Peer reviewing

[A. Katz]

Many suggestions from reviewers do improve our papers, and we are happy 
and grateful to be given the opportunity to implement them. Other 
suggestions make the paper less coherent.

There is probably more involved here than which publications we submit 
to. There is also the question of how similar our theoretical approach is 
to that of the reviewer. That's why authors who are practitioners within 
more established theoretical frameworks find they have better rapport with 
their reviewers. It isn't so much personal, as theoretical...

    --Aya

http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz



On Thu, 1 Apr 2010, Sherman Wilcox wrote:

> I'm with Bill on this one. I feel that most of the revisions suggested to me 
> by reviewers have improved my papers. For those that were off-base, or that I 
> felt I didn't want to implement, I've always found that when I explain my 
> reasons to the editor, they have been accepted (i.e., I didn't make the 
> changes, and that was accepted by the editor). But as Bill says, maybe this 
> is a reflection of which journals I submit to.
>
> -- 
> Sherman Wilcox
>
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> On 4/1/10 9:21 AM, Bill Croft wrote:
>> I think that eliminating the category of "revise and resubmit" is, in 
>> effect, saying that the author is always right, and the reviewers are 
>> always wrong. I don't share that view. Sometimes the author is right, as 
>> Martin has been saying in his messages, but sometimes the reviewers are 
>> right. I have always felt that my papers were improved after "revise and 
>> resubmit".
>> 
>> But this is where the editor's role comes in. The author doesn't see the 
>> reviewers' reports until the editor receives them and passes them on. At 
>> that point the editor may judge whether, in his/her view, the weight of the 
>> evidence supports the author's or the reviewers' perspective, and 
>> communicate this to the author (partly by choosing "revise and resubmit" or 
>> "accept upon revision"). Also, editors nowadays almost always ask the 
>> author to explain how and why s/he revised the manuscript upon 
>> resubmission. That allows the reviewers as well as the editor to judge 
>> whether the revisions are sufficient.
>> 
>> Bill
>> 
>> 
>>> Bill Croft wrote:
>>>> 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. 
>>> What Bill describes as "the main value" of R&R is the main problem, in my 
>>> view.
>>> 
>>> In the cases mentioned above, the author probably limited herself to 
>>> adding a few footnotes because she simply didn't agree with the reviewer 
>>> that "the manuscript had significant problems". And often the author is 
>>> right, not the reviewer. Reviewers are not more knowledgeable than 
>>> authors; in fact, they generally know much less about the paper's topic 
>>> than the author.
>>> 
>>> But predicting whether the editor will overrule the reviewers or not is 
>>> very difficult, so should the author resubmit? This is extremely tricky, 
>>> and I think many papers are delayed because the author is at a loss what 
>>> to do: Follow a reviewer's proposals she is unhappy with, or try a 
>>> different journal?
>>> 
>>> So I think a new approach that only has "accept" and "reject" would make 
>>> everybody's lives easier.
>>> 
>>> Martin 
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