peer review: selecting and helping vs. shaping

[Martin Haspelmath]

Yes, peer review often has the effect of improving a paper, but in my 
experience, it is equally often the case that a paper changes in the 
direction desired by the reviewers, without really getting better. The 
author wants to publish the paper in the journal, so she goes out of her 
way to please the reviewers.

I think this latter outcome, which is really unfortunate, could be 
avoided by giving authors just one of two decisions: "accept with 
recommended revisions" or "reject".

If the paper is accepted with recommended revisions, the author can then 
make use of those suggestions from the reviewers that he finds helpful, 
while ignoring those that would lead into directions he doesn't want to 
take.

So if we eliminate "revise and resubmit", we would retain the positive 
effects of peer review, while getting rid of the negative effects that 
arise from reviewers who feel they want to shape a paper. The task of 
reviewers should be to help authors improve the paper, and to advise the 
editor on which papers to select for publication. Their task should not 
be to shape the paper.

Martin Haspelmath

Lise Menn 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


-- 
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de)
Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6	
D-04103 Leipzig      
Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616