6 ms·

I reviewed a submission (review paper) to a top journal recently. It took a lot of time, and I responded with seven pages of recommendations, comments, and corr

I reviewed a submission (review paper) to a top journal recently. It took a lot of time, and I responded with seven pages of recommendations, comments, and corrections. My recommendation was to transfer it to a more specialist journal from the same publisher. Afterwards I was wondering "why the hell am I doing this for free when my friends are getting rich?"

barry-cotter 5y ago
you weren't doing it for free. Service is part of the job of an academic, along with research and teaching.
chrisseaton 5y ago
> "why the hell am I doing this for free when my friends are getting rich?" If you're employed as a researcher, then it's (implicitly) a paid part of your job to review papers. We all contribute to the community so that we give and taken equally. Someone who is taking peer-review but not giving any is being very selfish.
- borroka 5y ago
  Which (taking the peer-review but not giving it) is what is done by most established scientists. Thoughtful reviews are much more likely to be delivered by early-career scientists (post-doc, mostly, since Assistant Professors are very time-constrained). Being selfish in academia is an evolutionarily stable strategy.
- Jensson 5y ago
  > Someone who is taking peer-review but not giving any is being very selfish. You mean like the publisher that makes you work for free and then comes back selling your work to you for a ton of money?
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > the publisher that makes you work for free They don't make you do anything. I don't even understand under what mechanism you think publishers are making people do things? And you aren't working for the publisher - you're working for the community, paid by your employer. > selling your work to you They don't sell my reviews or my papers to me.
    - nmfisher 5y ago
      But isn’t the “value” of a journal in the supposed quality of its publications? And the strength of its review process is a highly influential in maintaining that quality? If so, I’d say the publisher definitely is exploiting academics for free review.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      You do realize that modern academic journals with these peer reviews didn't exist until pretty recently? Science doesn't need them, you can review papers publicly and actually contribute to the community, but instead these publishers convinced scientists that the publisher is the science instead of the other way around. Read Nature's original mission statement, does this sound like the publisher we know today? > It is intended, FIRST, to place before the general public the grand results of Scientific Work and Scientific Discovery; and to urge the claims of Science to a more general recognition in Education and in Daily Life; and, SECONDLY, to aid Scientific men themselves, by giving early information of all advances made in any branch of Natural knowledge throughout the world, and by affording them an opportunity of discussing the various Scientific questions which arise from time to time. https://media.nature.com/full/nature-cms/uploads/ckeditor/attachments/7568/mission.pdf https://media.nature.com/full/nature-cms/uploads/ckeditor/at...
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        I'm not sure which of my points you're responding to? I'd agree with all of that already.
- eesmith 5y ago
  Why is it not explicitly part of a researcher's job? You know how we know your claim isn't true? If an employed researcher says "no" to a review request, there are no negative job consequences. I've not heard of employers keeping track of how many papers each employee has reviewed, much less using that information in promotion or bonus schemes. While I have heard of employers using the employee's number of published papers that way.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    When you apply for a promotion and they ask what your community service has been and you say you haven’t done any you’re not going to be in a good position if you work at the same kind of institutions as most junior researchers.
    - dbcooper 5y ago
      No one cares. It's publications, grants, and patents.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        > No one cares. Why do think anyone does it then?
        eesmith 5y ago
