Man, reviewers..

[Justanothergrad]

Venting alert.

I swear I have the worst luck with always getting reviewer 2 (often twice in a single review) and I have to find nice ways to respond to bitter/insulting/oddly specific requirement inducing comments. It frustrates me to no end to see stuff like "If the authors have any knowledge about this topic and bother to read the literature they will..", especially when one of the largest names in that area is a co-author on that paper. Like, come on - don't be a jackass. You can disagree with stuff without it sounding unprofessional/intentionally insulting. Alternatively, some of the criteria confuses me, like "This study is limited because it uses only a two year national sample".

It makes me wonder about how useful a totally blind review is due to masking effects.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

It’s been ~6mon since i’ve submitted a manuscript or had anything under review...and it’s been glorious. No checking my email at weird times because I want to know if there has been an update status, reading through conflicting comments and trying to respond without including a gutteral yell of frustration, and I haven’t even questioned the benefit/cost of going through the entire process...since the last time I submitted something.

Progress!

 

[MCParent]

I gave a nasty review once. The authors cited a L'Oreal skin care ad that had a statistic on it (8 or 10 women prefer... whatever) as evidence for their hypotheses. I wanted them to feel bad.

 

[PsyDr]

I gave a nasty review once. The authors cited a L'Oreal skin care ad that had a statistic on it (8 or 10 women prefer... whatever) as evidence for their hypotheses. I wanted them to feel bad.

damn, I thought I was harsh when reviewing some stuff from an online school person.

 

[WisNeuro]

I gave a nasty review once. The authors cited a L'Oreal skin care ad that had a statistic on it (8 or 10 women prefer... whatever) as evidence for their hypotheses. I wanted them to feel bad.

did they also cite Wikipedia multiple times?

 

[Pragma]

Admittedly, sometimes as a reviewer, it can be easy to get a little over the top with criticism. I've been on both sides of it. But some things I have reviewed have been really, REALLY bad. I never go personal, but I'll say if I think the design or the analyses make no sense and shouldn't be accepted.

Sometimes, editors see some reviewer comments as unreasonable. If you can try to address the review as well as you can, and tactfully deal with the reviews, then you might still come out published. That's happened for me a couple of times in the recent past.

 

[WisNeuro]

Admittedly, sometimes as a reviewer, it can be easy to get a little over the top with criticism. I've been on both sides of it. But some things I have reviewed have been really, REALLY bad. I never go personal, but I'll say if I think the design or the analyses make no sense and shouldn't be accepted.

Sometimes, editors see some reviewer comments as unreasonable. If you can try to address the review as well as you can, and tactfully deal with the reviews, then you might still come out published. That's happened for me a couple of times in the recent past.

The nastiest I ever was as a reviewer was a draft that the managing editor should have rejected outright. The writers did not understand the extant literature at all and it was more poorly written than what I was used to when I taught research methods.

 

[Pragma]

One of those wonderful journal tricks I've seen before is having the managing editor email you asking for you to do a review, within about 1 week of you submitting a paper that is currently under consideration. Harder to say no under those circumstances!

 

[mlwg1]

I've got a revision due on Friday so this has definitely been on my mind.

When reviewing, I blame the editor if a paper that is remarkably sub-par (makes no sense, remedial-level writing) gets through to me. In any event, some reviewers take the authors' work personally, and kind of lash out in their response. I don't get that.

I'd say most reviewers are civil, but I like to directly quote mean reviewer comments in particular when writing my editor letter. And to provide very measured, classy responses. In some passive aggressive way, I feel like I'm calling them out.

 

[Justanothergrad]

One of those wonderful journal tricks I've seen before is having the managing editor email you asking for you to do a review, within about 1 week of you submitting a paper that is currently under consideration. Harder to say no under those circumstances!

Yup. That happened in this case. Then I waited 7 months after I submitted my review to hear back from the AE [it was with them for over a month.... because I obsessive check statuses].

 

[deleted343839]

It frustrates me to no end to see stuff like "If the authors have any knowledge about this topic and bother to read the literature they will..", especially when one of the largest names in that area is a co-author on that paper.

I'm an associate editor and I call out that sort of crap.