Comments on: Is Peer Review Broken?

By: Ranga

Ranga — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:03:46 +0000

@Maria.

You are right. It might have been that the reviewers made the authors do years of experiments to prove their point. A very good thing for science indeed. But they don’t do it when they know the authors personally. That’s where its bad. And with regard to the 2 figure paper, even though my knowledge might be limited to effectively critique a paper, I believe my professors (most of them) will not be wrong (these papers were discussed in a departmental journal club and the 2 figure paper was thrashed and trashed)

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:18:58 +0000

It is not just garbage papers. There are many garbage journals. I stopped reading papers from some journals this year because they almost always publish low quality stuff. I think that major journals get peer-review correctly. However, they often reject good papers if reviewers did not bother read the paper and just reject it based on abstract. I recently got one of low quality bad reviews. The reviewer complained that I did not reference the paper that actually was between my references! And he/she continued, if I recall correctly this results are known…. WTF?

By: Maria

Maria — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:44:50 +0000

@Ranga

The thing is you don’t know how good the 15-figure paper was when it was first submitted. It might have been the reviewers saving the authors from themselves (and the journal from a retraction) by ensuring they had enough evidence to match their assertions. For the 2-figure paper, how much did they have in supplementary info?

By: Ranga

Ranga — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:17:24 +0000

And did any of you guys know an international perspective here? The same reviewers would sit all night with coffee in their hands to trash the manuscript if the paper was from another country (exclude western Europe). I’ve seen it personally, with excellent work being rejected and mauled just because they don’t want science from other countries being recognized. In one example, a paper with almost 15 figures (must have taken like 5 years) was published in a popular journal (starts with N) with a paper with just 2 figures (which had no controls, quick and dirty conclusion; must have taken like 6-8 months), clearly showing the partiality that exists in the peer review process. And the scientific world judges you from those publications.

By: Jode

Jode — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:03:27 +0000

I’ve often thought that one way to tighten up the system would be to publish the names of the reviewers* with the paper. You want to let a buddy sneak in a stinker? Well now your reputation is on the line too. I haven’t figured out how to deal with the dramatic drop-off in the number of willing reviewers once my plan is implemented, though…

*If they recommended publication – sometimes the editor overrides us.

By: anon

anon — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:04:51 +0000

There seem to be many issues surrounding publications. An increasing number of reviews in our weekly lab meetings from a major publisher beginning with N are becomming coffee table magazine quality and are frequently trashed by the presenting post doc. I am only very new to the academic scientific world however I have also heard many colleagues commenting on reviewers delaying publications as competing labs rush to finish similar papers.

Does the post “credit crunch” era of dwindling grant funds pose the threat of major journals becoming members only clubs promoting each others work and locking out the smaller or newer labs? Who watches the watcher?

By: John Mackay

John Mackay — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:59:47 +0000

Hmm. . interesting strategy. Be sure to mention in introduction that qPCR work was done taking into account the MIQUE guidelines – and then blank the checklist

By: Alejandro

Alejandro — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:19:16 +0000

Just as Keith Robison once said: “If your results sound amazing, take a deep breath & think of several tests that could debunk them. Then do those ten tests. If they survive, go to bed & think of another batch of tests”

http://amontenegro.blogspot.com/2010/02/quotes-from-science-blogosphere.html