        - they see it as a personal duty / tit-for-tat / social contract since their own papers need to be be peer-reviewed - friendship with the editors, who have asked them to do the review - belief that providing peer review for a journal helps weigh the scales in their favor when publishing in the journal - or even be a path to becoming an editor for the journal - a way to keep up with the field - they love to criticize and nitpick, and peer-review comments are more likely to get a reaction than HN - desire to be a gatekeeper Those are the ones I've come up with on the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.
        5y ago
- evandijk70 5y ago
  I am not sure this is the case - My job is to perform and disseminate research to the community. To do this I submit my research to a journal, and my employer pays for them to review and edit it. Nowhere in my job prescription nor when I submit to the journal it is stated that I am expected to review, and I do not view it as my moral obligation to review. If there is a shortage of reviewers, I am sure journals will start paying them (as they should).
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > my employer pays for them to review and edit it You don’t pay them to do this… because they don’t do it! The community does it via peer-review.
    - evandijk70 5y ago
      Well, the community is recruited to volunteer by the journals. The red cross also raises funds by recruiting volunteers to go door to door.
- austinjp 5y ago
  It should be explicit. The time required should be protected and remunerated accordingly. It's not. Instead, it's unbounded in terms of time and effort, and hence allows unbounded amounts of pressure to be applied. There's a "bullied child" mentality in academia: I went through it, now you have to go through it too. It's ridiculous and unsustainable.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > it's unbounded in terms of time and effort, Contribute back at least as much reviewing as you consume. For example if you submit one paper and get five reviews, contribute back at least five reviews. Or do you think you should get reviews without contributing anything back?
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      Should the journal expect free reviewing if the journal itself isn’t free? Social obligation ought to go both ways.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        You get reviews for free, so you give reviews for free. It does go both ways.
        austinjp 5y ago
        Nah. Reviews tend to cost thousands of $CURRENCY as part of the publishing costs, while reviewers give their personal time, thereby losing cash and/or time.
        Robotbeat 5y ago
        The taxpayer pays for most of this stuff. They already paid for all of it by providing the salaries of the researchers and the reviewers. Now the rent-seeking publishers want to charge them all an additional toll.
    - 5y ago
montecarl 5y ago
I also just reviewed a massive review article. Just thoroughly reading through it once and noting what I thought the main issues were took several hours. Writing up my comments took a few more. It ended up being rejected for publication. By the end I wasn't quite sure why I participated. I don't work for a university; I work for a small company and it certainly isn't part of my paid work! I guess I view it as a certain professional responsibility (almost like jury duty is), but it doesn't really scale well.
- dbcooper 5y ago
  Yeah, I take it as a professional or civic duty. I'm a junior professor, and am currently not getting paid while I wait until I can return to my campus. Covid has done a number on my lab, so I don't have a suitable grad student to help me at the moment. The company who publishes the journal makes plenty of money ...
  - dbcooper 5y ago
    Another publishing anecdote for the thread: One of the big publishers asked me to write a chapter of a bioengineering textbook. Compensation? Digital access to the book for 12 months. Not even a hardcopy!
    - siva7 5y ago
      I think you got it wrong. The compensation is exposure which is important for most academics.
      - dbcooper 5y ago
        A chapter in a crappy text is worthless for tenure, grants etc. It doesn't count at all for meeting your publication goals.
      - Robotbeat 5y ago
        “Exposure.” That’s what we tell interns and wannabe artists when we give them unpaid jobs or use their work for free. And that has become kind of frowned upon as of the last 5 years, so perhaps should doing massive amounts of work for free for a non-free-access publication.

