Peer reviewing

[Balthasar Bickel]

I fully agree with what Lachlan and Bill have said. The task of editors or editorial board members is precisely to evaluate both the paper *and* the reviews and to communicate the conclusions to the author. And yes, authors do need to explain how they respond to reviews. If one provides good arguments, it is perfectly possible not to follow a referee's suggestions, and this happens quite often in my experience (both as an editor and as an author).

Balthasar.

On Apr 1, 2010, at 5:21 PM, 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
>