The Joy of Peer Review
or
My Favorite Comments from Editors and Reviewers
Comments in blue are exact quotes. Black is
for additions, comments, or paraphrasing by me
The page was inspired by a
similar
page made by Butch
Brodie III at Indiana University
The Funny - Some things probably should not be said, whether you think them or not.
Oikos 67:
577-581 (1993)
... the explanation is interesting, and worth stating (but)
I didn't need to read the paper to get the point. -
From a reviewer (the paper was accepted with minimal revision).
Annals of
the Entomological Society of America 88: 100-103 (1995)
This is still a most unexciting paper, but it is probably useful to confirm
experimentally what everyone knows intuitively. And so I accept it for the
Annals. - Acceptance letter from the editor.
Annals of
the Entomological Society of America 87: 395-398 (1994)
I've only done a bit of editing, mostly because an editor
is supposed to do something. - Acceptance letter from the editor.
The Bad - These are the comments from editors or reviewers that I really hated. There are definitely no warm and fuzzies in this section.
NSF grant
proposal (1998)
The harshest and most insulting review I have ever received was of a grant
proposal that was funded by NSF on its first submission (all other reviewers
were very positive). Here are just a couple comments from that insightful
review:
- Many insect workers have taken the view that the
variation they see must be adaptive, and that it is only a matter of doing
studies to show that indeed it is. Vertebrate workers lack this bias. - I
guess we insect biologists are much more naive than vertebrate biologist. We'll
have to work on that.
- Fox seems to have an enlarged view of the significance
of his work. - This was a grant proposal. I am supposed to explain why
this work deserves funding, not why other people are better and more important
scientists than me.
- Fox's productivity in terms of number of papers
is impressive (but) there is nothing new in any of
his work. - Until this review I had thought I did at least something
useful at some point in my career. Maybe I should have been a sportswriter.
Evolutionary
Ecology Research 5: 999-1009 (2003)
This paper was rejected from the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, but
accepted by Evolutionary Ecology Research with only minor revision.
- Reviewer 1 for the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London starts with
The point is so elementary that it does not
require a manuscript of this length to develop it but then goes on to
prove he/she doesn't get the point by saying
that
Although many quantitative traits are indeed normally
distributed, there is no fundamental reason why this should be so and in
particular why it should be so for lifespan. – This was especially
frustrating because we spend nearly half the paper explaining this specific
point.
- Reviewer 2 for the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London:
The trouble with the authors' suggestion in the manuscript
is that it asks the reader to set this concept aside in favour of the seemingly
arbitrary assertion that lifespan is normally distributed ... This is asking a
lot. (“this concept” refers to the assumption that mortality rates should
increase exponentially with age within populations) – Again, the assumption of
normality is not arbitrary and is the focus of almost half of the manuscript.
And yes, setting aside "this concept" is the main point of the paper.
The reviewer also notes that It also has to be said that
the observation is not particularly new (I have debated it with students quite
often in the past) although in fairness to the present authors I do not recall
seeing it in print.
- Fortunately, the paper fared better at EER. From the editor of Evolutionary
Ecology Research: I am happy to accept you revised version
for EER. I think that it will cause quite a stir in the senescence literature.
Based on prior reviews, it will probably just convince many demographers
that I am an idiot.
The Good - The best reviews/letters I have gotten. Unfortunately, even I don't agree with most of them, but it is still feels good to get comments like this.
Ecology 82: 2790-2804 (2001)
This is probably my favorite letter from an editor:
It is with great regret that I must inform you that your
submission to Ecology (MS00-431, "Variation in plant resistance...") will be
accepted, pending revision. My regrets are motivated, of course, by your
excessive profile in the literature. Nothing would have given more pleasure than
to reject the paper, but the excellent reviews, and my own opinion of the work,
make this impossible. This really is the letter from the editor. I didn't
edit it at all! I swear!
Oecologia
97: 382-389 (1994)
This is probably my second favorite letter from an editor:
I went through the paper, trying to find something wrong with the manuscript,
because that is what editors do. Then I tried to think of changes I could ask
you to make because the other thing editors do is slow up the publication
process by requesting revisions. I failed at both of these ... Consequently, I
have violated all traditions (and recommend) that
your manuscript be published exactly as is. The results are not
earth-shattering, but the paper is beautifully written ...
In fact, the paper is so well-crafted that it may become a classic. I will start
recommending it to my graduate students. You have done such a good job that I
now want to go back and read all your other papers. - The paper was
accepted without revision. However, in a cursory review of the citation history
of my papers, I have found no evidence that the editor who wrote this letter
ever cited this or any of my other papers. In fact, this paper has been cited
only 9 times since publication in 1994 (as of 2004). So much for my first
classic paper. Unfortunately, it has been downhill ever since - no editor has
since suggested I may have written a classic, though another editor suggested I
may have developed a "classic" method.
Animal
Behaviour 56: 953-961 (1998)
I didn't write this paper (I am second author) but I will be selfish and
claim at least some credit: This manuscript is probably
the closest I have come to recommending that a paper be accepted for publication
without any revision. - A review for a paper submitted to and accepted
with minor revision. Unfortunately, the review goes on for two more pages of
detailed comments, substantially longer than the other review.
Evolutionary Ecology Research 5:
273-286 (2003)
I am very happy to accept the paper ... I think that the method ... is very
ingenious and should be a real "classic" because it addresses a fundamental
problem and provides a practical method of attack. But, one reviewer for
Ecological Entomology (which rejected the paper) didn't agree:
I felt a bit cheated here ... It was almost as if the
authors were trying to sneak this study in to readers expecting something else!
Similar Pages by Other People:
Butch Brodie's Ghost of Reviewer's Past
Commentaries on the Review Process (serious):
The Thrill of the Paper, the Agony of the Review (from Science) (Part 1; Part 2)
Commentaries/jokes about the Review Process (humorous):