barry-cotter 5y ago

you weren't doing it for free. Service is part of the job of an academic, along with research and teaching.

chrisseaton 5y ago

> "why the hell am I doing this for free when my friends are getting rich?" If you're employed as a researcher, then it's (implicitly) a paid part of your job to review papers. We all contribute to the community so that we give and taken equally. Someone who is taking peer-review but not giving any is being very selfish.

borroka 5y ago
Which (taking the peer-review but not giving it) is what is done by most established scientists. Thoughtful reviews are much more likely to be delivered by early-career scientists (post-doc, mostly, since Assistant Professors are very time-constrained). Being selfish in academia is an evolutionarily stable strategy.
Jensson 5y ago
> Someone who is taking peer-review but not giving any is being very selfish. You mean like the publisher that makes you work for free and then comes back selling your work to you for a ton of money?
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > the publisher that makes you work for free They don't make you do anything. I don't even understand under what mechanism you think publishers are making people do things? And you aren't working for the publisher - you're working for the community, paid by your employer. > selling your work to you They don't sell my reviews or my papers to me.
  - nmfisher 5y ago
    But isn’t the “value” of a journal in the supposed quality of its publications? And the strength of its review process is a highly influential in maintaining that quality? If so, I’d say the publisher definitely is exploiting academics for free review.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    You do realize that modern academic journals with these peer reviews didn't exist until pretty recently? Science doesn't need them, you can review papers publicly and actually contribute to the community, but instead these publishers convinced scientists that the publisher is the science instead of the other way around. Read Nature's original mission statement, does this sound like the publisher we know today? > It is intended, FIRST, to place before the general public the grand results of Scientific Work and Scientific Discovery; and to urge the claims of Science to a more general recognition in Education and in Daily Life; and, SECONDLY, to aid Scientific men themselves, by giving early information of all advances made in any branch of Natural knowledge throughout the world, and by affording them an opportunity of discussing the various Scientific questions which arise from time to time. https://media.nature.com/full/nature-cms/uploads/ckeditor/attachments/7568/mission.pdf https://media.nature.com/full/nature-cms/uploads/ckeditor/at...
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      I'm not sure which of my points you're responding to? I'd agree with all of that already.
eesmith 5y ago
Why is it not explicitly part of a researcher's job? You know how we know your claim isn't true? If an employed researcher says "no" to a review request, there are no negative job consequences. I've not heard of employers keeping track of how many papers each employee has reviewed, much less using that information in promotion or bonus schemes. While I have heard of employers using the employee's number of published papers that way.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  When you apply for a promotion and they ask what your community service has been and you say you haven’t done any you’re not going to be in a good position if you work at the same kind of institutions as most junior researchers.
  - dbcooper 5y ago
    No one cares. It's publications, grants, and patents.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > No one cares. Why do think anyone does it then?
      - eesmith 5y ago
        - they see it as a personal duty / tit-for-tat / social contract since their own papers need to be be peer-reviewed - friendship with the editors, who have asked them to do the review - belief that providing peer review for a journal helps weigh the scales in their favor when publishing in the journal - or even be a path to becoming an editor for the journal - a way to keep up with the field - they love to criticize and nitpick, and peer-review comments are more likely to get a reaction than HN - desire to be a gatekeeper Those are the ones I've come up with on the top of my head. I'm sure there are others.
        5y ago
evandijk70 5y ago
I am not sure this is the case - My job is to perform and disseminate research to the community. To do this I submit my research to a journal, and my employer pays for them to review and edit it. Nowhere in my job prescription nor when I submit to the journal it is stated that I am expected to review, and I do not view it as my moral obligation to review. If there is a shortage of reviewers, I am sure journals will start paying them (as they should).
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > my employer pays for them to review and edit it You don’t pay them to do this… because they don’t do it! The community does it via peer-review.
  - evandijk70 5y ago
    Well, the community is recruited to volunteer by the journals. The red cross also raises funds by recruiting volunteers to go door to door.
austinjp 5y ago
It should be explicit. The time required should be protected and remunerated accordingly. It's not. Instead, it's unbounded in terms of time and effort, and hence allows unbounded amounts of pressure to be applied. There's a "bullied child" mentality in academia: I went through it, now you have to go through it too. It's ridiculous and unsustainable.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > it's unbounded in terms of time and effort, Contribute back at least as much reviewing as you consume. For example if you submit one paper and get five reviews, contribute back at least five reviews. Or do you think you should get reviews without contributing anything back?
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Should the journal expect free reviewing if the journal itself isn’t free? Social obligation ought to go both ways.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      You get reviews for free, so you give reviews for free. It does go both ways.
      - austinjp 5y ago
        Nah. Reviews tend to cost thousands of $CURRENCY as part of the publishing costs, while reviewers give their personal time, thereby losing cash and/or time.
      - Robotbeat 5y ago
        The taxpayer pays for most of this stuff. They already paid for all of it by providing the salaries of the researchers and the reviewers. Now the rent-seeking publishers want to charge them all an additional toll.
  - 5y ago

montecarl 5y ago

I also just reviewed a massive review article. Just thoroughly reading through it once and noting what I thought the main issues were took several hours. Writing up my comments took a few more. It ended up being rejected for publication. By the end I wasn't quite sure why I participated. I don't work for a university; I work for a small company and it certainly isn't part of my paid work! I guess I view it as a certain professional responsibility (almost like jury duty is), but it doesn't really scale well.

dbcooper 5y ago
Yeah, I take it as a professional or civic duty. I'm a junior professor, and am currently not getting paid while I wait until I can return to my campus. Covid has done a number on my lab, so I don't have a suitable grad student to help me at the moment. The company who publishes the journal makes plenty of money ...
- dbcooper 5y ago
  Another publishing anecdote for the thread: One of the big publishers asked me to write a chapter of a bioengineering textbook. Compensation? Digital access to the book for 12 months. Not even a hardcopy!
  - siva7 5y ago
    I think you got it wrong. The compensation is exposure which is important for most academics.
    - dbcooper 5y ago
      A chapter in a crappy text is worthless for tenure, grants etc. It doesn't count at all for meeting your publication goals.
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      “Exposure.” That’s what we tell interns and wannabe artists when we give them unpaid jobs or use their work for free. And that has become kind of frowned upon as of the last 5 years, so perhaps should doing massive amounts of work for free for a non-free-access publication.