A Questionable Rejection
I just got an article rejected from an important journal, perhaps one of the most important in my field. I'm not crying about it, heck, I'm thrilled that at least one of the reviewers thought it was good enough for publication! The one thing that confuses me are the comments that the second reviewer gave me. (The second reviewer sunk my chances of a revise/resubmit.) First, the second reviewer states that their specialty is X and, thus, they don't know my specialty of Y. Then, second reviewer proceeds to list works that I should consult to make my paper stronger. However, some of the works zhe lists do not even exist or they are clearly not pertinent to my research! I feel like contacting the managing editor and questioning the validity of the second reviewer's review, but I don't know if that would be bad form.
What do I do?
---UPDATE---
There seems to be some confusion regarding how I stated that the works the second reviewer suggested to me don't exist. They simply don't. Zhe mentioned an author from my home country, who is deceased, but whose family I actually know. I shot them an email and they confirmed that X and Y works do not exist within the author's estate or known bibliography. I also have contacts at the national library and they couldn't find anything within their archives either.
Thanks for your advice. I'm just going to revise my article, send it elsewhere, and hope for the best.
What do I do?
---UPDATE---
There seems to be some confusion regarding how I stated that the works the second reviewer suggested to me don't exist. They simply don't. Zhe mentioned an author from my home country, who is deceased, but whose family I actually know. I shot them an email and they confirmed that X and Y works do not exist within the author's estate or known bibliography. I also have contacts at the national library and they couldn't find anything within their archives either.
Thanks for your advice. I'm just going to revise my article, send it elsewhere, and hope for the best.