Peer reviewing

[Bill Croft]

Dear all,

    I endorse Lachlan's view about the role of the referee. I have not 
had the experience that Martin apparently has of being told to revise 
a paper in a direction I didn't want to take it. (Maybe it's because 
I submit to different journals.) As Dan said, even negative 
criticisms improve the manuscript in the end. And the author can 
always explain to the editor why certain recommendations were not 
followed - I have not had an editor challenge me in those 
circumstances.

    On the other hand, as a referee for many journals, there is value 
for "revise and resubmit". I have very rarely seen a manuscript that 
can be accepted in its original form (and editors have taken the same 
view of my own submissions as well). One should not recommend "revise 
and resubmit" unless one really thinks the paper could be accepted 
upon reasonable revision (if radical revision is believed necessary, 
then "reject" is a better recommendation - resubmission would really 
be a new submission). But the main value for "revise and resubmit" is 
that one doesn't know how much an author really will revise the 
manuscript. Not infrequently, I receive "revised" manuscripts which 
had significant problems where the author has merely added a few 
footnotes to the original submission. In those cases, I do feel that 
I have wasted my precious time, as Lachlan puts it, and I will 
recommend rejection. But I do not know in advance which author will 
take the recommendations seriously and which will not.

Bill


>Dear all,
>As one of the general editors of Functions of Language, my sense is 
>that the discussion is lacking in realism. Peer reviewers are, to 
>me, the salt of the earth, hard-pressed academics who are prepared 
>to give up some of their precious time to perform an act of charity, 
>a close study of an anonymous manuscript by a perfect stranger and 
>to deliver detailed comments. In my experience, the comments that 
>are given are overwhelmingly fair and constructive and are an 
>essential element in the process of helping authors develop from 
>their first submission through to the final, publishable version. 
>Very few articles are publishable in their original form (10% at 
>most), and the great majority of authors are genuinely grateful for 
>the feedback they receive. This applies to both the "revise and 
>resubmit" (about 40%) and the "reject" categories (about 50%).
>The essential point is the role of the general editors. They are 
>ultimately responsible for the quality of the material that appears 
>in their journal and for the quality of the process between 
>submission and publication/rejection. General editors should 
>therefore not simply farm out the responsibility for the fate of an 
>article to the peer reviewers. They should be familiar with and have 
>formed a preliminary judgement on each article submitted so that 
>they are in a position to advise the author on the status of the 
>recommendations of the reviewers. General editors should also be 
>prepared to negotiate with the author about how the revision should 
>be carried out: slavish implementation of reviewers' recommendations 
>is not the goal, and reviewers will understand that too. What we 
>want to achieve (and generally do) is a published article that is 
>satisfactory to the author and to the general editors, and in which 
>the reviewers can trace the impact of their suggestions for 
>improvement; I reject the suggestion that the result is some kind of 
>insipid compromise. Needless to day, good journal management means 
>that every effort is made to keep the process, for all its valuable 
>complexity, as quick as possible.
>As for anonymity (double-blind reviewing), I believe that anything 
>that will help persuade highly qualified colleagues to do a review 
>is welcome. There are other and better ways for linguists to 
>criticize each other (for example in peer-reviewed articles!).
>Lachlan
>
>
>Prof. J. Lachlan Mackenzie
>
>
>Researcher at ILTEC -- Honorary Professor at VU University -- Editor 
>of Functions of Language -- Research Manager of SCIMITAR
>ILTEC has a new address:Avenida Elias Garcia 147 - 5 dto1050-099 
>LisboaPortugal
>Visit my website!