How NOT to review a paper. The tools and techniques of the adversarial reviewer
A paper by Graham Cormode (2009) [PDF], sent to me by Rene Garreaud. The abstract gives you a flavor of how this paper reads…. There are several useful guides available for how to review a paper in Computer Science. These are soberly presented, carefully reasoned and sensibly argued. As a result, they are not much … read more
Deep thoughts about editing
Not sure where I found this, but it’s classic!
The importance of proper citation
Just recently I discovered a published article that neglected to cite the whole field of the topic that they were investigating. The article did have citations to the statistical methods and other papers that were related to their work, but not a single paper had been cited that had performed the same statistical analyses that … read more
Baloney Detection Kit and brainpickings.org
This link from Bogdan Antonescu: The Baloney Detection Kit: A 10-Point Checklist for Science Literacy In fact, brainpickings.org has a lot of good posts about books, creativity, life, and writing. Enjoy surfing!
Rejected for publication: What now?
March 19, 2012 Filed under Blog, Featured, Popular, Publishing, Reviewing
So, your manuscript was rejected? Before you start firebombing the editor’s place of work and writing screeds on your blog, consider the following. Put yourself in the reviewer’s shoes. It may be hard to do so, but it is often the best way to understand what the reviewer is trying to communicate. If the reviewer … read more
The Boycott of Elsevier
February 27, 2012 Filed under Blog, Featured, Publishing, Reviewing
As pointed out by Chris Fairless in the comments on a recent blog post of mine, a movement has started to boycott Elsevier because of their aggressive business practices that hurt libraries and restrict information. The petition is called http://thecostofknowledge.com/ and started with a blog post here. You can take a stand by signing up … read more
Even the University President gets rejected
From the weekly update by University of Manchester President and Vice Chancellor Dame Nancy J. Rothwell, DBE, FRS: I had some bad news on the research publication front, my research group had a great paper rejected by completely unreasonable referees – they were obviously biased – or at least we think so. More work to … read more
Please don’t write multiple-part papers!
I’ve talked about this topic of writing multiple-part papers before. Earlier this year, I published an article about what the data show from Monthly Weather Review. Schultz, D. M., 2011: Rejection rates for multiple-part manuscripts. Scientometrics, 86, 251-259. [PDF] I found that although the rejection rates for multiple-part manuscripts were not that different from the … read more
For better outcomes in the review process, send your editor some food and drink
If the results from a recently published article on the factors affecting judges making parole decisions are analogous to that of a journal editor making accept/revise/reject decisions on manuscripts, then send your editor some food and encourage them to take a break. Danziger, S., J. Levav, and L. Avnaim-Pesso, 2011: Extraneous factors in judicial decisions. … read more
How to add line numbers to your manuscript
The journals of the American Meteorological Society now require line numbers in submitted manuscripts. How do you add such line numbers to your manuscript? From p. 374 of Eloquent Science: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Better Writer, Speaker and Scientist: “Final Checks of Your Manuscript,” “Lines numbered in margin”: You may wish to add … read more
