Is Peer reviewing so essential?

[john at research.haifa.ac.il]

I agree. I wish you (Dan) had given me this idea long ago.
John




Quoting Lise Menn <Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU>:

> That's a wonderful thing to do, Dan - I wish I'd thought of it. I
> wonder if I still have some of those old rewrite-and-resubmit letters
> around...
> 	Lise
>
> On Mar 30, 2010, at 8:53 AM, Daniel L. Everett wrote:
>
> > I think peer review by and large not only works very well, but is an
> > excellent teaching tool. I have frequently taught courses on writing
> > for publication in linguistics in which I begin with a ms of mine
> > that has been labeled 'revise and resubmit' by a journal editor. I
> > let students read it without telling them what the judgement was.
> > Then I show them the comments from the journal reviewers. They are
> > shocked at how, let us say, direct some reviewers are in their
> > criticisms. Then I show them the ms after it has been corrected to
> > respond to the reviewers' objections. No matter what they thought of
> > the original version, they all agree that the final, accepted ms is
> > superior and that the peer-reviewers were very helpful to the
> > process, even the particularly nasty ones.
> >
> > This exercise also has the effect of reducing the fear of submission
> > that some graduate students have. It makes them feel like 'Gee, if
> > Dan can get published, anybody can. Even me.' And that of course is
> > exactly what I am trying to get across in the class about publishing
> > and the usefulness of peer review.
> >
> > Dan
> >
> >
> > On Mar 30, 2010, at 7:59 AM, A. Katz wrote:
> >
> >> Yuri,
> >>
> >> I didn't see the original discussion on peer review, but you bring
> >> up an interesting topic.
> >>
> >> In theory, peer review is invaluable as a way to check ourselves
> >> and listen to constructive criticism. The problem is when peer
> >> review isn't open to everyone, and manuscripts that don't come from
> >> official channels don't get reviewed at all. Or the reviewer just
> >> says: there are a lot of errors and sweeping generalizations here,
> >> but fails to list any of the errors or the generalizations so that
> >> they can be examined and corrected.
> >>
> >> Peer review is ultimately only as good as our peers are. If our
> >> peers are the Inquisition, as Galileo's were, there we're in deep
> >> trouble. But I think Einstein ultimately had some pretty good peers
> >> who recognized that his discoveries were genuine, provable -- and
> >> better than their work which had been funded, while his was not!
> >>
> >> Here's to having good peers!
> >>
> >> Best,
> >>
> >>  --Aya
> >>
> >> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz
> >>
> >>
> >> On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote:
> >>
> >>> Johanna Nichols wrote:
> >>> Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more
> >>> important function of journal publication than boosting careers
> >>> is.  Peer
> >>> review is so essential to distinguishing science from
> >>> pseudoscience that I
> >>> don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often.
> >>> Johanna Nichols =
> >>> Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's,
> >>> Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had
> >>> been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average
> >>> books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you
> >>> think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not
> >>> trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be
> >>> well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk
> >>>
> >>>
> >
>
> Lise Menn                      Home Office: 303-444-4274
> 1625 Mariposa Ave	Fax: 303-413-0017
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>
> Professor Emerita of Linguistics
> Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science
> University of  Colorado
>
> Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics]
> Fellow, Linguistic Society of America
>
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>
>




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