A month ago, I finished refereeing a paper.
Paper refereeing is this crazy thing we academics do. A journal editor wants to know if a very super uber highly specialized paper is good enough to publish in his highly specialized journal. But he can't tell, or doesn't have enough time to bother. So he finds a specialist -- someone with a PhD in something totally abstruse that matches the uber specialized paper, and then asks Dr PhD to read the paper for him, and tell him whether or not it is any good.
(For the record, not all editors are male. Just the ones I know.)
And no, we don't get paid for this, and yes it takes forever to do a good job. But it's expected. Otherwise the highly specialized journals wouldn't work. And then I wouldn't publish any research papers, and wouldn't get tenure, and then who would study my super uber highly specialized research area!?
Anyway, I was asked to referee a paper in an area somewhat related to that one unique highly specialized area where I am the total world expert. *NO* I'm not going to tell you what that area is, because I don't want the other five people in the entire world who have ever read my specialized research papers to do a Google search for me and learn all about my personal life here on this blog. Separation of church and state, ok?
After spending a whole week reading the paper carefully, there were three points that I didn't get. And I was tired of reading the paper carefully. And I still didn't get it! So I finally made the call that since I didn't understand it, that's me the expert not understanding, the points were unclear and should be rewritten. So I returned the report asking for a fix.
A week ago I got the authors' response. Basically, they said very politely that the editor had picked a complete idiot for a referee, and would I please read it again with these three things in mind... DUH!
So it's hard to pick up a job like this after being called an idiot. Of course, no one actually called me an idiot to my face. But if the shoe fits....
I am not the only academic type out there. I know I have readers who are academics or married to academics or both. I want to know. How long do you spend refereeing a paper before it becomes worth it to you to just give up and have them rewrite? And are you also an idiot? Even if a very highly super uber specialized idiot? Or am I the only one of those? Secretly, I wonder if academics might all be specialized idiots in disguise, but I can only post that anonymously.
5 comments:
Hah! My husband, the academic, was asked to review a paper before he actually graduated. At first he was overwhelmed and honored, but after he read it and found that it was not very good, he felt really awkward. REALLY awkward.
My limited experience with Acadamia leads me to believe, like the rest of humanity, that many people in it can't stand most forms of advice/correction. I read advice from a published (fiction) author about best ways to have a writing feedback group, and he talked about how vital it is that when people tell you they don't like what you've written, or that something is wrong with it to not jump up and defend it, but to take notes and think to yourself, regardless of how genius YOU know it is, can other people see that? If not, then the writing needs work. Also, try and get them to tell you specifics about what they didn't like/understand.
The longer I see other writers, I think that this advice applies to any writing. If he felt the need to call you idiot, when you're clearly an expert in the field, then what he really needs to do is ask himself why can an expert in the field not understand his writing without him defending it outside of the paper itself? (of course, it's already been made obvious that he won't ask himself these questions, but we can dream...).
Avram and I finally had to have me proofread his papers when he's not physically there, and for me to take notes on them, and then he'll read my notes and change his papers when conversely I am not there - otherwise I would would tend to say, "This needs work, fix it." And he'd say, "how? If I thought it needed work, I wouldn't have written it that way." And I'd say, "You're the writer. You need to take constructive criticism better." And then this would descend into an ugly mess.
Now since I have to take notes I find myself being much more specific, and then he doesn't feel a need to defend himself since I'm not verbally "accusing" him. Not that this vignette has anything to do with your situation, because obviously your notes were written. Mostly I'm just saying I personally have had a very hard time critiquing any work of my own baby academic. And I'm even married to him.
How typical. They ASK you to read their paper and help with it and then complain because you tell them after spending a WEEK! reading and rereading it - (kudos to you for taking the time to do that, by the way) that, sorry, these three things aren't clear and need work. Complainers complainers. See if they can find someone else willing to take that much time and effort, someone who is actually an expert who can give them the best advice! Personally, if you, the expert, don't understand the thing, I, the rabble, wouldn't even care.
OK. For the record, I need to point out again that the authors were very polite and very politely addressed my three concerns. It was only *me* who called myself an idiot, because I probably should have understood those three things. Maybe. But I didn't, and didn't feel like taking the time to figure it out. So maybe it should be me calling myself lazy, rather than me calling myself idiot. Does this make any sense?
If you don't understand it and you're one of 5 or so experts in the area (the writer's target audience), then most likely they should re-write those parts. Refereeing papers is nice because I learn of new research, but it is very time consuming, and there is no way I can study all of the technical details to the point that I understand everything. So I make sure I understand the basics, look for any clear problems, and then (like you), if it seems to be a good paper, ask for clarification on some parts which I don't understand.
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