[Corpora-List] why LREC2012 NOT blind-reviewed?

[Ted Pedersen]

I think one thing we've learned here is that there are some fairly
significant concerns and frustrations with reviewing.

For myself, I review too much, and am probably a little lazy in some cases
as a result. I started to notice that a bit more recently, and so have
started saying "No" with much more frequency, so hopefully I am doing my
small part to correct something in the process. Reviewers who feel they
don't have time to review really need to say "No" more often - the field
will survive without us, and we aren't doing anyone any favors by submitting
reviews that we don't really spend enough time on. LIkewise, I don't think
saying "Yes" and then farming out reviews to graduate students is all that
helpful, unless the senior person is willing to spend some time with the
student on reviewing (until they are sufficiently experienced). I realize
more folks doing this will make it harder to get reviews, but I think a
smaller number of better reviews is in the end more helpful and healthy.

I would like to suggest that maybe we ought to ask people who submit papers
to provide the answers to the following two questions (separate from their
papers) in an effort to streamline the process.

1) What is the most important idea presented in this submission (in 50 words
or less)

2) What other paper is most similar to this submission, and how does this
paper improve upon or extend that? (in 100 words or less)

If I'm not sufficiently excited by the answers to both 1 and 2, then the
paper can be rejected without further review. A good paper will of course
make 1 and 2 fairly clear, but sometimes you have to dig a little, so I'd
like to dispense with the kabuki dance and simply ask authors to answer
these questions at the start, and then we decide as reviewers if we should
read further.

The other part of the equation is that most published papers don't end up
having much impact beyond advancing the author's career (Zipf's Law for
Papers? A few papers cited a lot, most not cited much at all). This doesn't
mean they shouldn't be published,  and career advancement is a good thing
generally both for the authors and our field, but it can also make for lots
and lots of  incremental papers that just aren't all that interesting and so
they aren't cited much, and they tend to have a mind numbing effect on
reviewers and is part of what I think makes reviewing such a chore
sometimes.  So, maybe if we make authors self-identify the incremental work
versus the big new ideas then reviewers can have a better idea of what to
expect. Incremental in the area you care most about can be fascinating
stuff, so I don't think incremental is always a bad thing, but there also
needs to be a balance between the incremental and the more novel. As a
reviewer I feel like I spend huge amounts of time on incremental work, and
it just gets a little dull to be honest...

Cordially,
Ted

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 9:45 AM, Isabella Chiari <
isabella.chiari at uniroma1.it> wrote:

> Dear Corpora members,
> I just noticed that the LREC2012 call specifies that submissions are NOT
> anonymous and there will not be blind-reviewing.
>
> Does anyone know why? Which is the policy under this decision?
> Best regards,
> Isabella Chiari
>
> Dipartimento di Scienze documentarie, linguistico-filologiche e geografiche
>
> Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
>
> pl.le Aldo Moro, 5, III Piano, Edificio ex Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia,
> 00185 Roma, tel. +30 06 4991 3575
>
> E.mail: isabella.chiari at uniroma1.it
>
> Website: www.alphabit.net
>
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-- 
Ted Pedersen
http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse
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