A minha vida com o doutoramento

aprendizagens para quando faço review

A light-hearted look at peer review, taken from the Wiley-Blackwell journal, Environmental Microbiology. Our referees, the Editorial Board Members and ad hoc reviewers, are busy, serious individuals who give selflessly of their precious time to improve manuscripts submitted to Environmental Microbiology. But, once in a while, their humor (or admiration) gets the better of them. Here are some quotes from reviews made over the past year.

- This paper is desperate. Please reject it completely and then block the author's email ID so they can't use the online system in future.

- The type of lava vs. diversity has no meaning if only one of each sample is analyzed; multiple samples are required for generality. This controls provenance (e.g. maybe some beetle took a pee on one or the other of the samples, seriously skewing relevance to lava composition).

- Very much enjoyed reading this one, and do not have any significant comments. Wish I had thought of this one.

- It is sad to see so much enthusiasm and effort go into analyzing a dataset that is just not big enough.

- The biggest problem with this manuscript, which has nearly sucked the will to live out of me, is the terrible writing style.

- The abstract and results read much like a laundry list.

- There was little I could think of to improve this nice paper.

- Ken, I would suggest that EM is setting up a fund that pays for the red wine reviewers may need to digest manuscripts like this one. (Ed.: this excellent suggestion was duly proposed to the Publisher. However, given the logistical difficulties of problem-solving within narrow time frames, combined with the known deleterious effect of transport on good wine, a modification of the remedy was adopted, namely that Editors would act as proxies for reviewers with said digestive complaints.)

- Merry X-mas! First, my recommendation was reject with new submission, because it is necessary to investigate further, but reading a well written manuscript before X-mas makes me feel like Santa Claus

- I have to admit that I would have liked to reject this paper because I found the tone in the Reply to the Reviewers so annoying. It may be irritating to deal with reviewer's comments (believe me, I know!) but it is not wise to let your irritation seep through every line you write!

- Season's Greetings! I apologise for my slow response but a roast goose prevented me from answering emails for a few days.

- I started to review this but could not get much past the abstract.

- Hopeless – Seems like they have been asleep and are not up on recent work on metagenomics.

- This paper is awfully written. There is no adequate objective and no reasonable conclusion. The literature is quoted at random and not in the context of argument. I have doubts about the methods and whether the effort of data gathering is sufficient to arrive at a useful conclusion.

- The main emphasis in the title is the use of a widely used method. This is not very exciting news. The authors are not to be blamed here. Based on titles seen in journals, many authors seem to be more fascinated these days by their methods than by their science. The authors should be encouraged to abstract the main scientific (i.e., novel) finding into the title.

- This is a long, but excellent report. I had considered asking for EMSAs, but these will not significantly improve the study. It hurts me a little to have so little criticism of a manuscript.

- Always dear EMI takes care of its referees, providing them with entertainment for the holiday time in between Xmas and New Year. Plus the server shows, as usual, its inhuman nature and continues to send reminding messages. Well, between playing tennis on the Wii, eating and drinking, I found time and some strength of mind to do this work.

- At the risk of appearing unkind, the authors' main selling point for this paper seems to be that it is the biggest soil pyrosequencing project so far. I fear we are entering a phase of repeating all of the studies carried out over the past 15 years, but now using pyrosequencing.

- I suppose that I should be happy that I don't have to spend a lot of time reviewing this dreadful paper; however I am depressed that people are performing such bad science.

- The ecological theory invoked appears more as an afterthought than the true driving ambition of the study.

(daqui)

Experienciado por Maria @ 8:44 da tarde