Is it OK to mentor someone who is writing a peer review?
March 15, 2013 Filed under Blog, Featured, Publishing, Reviewing, Uncategorized
Brian Curran asks: I would like to hear your thoughts regarding the review process and young (or inexperienced) reviewers. I’ve reviewed just a handful of manuscripts, so it’s safe to say I’m inexperienced. Having a mentor or two guiding us relatively inexperienced reviewers through the process might prove to be beneficial and could serve to […]
An example of why hyphens are necessary
The following is an excerpt from an email sent to staff at the University of Manchester. As part of the University’s commitment to creating change in gender equality across the University we are running a half day unconscious bias training session focussed on recruitment and promotion. The following is how it should have been punctuated […]
Reviewer wants “media-friendly schematic”
This comment appeared in a review of a paper for which I am serving as Editor. “I suggest creating a media-friendly schematic showing the basic conclusions of how ….” Given all the recent publicity about …, I believe this paper will attract media interest, and a schematic like this will be useful for explaining the […]
Can I resubmit a rejected manuscript to the same journal?
It depends. Most of the time, rejected manuscripts can be resubmitted to the same American Meteorological Society (AMS) journal if the concerns of the reviewers are addressed in a response to the reviewers in your cover letter. Usually, the decision letter will say something like this: “Although your manuscript is being rejected, I invite you […]
Dead salmon have meaningful brain activity, or how to get scientists to stop using outdated methods
We’ve all seen in our science bad approaches or terminology that get established and are difficult to kill. Chuck Doswell has his pet peeves, I’ve battled against my share: conditional symmetric instability to explain banded precipitation and moisture flux convergence as a diagnostic for severe storms forecasting. Bennett et al. were awarded the 2012 Ig […]
An example of an excellent figure
I had been showing this figure to several students recently about an effective way to plot a lot of spatial data without the figure looking cluttered. I think this is one excellent way to do it. The plots are all ordered around the perimeter of the map, yet the points take you to the locations […]
Eloquent Science eBook and PDF chapters
For those who want a digital copy of Eloquent Science, the book is now available through Springer for immediate PDF download (no copy protection, watermarked). The price (as of 26 February 2013) is £22.99 / $39.95 / €29.74. If you are at an educational institution, your library may have purchased the rights to the whole […]
Accepted at Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics after nearly two and half years
February 22, 2013 Filed under Blog, Featured, Publishing
On 25 January 2013, 904 days from the date it was submitted (5 August 2010), a manuscript was finally published at Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Not only was this manuscript noteworthy for how long it remained in limbo before a final thumbs up or thumbs down from the Editor, but it was noteworthy for other […]
Can you explain your science using the 1000 most-used words in the English language?
Give it a shot here: http://splasho.com/upgoer5/ (The title Up Goer 5 refers to xkcd’s comic of trying to explain the Saturn 5 rocket blueprint using only those 1000 words.) (From Jim Steenburgh and his student John; Image from xkcd.com.)
The Editor’s Royal Flush
Lately, I’ve been seeing quite a few manuscripts sent out for review that receive one of the following sets of reviews: • reject, accept, major revisions • reject, minor revisions, major revisions I guess these are the equivalent of a royal flush in cards, although I’m not sure the result is as hoped for by […]
