas from five Russian-language papers to the body of his paper.

Heh. That wouldn't be revising a paper; that would be writing a whole new book!

And there was another problem he couldn't get around: he had submitted this paper to fulfill the system task's requirements, and the system required the paper to cite no fewer than three relevant sources from the Soviet Union era.

When the task was issued, he had even complained: who would go digging through Soviet Union journals from half a century ago for no reason?

But that was what the system required, and as it turned out, those Soviet Union sources really did contain good material. The symmetric game tree classification theorem, the most crucial part of his paper, was built on the work of Adelson-Velsky and others.

Without those Soviet Union sources, his paper would be missing its foundation.

Replace the citations?

Of course not.

There was no bargaining over the system task's conditions. If he failed to meet them, the task would simply count as a failure.

Reprove all the lemmas in the body of the paper?

In theory, he could, but that would mean making the paper at least seven or eight times longer. The original proofs of those lemmas were themselves extremely complicated, and just working through them clearly in English would take months.

It was a dead end with no solution.

Qi Hao irritably gulped down some ice water and nearly choked.

He reread Reviewer 1's wording, and the more he looked at it, the more he felt the underlying message was: "You're from Huaguo. What are you doing citing Soviet Union literature? Who'd believe you actually read it?"

But he couldn't put that speculation in his response.

Academic peer review was about addressing the matter at hand. He couldn't very well write, "Dear reviewer, I suspect you're discriminating against non-English literature," could he?

Just as Qi Hao's mood hit rock bottom, he remembered he hadn't read Reviewer 2's comments yet.

"This paper makes a novel and valuable contribution to the problem of absolute pruning in finite game trees."

"The author's command of the existing literature is impressive..."

"However, one technical detail needs to be added: between Proposition 4.3 and Theorem 4.5, a rigorous estimate of the Lipschitz constant of the compression operator is missing. The author is advised to include a complete proof in the revised manuscript."

"Recommendation: Minor Revision."

That's it?

Just one problem?

Qi Hao's eyes widened. He read Reviewer 2's comments from beginning to end twice more, making sure he hadn't missed any hidden bombs.

None.

Reviewer 2 really had raised only one issue.

He didn't know who Reviewer 2 was, where the reviewer was, how old the reviewer was, or what background the reviewer had.

But one thing was certain: Reviewer 2 had read some of the Russian-language literature and had therefore recognized the value of his work.

It seemed Reviewer 2 knew the field.

Qi Hao suddenly understood why the editor had ultimately decided on a minor revision.

It wasn't because the editor was naturally biased, but because, amid the disagreement between the two reviewers, Reviewer 2 had demonstrated a clearly higher level of expertise and provided specific factual grounds to support that judgment.

Any competent editor, upon seeing such comments, would choose to trust the more professional opinion.

Reviewer 2 had saved his paper!

Qi Hao suddenly remembered the posts he had seen online before.

"Reviewer 2 Law: it's always Reviewer 2 who screws you over."

"Submitted a paper. Reviewer 1 said it was good, but Reviewer 2 hit me straight with a major revision!"

"The first law of academia: Reviewer 2 is your natural enemy."

The meme had circulated in academic circles for a long time, and almost everyone who had submitted a paper feared the mysterious code name "Reviewer 2."

In countless posts and jokes, Reviewer 2 was the one who always picked bones out of eggs, was never satisfied with your work, and would always stab you at the last moment.

But now?

In his experience with this submission, it was Reviewer 1 who had been unreasonable, while Reviewer 2 was the fairest, most professional one, the one who had stood up and spoken out for him.

"Looks like there are times when the Reviewer 2 Law gets broken, too."

Qi Hao suddenly felt incredibly lucky. He had run into a god who was both professional and softhearted!

Qi Hao had actually considered the issue Reviewer 2 raised while writing the paper. He had left it out because he thought that step of the derivation could be omitted.

Sigh, looks like I can't cut corners after all.

The derivation would take about half a page to a page, and it wasn't complicated.

Qi Hao had to take a gamble. He needed to fight for a chance, and he planned to revise the paper according to Reviewer 2's comments, so he decisively opened his LaTeX editor.

He soon finished writing the additional proof.

He spent another twenty minutes writing an explanation of the revisions, then checked the formatting one last time. After confirming that the PDF rendered correctly, he submitted the revised manuscript.

On the third day.

After returning from class, Qi Hao logged into the submission system because he couldn't put his mind at ease. To his surprise, the manuscript status had updated!

"Decision: Accept (editor's decision: accept)"

Accept?!

It had been accepted!

He had submitted the revised manuscript at seven the night before last, and it had been accepted today?

Had Reviewer 1 really not come down on him with a heavy fist?

Could it be that Reviewer 2 and the editor had made the difference?

He refreshed the page three times, and the status field kept showing the same answer.

Accept!

Qi Hao slowly leaned back in his chair, his hands resting on his knees.

As he looked at the computer screen, the corners of his mouth rose little by little without him realizing it.

His smile grew wider and wider.

At last, he couldn't hold it in any longer. Sitting in front of his laptop, he laughed silently for quite a while.

Just like that, his first SCI paper had been published.

He had worked at it for more than two months in all, and he had finally succeeded!

His research's firstborn legitimate son could be published!

While Qi Hao was celebrating, a voice sounded in his mind.

[Congratulations, tovarishch, on completing the Academic Legacy task!]