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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
Quick Guide to Writing a Solid Peer Review
Nicholas and Gordon, writing in EOS, offer up one of the best summaries of how to write a peer review I’ve read. Download that article from here.
“This issue was not raised by the other reviewers, so we prefer not to address it.”
As a reviewer and an editor, I occasionally see an author respond to a reviewer comment with the above response: “This issue was not raised by the other reviewers, so we prefer not to address it.” This response has always bothered me, but I didn’t know why. After thinking about it recently, now I know […]
Offensive and Defensive Writing: The Secret to Getting Your Manuscript Published?
In a recent email conversation with my friend John Knox, he mentioned a game that he played by trying to spot the parts of the text in a scientific article that the author added specifically to address reviewers’ concerns. I have to admit to playing the same game at times. John’s point was that the […]
Take the Pledge: I Won’t Use Map-room Jargon!
If you regularly attend discussions in the weather-map room, subscribe to weather or storm-chaser discussion lists, or have reviewed articles for Weather, Monthly Weather Review, National Weather Digest, or Weather and Forecasting, then you have been exposed to it. Map-room jargon. Often the speakers of map-room jargon don’t even know what they are doing. (I […]
Guidelines for Authors, Editors, and Reviewers
This statement was adopted by the Council of the American Meteorological Society on 22 September 2010. It was largely derived from guidelines that were published by the American Chemical Society and were also adopted by the American Geophysical Union. Publications Commissioner David Jorgensen deserves a lot of credit for bringing these guidelines to the Council. […]
