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Re: [Phys-l] refereeing



On 01/25/2012 07:42 PM, Carl Mungan wrote:

I try to always make a firm up or down recommendation.

Good plan.

I think
sending back a review that says maybe accept, or I liked this but
didn't like that, just puts the onus on the editor.

We agree that would be a bad thing. It would leave undone
the job the editor needs you to do.

However, sometimes I really do get stuck trying to decide. I would
particularly like to hear from others what you do in a case like
that:

That's rare, but it happens. The ones that drive me nuts
are the ones that "probably" have some good science in them
but are so badly written that nobody can figure out exactly
what is being said.

Sometimes this happens with authors who are not writing in
their native language, in which case I tell them to go find
a proofreader who knows the language -- and understands the
physics -- even if this means making somebody a coauthor who
otherwise wouldn't have been.

Hint to authors: Get colleagues to proofread your manuscript
before you send it in. I have worked at institutions where
this was /required/ by the institution ... and it should be
standard operating procedure even if it is not required.

Most institutions of any size will have some avuncular
characters who are good at helping with things like this.

do you tell the editor "I can't decide and I really think you
need to send it to another reviewer" or what?

I never do that. A lot of times I *am* the other reviewer,
having gotten the file on appeal.

I make a point of not reading what the previous reviewers have
said until after I have made my own decision. Then I look at
the previous stuff to see if there is anything I missed.

Sometimes I pass the review to a colleague who is more up
to speed on the subject than I am. The journals allow this,
although it never hurts to check with the editor first.

There's almost no point in sending it back to the editor,
because if the editor knew of anybody more suitable, he
wouldn't have sent it to you.

Answers to this last question and any other good ideas about
improving as a peer reviewer would be greatly welcome. I think it's
an important part of our job as scientists that we get scant training
on (other than on-the-fly).

Yes, it's important.

It is easy enough to train people to do it. The next time
you get a paper, assign one of your grad students to review
it. Then you critique his review, so that (a) he learns how
to do it better, and (b) you are sure it is OK before it
gets sent in.

Another suggestion: Review the journal's "instructions for
authors and reviewers" and make sure the manuscript meets the
requirements. Most journals have reasonable instructions. If
you cannot cheerfully uphold the rules, tell the journal you
cannot review for them, and explain why.

It's just lazy of a reviewer to reply with a yes/no verdict but
little else.

Agreed. For the really good papers or the really bad papers,
there is no controversy and hardly any explanation is required.

However, the ones that reach my desk usually have some serious
merit and some serious flaws, so explanations are needed.
Sometimes it pays to use the "instructions for authors and
reviewers" as a checklist, to make it clear how the paper
does or does not meet the requirements.

Hint to authors: Apply this checklist to your own work
before submitting it.

And another suggestion: Very early in the reviewing process,
go to google scholar (and maybe plain google also) and type
in the title and some of the words from the abstract. You'd
be amazed the number of times this turns up prior publications
that the author should have cited but didn't. This tells me
the author is not serious.

Hint to authors: Check your own work in this way before
submitting it.

This is not a requirement I made up out of thin air; I am
just upholding the journal's rule that the author explain
the importance of the work and how it fits in the context
of prior work.

Another suggestion for reviewers: I try not to look at the
author's name and affiliation before reviewing the paper. I
like it when the editor refers to the paper by some abstract
serial number rather than by author's name. This is part of
my opposition to anything that resembles appeal to authority.

On occasion I have gotten myself and the editor into trouble
by rejecting a manuscript written by some hoity-toity poobah,
but I did not back down (and neither did the editor).

Another suggestion: Protect your anonymity. My default writing
style is rather recognizable ... so I have another writing style
that I use for reviews. It seems to work. I've had people
comment to me about certain reviews, never suspecting that I
wrote them.

Above all: Remember that the reviewer represents the readership.
So ask yourself whether your fellow readers would want to read
the article.

Advice for reviewers and authors alike:

_Bethe's Rule_
The reviewer is always right.
If the reviewer is too damn stupid to understand the paper,
the rest of the readership will be too damn stupid also.

I can imagine some exceptions to this rule, but not many.

I think a review should always include suggestions for improvement.

Well, maybe, but most journals flat-out forbid this. The reviewer
is *not* supposed to serve as a de-facto copyeditor, proofreader,
or coauthor. It is the author's responsibility to polish the
manuscript before submitting.

If I find myself tempted to make a list of suggestions, I will
reject the paper. My most constructive suggestion to the author
is: Next time, finish writing it before submitting it.

This may sound harsh, but it's the way it has to be. It is
almost impossible to have a successful collaboration with the
remote, unpaid, anonymous reviewer. Authors should bounce their
ideas off of non-anonymous colleagues early and often, so that
they know the paper is in good shape before it is submitted.

I don't give a talk in public until I have given eleventeen
practice talks in front of colleagues who will gleefully
critique it far more strictly than the public ever will. I
rehearse in front of experts (for correctness) and in front
of non-experts (for comprehensibility). The same goes for
publications, only more so.

It's not rocket science. After you've had your writing vetted
eleventeen times a month for a few years, you learn to write
better.

===========================

Funny reviewing story:

Once I got a file on appeal. It had been under dispute for
many months. The previous reviewers had rejected the paper on
the grounds that it wasn't original. The peculiar thing was,
the authors stated in the first paragraph that they knew they
weren't the first ones to come up with the idea, but apparently
nobody had ever /published/ it (at least not in the unclassified
literature) and they figured it ought to be published somewhere,
so folks would not have to keep rediscovering it.

I spent about ten minutes confirming that indeed, it had never
been published. The I handed it back to the editor (who was
in the office across the hall from me) and said he ought to
accept it.
-- I said "I invented this myself. It's not trivial."
-- He said "I know."
-- I said "But I never published it."
-- He said "I know."
-- I said "These guys are playing by the rules. They cited
everybody who could be cited. It makes me look
foolish for not publishing or patenting it, but
that's not their fault. 99% of the readers will
like this paper. The rest is just sour grapes."
-- He said "I know. I just needed a reviewer to say so."