[Corpora-List] Corpora Digest, Vol 52, Issue 3 [was blind reviewing]

[John F. Sowa]

On 10/12/2011 11:31 AM, Graeme Hirst wrote:
> In addition, some ACL conferences have been experimenting with allowing
> authors to respond to the reviewers before the final decision is made.

That is an important option, but it should be used with care.

> Obviously, no journal or conference would encourage an author to
> "challenge" (as opposed to "respond to") reviewers.

There are some people who are very argumentative and with little or
no justification for their position.  They should not be encouraged.

But I recall some remarks by Alfred North Whitehead about his
teaching at Harvard.  The chairman of the department had complained
that he was giving too many As.

Whitehead replied that there were two kinds of A students in his
grading.  Those who did everything that was asked of them in a
well organized paper that had no detectable flaws, but was
somewhat boring.  And those who had some exciting ideas, but
in a presentation that was not as well organized and not as
well supported.  He said that he had to give As to the first
group, but that he felt the second group had better potential
and should be encouraged.

Many papers submitted to conferences fall into these same
categories.  Workshops that accept a higher percentage
of submissions are often more interesting than the main
sessions because they have more papers of the second type.

Perhaps some feedback from authors in the second category
could help them get their papers into the main sessions.

John


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