3 ms·

I have no serious involvement in academia. What is the proportion of work that gets reviewed by someone with an axe to grind? I don’t doubt that it happens regu

by cirgue 4y ago

I have no serious involvement in academia. What is the proportion of work that gets reviewed by someone with an axe to grind? I don’t doubt that it happens regularly but I have no conception of the magnitude of the problem.

nextos 4y ago
In experimental fields, when submitting to Nature / Science / Cell, it's likely that your work ends up getting reviewed by someone who sees you as a competitor (this mentality drives me mad). Hence, they will sometimes try to make sure you don't publish or at least get downgraded to sister journals, such as Nature Communications. Another problem are editorial decisions. Great work is often desk rejected because it's judged not to be significant or interersting enough (usually the author comes from a less prominent university). For example, the original CRISPR article was desk rejected by most journals and the fact that the author's affiliation was a no-name research centre in Alicante (Spain) surely played a role. This delayed CRISPR getting widely known by a few years...
- SlickNixon 4y ago
  >For example, the original CRISPR article was desk rejected by most journals and the fact that the author's affiliation was a no-name research centre in Alicante (Spain) surely played a role. This delayed CRISPR getting widely known by a few years... This is interesting. Has there been a write up on this saga anywhere?
  - nextos 4y ago
    I can't find better writeups at the minute, but this is a good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Mojica#CRISPR_as_a_microbial_immune_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Mojica#CRISPR_as_a_m...
gjulianm 4y ago
In my experience, about 30-40% of the reviews I've seen are a mix between "axe to grind" and "I have no idea what I'm talking about". Some are extremely blatant, such as reviewers "suggesting" you should cite a certain paper that isn't really related to your work. Others are very strict with the "this is just practical knowledge so it doesn't advance the science", and then there's the set of "I didn't understand the paper so I'm going to criticize it based on my misconceptions of it and reject it". I'm so glad to be out of that world, to be honest.
- bumby 4y ago
  My favorite anecdote is from Adam Grant, who once got a snarky reply from a reviewer that "the author would do well to familiarize themselves with the work of Adam Grant."
yodsanklai 4y ago
A lot of authors are also very sensitive to negative feedback. How many times did I hear "the reviewer doesn't like us" when the feedback was legitimate.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

by cirgue 4y ago

nextos 4y ago

In experimental fields, when submitting to Nature / Science / Cell, it's likely that your work ends up getting reviewed by someone who sees you as a competitor (this mentality drives me mad). Hence, they will sometimes try to make sure you don't publish or at least get downgraded to sister journals, such as Nature Communications. Another problem are editorial decisions. Great work is often desk rejected because it's judged not to be significant or interersting enough (usually the author comes from a less prominent university). For example, the original CRISPR article was desk rejected by most journals and the fact that the author's affiliation was a no-name research centre in Alicante (Spain) surely played a role. This delayed CRISPR getting widely known by a few years...

SlickNixon 4y ago
>For example, the original CRISPR article was desk rejected by most journals and the fact that the author's affiliation was a no-name research centre in Alicante (Spain) surely played a role. This delayed CRISPR getting widely known by a few years... This is interesting. Has there been a write up on this saga anywhere?
- nextos 4y ago
  I can't find better writeups at the minute, but this is a good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Mojica#CRISPR_as_a_microbial_immune_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Mojica#CRISPR_as_a_m...

gjulianm 4y ago

In my experience, about 30-40% of the reviews I've seen are a mix between "axe to grind" and "I have no idea what I'm talking about". Some are extremely blatant, such as reviewers "suggesting" you should cite a certain paper that isn't really related to your work. Others are very strict with the "this is just practical knowledge so it doesn't advance the science", and then there's the set of "I didn't understand the paper so I'm going to criticize it based on my misconceptions of it and reject it". I'm so glad to be out of that world, to be honest.

bumby 4y ago
My favorite anecdote is from Adam Grant, who once got a snarky reply from a reviewer that "the author would do well to familiarize themselves with the work of Adam Grant."

yodsanklai 4y ago

A lot of authors are also very sensitive to negative feedback. How many times did I hear "the reviewer doesn't like us" when the feedback was legitimate.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]