Godwin’s Law for Emails to Journal Editors

“…there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.” – Wikipedia entry for Godwin’s Law I am proposing a corollary: Godwin’s Law for Emails to Journal Editors. If […]

Should peer reviewers be suggested by authors?

A recent editorial by Mounir Fawzi in Middle East Current Psychiatry asks the above question. The paper concludes: Traditionally, peer reviewers are designated by the editor. However, a recent trend, which is followed by the MECPsych, is to give authors an opportunity to suggest reviewers for their manuscripts. A few studies have compared author-suggested reviewers […]

A note on good research practice: Dooley (2013)

An editorial in the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control is entitled “A note on good research practice.” Dooley states: By far the most common issue we editors of this journal are seeing in terms of poor scientific practice in submissions is the failure to appropriately cite the work of others. Sadly, we see numerous […]

The Golden Rule of Reviewing

The Golden Rule If you submit N papers per year, you should perform 2N to 3N per year. It is only the right thing to do. If you impose a submission onto the peer-reviewing system, then you owe it to the system to perform two or three reviews to make up for it. The peer-reviewing […]

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 […]

Accepted at Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics after nearly two and half years

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 […]

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 […]

Rejected for publication: What now?

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 […]

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. […]

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