Peer reviewing

[Sherman Wilcox]

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






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