Friday Foolery #39. Peer Review LOL, How to Write a Comment & The Best Rejection Letter Evvah!

LOL? Peer review?! Comments?

Peer review is never funny, you think.
It is hard to review papers, especially when they are poorly written. From the author’s point of view, it is annoying and frustrating to see a paper rejected on basis of comments of peer reviewers, who either don’t understand the paper or thwart you in your attempts to get the paper published, for instance because you are a competitor in the field.

Still, from a (great) distance the peer review process can be funny… in some respects.

Read for instance a collection of memorable quotes from peer review critiques of the past year in Environmental Microbiology (EM does this each December). Here are some excerpts:

• Done! Difficult task, I don’t wish to think about constipation and faecal flora during my holidays!
• 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.
• It is sad to see so much enthusiasm and effort go into analyzing a dataset that is just not big enough.
• The abstract and results read much like a laundry list.
• .. 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.
• 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.
• I started to review this but could not get much past the abstract.
• 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…
• Stating that the study is confirmative is not a good start for the Discussion.
• 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.
• Preliminary and intriguing results that should be published elsewhere.
• Reject – More holes than my grandad’s string vest!
• The writing and data presentation are so bad that I had to leave work and go home early and then spend time to wonder what life is about.
• Very much enjoyed reading this one, and do not have any significant comments. Wish I had thought of this one.
• This is a long, but excellent report. […] It hurts me a little to have so little criticism of a manuscript.

More seriously, the Top 20 Reasons (Negative Comments) Written by the Reviewers Recommending Rejection of 123 Medical Education Manuscripts can be found at Academic Medicine (vol 76, no . 9 / 2 0 0 1). The top 5 is:

1. Statistics: inappropriate, incomplete, or insufficiently described, etc.  11.2 %
2. Overinterpretation of the results 8.7 %
3. Inappropriate, suboptimal, insufficiently described instrument 7.3%
4. Sample too small or biased  5.6 %
5. Text difficult to follow, to understand 3.9%

Neuroskeptic describes 9 types of review decisions in the The Wheel of Peer Review. Was your paper reviewed by “Bee-in-your-Bonnet” or by “Cite Me, Me, Me!”

Rejections are of all times. Perhaps the best rejection letter ever is written by Sir David Brewster editor of The Edinburgh Journal of Science to Charles Babbage on July 3, 1821. Noted in James Gleick’s, The Information. A History, a Theory, a Flood

Excerpt at Marginal Revolution (HT @TwistedBacteria):

The subjects you propose for a series of Mathematical and Metaphysical Essays are so very profound, that there is perhaps not a single subscriber to our Journal who could follow them. 

Responses to a rejection are also of all ages. See this video anno 1945 (yes this scene has been used tons of times for other purposes)

Need tips?

Read How to Publish a Scientific Comment in 1 2 3 Easy Steps (well literally 123 steps) by Prof. Rick Trebino. Based on real life. It is Hilarious!

PhD comics made a paper review worksheet (you don’t even have to read the manuscript!) and gives you advise how NOT to address reviewer comments. LOL.

And here is a Sample Cover Letter for Journal Manuscript Resubmissions. Ain’t that easy?

Yet if you are still unsuccessful and want a definitive decision rendered within hours of submission you can always send your paper to the Journal of Universal Rejection.

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