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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Dear Corpora colleagues, I started the discussion
on Peer Reviewing and I am quite happy about it. It looks that it is a burning
question in linguistics. I agree with those who say that Peer Reviewing results
are not satisfactory. It usually forces the author to go along the way he does
not like even if the article is published with changes. Peer Reviewing makes the
article more primitive and common. One should remove all innovations and new
theories. It makes the article more common and not so interesting. It also
makes the waiting process too long while our life is so short= Can we afford it?
I feel it is a waiste of time of your life. Recently I received two reviews from
Linguistica Uralica. The first reviewer wrote that that article has too much new
original information and therefore the readers shall not understand it. The
other reviewer wrote that there was no new information and therefore it shall
not be interesting for the readers. I wonder if the editor read these two
contradictory statements before sending them to me? The edotors of
the great linguistics journal LANGUAGE usually answered me that my articles
are not in the scope of their journal as if I wrote my articles not about
languages but about how to collect potatoes in the fields. It was always so. I
think they had too many areticles to get published. So they had to reject 90%
articles any way. Surely, I published my articles which were rejected in other
journals. I am sure the peer reviewing process must be reconsidered. The
reviewers must answer for what they wrote. The only way is to open the names of
the reviewers. Why should I hide my name if I gave a negative review? If I think
the article is bad, then I must say it openly. Otherwise, it is not logical.
Otherwise, all the speakers at conferences should also cover their faces if they
want to criticize other linguists. Now that the reviewers know that their
names are under cover , they write what their LEFT LEG wants. They do not
answer for what they write. In courts all judges and lawyers who want to condem
a criminal must also cover their faces. But they do not do it. They have great
risks, but still they do not hide their names, they sign the papers with their
true names. Why should the reviewer cover their names? If they really
believe in what they write, they should openly say so. So, I wonder if the
general linguistic public support my preposal not to let the reviewers hide
their names. Looking forward to hearing from you soon to <A
href="mailto:yutamb@mail.ru">yutamb@mail.ru</A> Yours sincerely Yuri
Tambovtsev</FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>