tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27054305.post4100168034299004173..comments2023-12-23T04:56:29.702-05:00Comments on Ferule & Fescue: The sorrows of peer-review: now less sorrowfulFlaviahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17832765671541392835noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27054305.post-25375956201913070862014-10-08T12:25:35.600-04:002014-10-08T12:25:35.600-04:00"it's hard to convey just how amazing it ..."it's hard to convey just how amazing it is when a total stranger spends long hours helping you think through your ideas and make them better." Yes. This. Renaissance Girlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06243095907452011303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27054305.post-40692687367772156462014-10-03T17:08:07.997-04:002014-10-03T17:08:07.997-04:00Susan:
Yes, that's a good point, and one I ha...Susan:<br /><br />Yes, that's a good point, and one I hadn't considered--that without a sense of the author's larger project(s) or other work, it can be easier to miscategorize or misunderstand its import.<br /><br />CPP:<br /><br />Those are both true, or can be true, in the humanities. Usually working on obscure stuff has probably been more helpful to me than not--I get reviewers who are really excited that someone else is interested in the same material they are (unless they've misunderstood it, as per Susan's suggestion)--but I know people for whom the opposite is true: the established reviewers are serious turf-policers.<br /><br />Fourtinefork and meansomething:<br /><br />Thanks!Flaviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17832765671541392835noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27054305.post-34293627662841496322014-10-03T00:33:21.400-04:002014-10-03T00:33:21.400-04:00Pah! Four years? That's nothin'.
(ducks...Pah! Four years? That's nothin'.<br /><br />(ducks)<br /><br />Seriously, though, congratulations! That is awesomesauce.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27054305.post-67418009477941344772014-10-02T14:39:17.195-04:002014-10-02T14:39:17.195-04:00Congratulations, Flavia! And thank you for laying ...Congratulations, Flavia! And thank you for laying out this life of your article for us. I'm extraordinarily slow in revising from conference papers (those I can do), so this gives me hope that my moldering papers and thoughts might still see a wider audience someday. fourtineforknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27054305.post-4313587401643822702014-10-02T11:18:45.437-04:002014-10-02T11:18:45.437-04:00Vim's post on peer review is quite interesting...Vim's post on peer review is quite interesting. Here are a few thoughts:<br /><br />(1) We operate in several different subfields that only have a very small overlap in potential reviewers of our work. In one of these fields, reviewers of papers and grants tend to be absolutely vicious, and the entire subfield is pretty much a circular firing squad all the fucken time. The other subfield looks after its own, and is more like a circle jerk.<br /><br />(2) Vim's point about her negative reviews almost always being very knowledgeable and defensible on the substance raises something I have seen many times, both as a reviewer and reviewee of grants and manuscripts. Anyone who is knowledgeable in a field can kill a paper or grant dead without making "errors" or "mistakes". They do this by being very substantively accurate--like about the Scottish mercenaries and Shakespeare--but then make subjective unfalsifiable assertions about the "scope", "interest", "impact", etc of the work: "well, you only even mention Shakespeare after twenty pages and it's not really all that important to understanding Shakespeare, blah, blah, blah". This is why there are some scientific journals that claim an editorial policy of excluding such subjective judgments and only considering whether the work is rigorous and the conclusions supported. Of course, these journals are much less prestigious than the ones that see themselves as gatekeepers of "impact".PhysioProffenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27054305.post-9397712094010442262014-10-02T09:02:31.038-04:002014-10-02T09:02:31.038-04:00Congrats! We just had a paper finally accepted aft...Congrats! We just had a paper finally accepted after starting work on the project in 2010, first submitting to one journal in 2012, getting rejected from there, doing a fucketonne more experiments for a year and a half, submitting to a second journal this summer, getting rejected from there, resubmitting to the first journal, and getting accepted without any further revisions.PhysioProffenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27054305.post-54247512944220019622014-10-02T01:38:13.426-04:002014-10-02T01:38:13.426-04:00Congratulations! Something else to remember is th...Congratulations! Something else to remember is that peer review is blind, and so we really don't know what will help you, as we would with a reading group or if we're reading for a friend. So you try, but you are being constructive from your reading of an article which you may come at from left field. So sometimes the unhelpful reviews are unhelpful because they don't connect, sometimes,es because they reflect too much the writers own obsessions, and sometimes because the reviewer has just done a bad job. I think the one time I struggled with a review was when I was pretty sure I'd read another version of the article for another journal, and it appeared that nothing I said (and not "why didn't you cite me") had been taken into account, That's not to say reading from left field isn't helpful - it's a good reminder that people come to our work from all sorts of conversations - but of the author it may be strange.Susanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09716705206734059708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27054305.post-20949042128938939032014-10-01T14:10:33.455-04:002014-10-01T14:10:33.455-04:00Historiann:
Courage! I certainly couldn't hav...Historiann:<br /><br />Courage! I certainly couldn't have revised this again--at some point, there's just a problem of too many cooks, and it's impossible to take on board new ideas, even good ones. But I bet you have it in you.<br /><br />Also, for grad student readers and others daunted by the prospect (or the reality) of peer review, my friend Vim just drew my attention to <a href="http://dissflog.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/taking-the-lid-off-of-peer-review/" rel="nofollow">a post of hers</a> I'd missed over the summer that shows what she argues--and I agree--is a typical instance of peer-review-gone-frustrating, but not wrong. It's a nice reminder that for all the horror stories, the reality is more prosaic: lots of people working hard (unpaid, in borrowed hours), generously giving of their expertise.<br /><br />Her reviews are entirely in line with what I've seen 90% of the time. I <i>have</i> received curt, bland, brief reviews (once positive--I guess, though hardly effusive--and once negative), along with one insane rant and one reviewer dug into an absolutely untenable theory and refusing to accept even detailed proof to the contrary. But most of the time even my more obtuse and exasperating reviewers have clearly taken a lot of time, and thought hard about my work, however much they may have misunderstood its aims or wished it to be something else. <br /><br />And the helpful reviewers--well, it's hard to convey just how amazing it is when a total stranger spends long hours helping you think through your ideas and make them better. I had two external reviewers like that for my book, and 2.5 for this essay; neither work would have been nearly as good without their input.Flaviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17832765671541392835noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27054305.post-26456567201155886032014-10-01T12:23:38.589-04:002014-10-01T12:23:38.589-04:00Congratulations! Well done. I am sitting down th...Congratulations! Well done. I am sitting down this month to revise something that at this point I don't know if is revise-able in a convincing fashion. (Or rather, I don't know if I'm up to the job.) Your story gives me hope & maybe a kick in the seat.Historiannhttp://historiann.comnoreply@blogger.com