Science On Critique
posted by on January 28 at 11:15 AM
Right now, at this very moment, I am in the throes of the peer-review process—attempting to resubmit a manuscript for scientific publication.
The cynic’s description of the process: Other scientists in your field (your peers; your competitors) get to read your write-up anonymously and send you scurrying back to correct mistakes, flaws and weaknesses. The critiques fall into two broad categories: things legitimately wrong (“you’re missing a control for this experiment”) and bullshit (“this would be more interesting if you did some-impossible-experiment instead.”) Often your competitors send you off to do such an impossible task, giving them time to publish similar data in the meantime.
Its slightly less fun than being torn to shreds by Slog commenters after working for hours on a post.
The idealists impression: this back and forth is where science actually occurs, where the design and meaning of experiments are actually discussed, where actual leaps in human knowledge are born.
Looking for a style guide for cover letters, I came across the following Sample Cover Letter for Journal Manuscript Resubmission by Roy F. Baumeister:
Dear Sir, Madame, or Other:(emphasis added)Enclosed is our latest version of Ms # 85-02-22-RRRRR, that is, the re-re-re-revised revision of our paper. Choke on it. We have again rewritten the entire manuscript from start to finish. We even changed the goddamn running head! Hopefully we have suffered enough by now to satisfy even you and your bloodthirsty reviewers.
I shall skip the usual point-by-point description of every single change we made in response to the critiques. After all, it is fairly clear that your reviewers are less interested in details of scientific procedure than in working out their personality problems and sexual frustrations by seeking some kind of demented glee in the sadistic and arbitrary exercise of tyrannical power over helpless authors like ourselves who happen to fall into their clutches. We do understand that, in view of the misanthropic psychopaths you have on your editorial board, you need to keep sending them papers, for if they weren’t reviewing manuscripts they’d probably be out mugging old ladies or clubbing baby seals to death. Still, from this batch of reviewers, C was clearly the most hostile, and we request that you not ask him or her to review this revision. Indeed, we have mailed letter bombs to four or five people we suspected of being reviewer C, so if you send the manuscript back to them the review process could be unduly delayed.
Ha! Worth a read in entirety…
simply golden.
And what exactly is this Earth-shattering research that you're trying to get published? Knowing you. I can only imagine....
As someone currently sweating over an approaching conference paper deadline in between occasional Slog visits, I love it.
Hah! I feel your pain.
working for hours on a slog post? seriously?
Brilliant!
@5 Some of them. This one took all of ten minutes. I've spent hours researching a not-yet-posted one on clean coal, however.
@2. Chromatin changes during early mouse and human embryonic stem cell differentiation, with a particular focus on histone tail modification at the Brachyury T locus. Thanks for asking!
I'm with BA. Anybody Who spends hours on a Slog post has serious problems (did you hear that, Charles?).
Chaz only spends hours on them because he is high, and because he scans thousands of google images before posting just 3 of them.
Unless you're on revision 42 or more, stop whining.
that was awesome...however you need a subsequent letter on "now that you have accepted my paper for publication when are you going to publish it" it can address questions like, why should this take 2 years, and why can't i release any of my data yet (particularly when the health field moves so fast that when this is released it will already be old...makely it more ilrelevant to policy considerations)
I found the review process to be quite rewarding. The sort of back and forth argumentation that you have between reviewers and authors is what I expected to find more of when I went into science. Sadly, the day to day of science is much more mundane and workaday, largely without that dialectic component.
Will any of this research move us closer to flying cars or, better yet, teleportation?
@13: No, but maybe when your liver wears out, doctors could grow you a new one.
@14 In the battle of flying car while young vs replacement liver when old, flying car wins.
PA Native @13 & @15,
It sounds like something that might keep you alive and young-at-heart longer, increasing your chance of enjoying a flying car whenever it arrives.
@16...if, indeed, it is published in time to actually be relevant..
Hang on a sec; when has anyone ever torn a Jonathan Golob slog post to shreds?
Fnarf:
http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/09/scientifically_analyzing_an_unscientific
That's not a shred-tearing. That's about as mean as a green bell pepper. In order for Jonathan's complaints to have any validity, he's going to have to post something really controversial ("Obama is technically a woman"), so he can feel the real burn.
You have a point there, Fnarf. I can only imagine that things like "Obama is technically a woman" tend to get pruned out over the course of young Jonathan's several-hours-long SLOG post composition process.
Between being a research student and (attempting to) publish, how do you possibly find time to post on slog? What kind of priority list are you working with here? (Of course, I appreciate your slog posts!)
I remember whe
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).