In article <6p2si8$qb9$1 at news.ycc.yale.edu>, Una Smith
<una.smith at yale.edu> wrote:
> Sometimes, if the review is critical, it is hard to distinguish valid
> criticism from nit-picking. Especially if the reviewer was severely
> annoyed by the problems in the paper. A good "bad" review takes far
> longer to write than a good "good" review, and can be exhausting and
> painful for the reviewer.
If any reviewer get 'severely annoyed' or be pained by a paper, I would
suggest that they should abstain from the process. It seems unreasonable
to me that a mature adult can get emotional (maybe not the best word)
because of other people's bad writing.
> On one paper I wrote, both reviewers not only were glowing and kind,
> but offered additional references and unpublished data, and signed.
> Neither reviewer knew me or my co-author, so this was not a case of
> the buddy network in action. Oddly, the cover letter from the editor
> was hostile, stating that to get the paper up to snuff would require
> a complete re-write. Perhaps the editor rarely gets a submission in
> ready-to-accept condition? My co-author and I worked *very* hard on
> that paper, and fought a lot over the discussion section, but to me
> those nice reviews more than made up for the effort.
It seems to me that editors have taken the charge to slow the increase in
page count by creating obstacles to publication. A recent paper of mine
got 3 reviews. Two were favorable and the third was very negative. The
editor declined the paper because the the positive reviews were not
sufficiently entusiastic.
> Unfortunately for me, all the papers I have reviewed so far seem to
> have been drafts. They were a pain to review and gave me a poor
> impression of their authors. In writing a careful review, I felt
> that I was doing a large part of the authors' job for them, gratis.
> It would be so much easier to write something brief and dismissive.
Frankly, this is the very reason why badly written papers should be sent
back with little review. A reviewer should be doing the writing. This is
another reason why drafts should be read by colleagues before submission.
B. Martin
