Is Peer reviewing so essential?

[Lise Menn]

That's a wonderful thing to do, Dan - I wish I'd thought of it. I  
wonder if I still have some of those old rewrite-and-resubmit letters  
around...
	Lise

On Mar 30, 2010, at 8:53 AM, Daniel L. Everett 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
>
>
> On Mar 30, 2010, at 7:59 AM, A. Katz wrote:
>
>> Yuri,
>>
>> I didn't see the original discussion on peer review, but you bring  
>> up an interesting topic.
>>
>> In theory, peer review is invaluable as a way to check ourselves  
>> and listen to constructive criticism. The problem is when peer  
>> review isn't open to everyone, and manuscripts that don't come from  
>> official channels don't get reviewed at all. Or the reviewer just  
>> says: there are a lot of errors and sweeping generalizations here,  
>> but fails to list any of the errors or the generalizations so that  
>> they can be examined and corrected.
>>
>> Peer review is ultimately only as good as our peers are. If our  
>> peers are the Inquisition, as Galileo's were, there we're in deep  
>> trouble. But I think Einstein ultimately had some pretty good peers  
>> who recognized that his discoveries were genuine, provable -- and  
>> better than their work which had been funded, while his was not!
>>
>> Here's to having good peers!
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>  --Aya
>>
>> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote:
>>
>>> Johanna Nichols wrote:
>>> Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more
>>> important function of journal publication than boosting careers  
>>> is.  Peer
>>> review is so essential to distinguishing science from  
>>> pseudoscience that I
>>> don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often.
>>> Johanna Nichols =
>>> Is Peer reviewing so essential? Would Bruno's, Galileo's,  
>>> Copernicus', Einstein's theories have been published, if they had  
>>> been peer reviewed? Peer reviewing is good for trivial or average  
>>> books and articles without new scientific information. Don't you  
>>> think so? How many articles of young linguists which are not  
>>> trivial are rejected by journals? All? I wouldn't be surprised. Be  
>>> well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk
>>>
>>>
>

Lise Menn                      Home Office: 303-444-4274
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Professor Emerita of Linguistics
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University of  Colorado

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