Writing a paper – it takes on a whole new meaning if you’ve spent time behind the editorial desk of a peer-reviewed journal or two. It’s now been about a year and a half since I left publishing to return to the bench, and I’m busy finishing up the experiments for my first research paper. But in the meantime, my boss and I (which of course translates to I, for the most part) were recently asked to write a review article, and I’m just in the final throes of that.
And in taking on this task, I’ve realized that knowledge of what goes on On The Other Side can seriously alleviate publication anxiety. First of all, the London publishing world is extremely small, and its pool of editors, highly mobile. It turns out that the person handling my manuscript is the fellow Assistant Editor I sat next to in my first journals job back in 2003. It is sort of hard to take her formal ‘your article is nearly overdue’ emails seriously when, in the back of my mind I remember the three of us giggling, groaning and rolling our eyes over the various outrageous excuses that some authors would send us for being late. Of course, the knowledge that this editor knows that I know means that I can’t use any of those tactics myself. Back in December when I was seeking a much-needed extension of the deadline, I didn’t even try:
Dear {censored}
I won’t pawn you off with any of the normal lame authorial excuses like the dog having ate my first draft or some sort of illness or death in the family — I simply haven’t had a chance to do much yet, down to my own lack of organization and time management.
Of course the extension was duly granted, with good grace – having been an editor has also taught me that if you want something finished by February, then the preceding December is a pretty good place to draw that first line in the sand. (Oops, I haven’t betrayed any deep-dark editorial code by sharing this with you, have I?)
She’s gone on maternity leave now, and my file has been passed on to someone else. A few days ago I wasn’t sure exactly what tack I should take on a particular issue – so I rang up her replacement, introduced myself and we had a productive chat. Oh, and I got another few days’ grace on the deadline in the process. When I put the phone down, a few of my colleagues were stunned. It turns out that to most scientists, the thought of actually speaking to an editor had never even crossed their minds. Instead, writing a paper seems to be a stylized, us-versus-them battle where the lines of communication are strictly via emails loaded with formalized sentences dripping in ambiguous subtext. An editor, in this environment, is more enemy than ally.
I guess I used to think that too, until I stood in their shoes and realized that producing a great paper is a goal that both authors and editors have in common.
It turns out that to most scientists, the thought of actually speaking to an editor had never even crossed their minds. Instead, writing a paper seems to be a stylized, us-versus-them battle where the lines of communication are strictly via emails loaded with formalized sentences dripping in ambiguous subtext.
haha, I was stunned when a professor at my old department picked up the phone and talked to the editor. Even if the thought is appealing to some extent for me, I still think I automatically think “mail trail is more obvious and less room for misinterpretations”. Then again, I guess doing both, as in sending an email after talking to them, might be something I would really like.
I like the tidbits about how you think about the sides of the fence… and the email was very honest and probably a good choice (for you, knowing the Editor). maybe nothing for me to try at this point ,)
Interesting — the word choice ‘less room for misinterpretations’ sort of emphasizes that an expected conflict is the default. Also, I think the printed word is ripe for misinterpretation. Even after a year and a half, people in my institute are still trooping upstairs to ask me to ‘translate’ their rejection letters. It must be far from clear if people can see a glimmer of hope in what, to me, is clearly a “I never want to see this again” letter. I think these sorts of gradients along the scale of full accept to full reject are probably transmitted a lot more clearly on the phone.
bq. Also, I think the printed word is ripe for misinterpretation.
I’m sure we’ve all had letters, emails, etc. that have been misinterpreted. A lot easier to gauge something by voice.
Although I did always find it hard, as an editor, to deliver bad news by phone. I think this is just simple cowardice! Some of my colleagues at more prestigious journals liked to tell stories about weeping Nobel laureates at the other end of the line…
Ewww. “…were recently asked to write a review article…”
I hate writing review articles (and fortunately haven’t had to do more than two, one of which was technically a book chapter.
The other strategy, of course, which I doubt ever works, is to ask the editor: “So, out of all of the articles for this issue, how many others have you received yet?”
I suspect that answering that particular question is another action that contravenes the “deep-dark editorial code” of which you speak.
My dear Richard, books chapters must not be spoken of in this salon, as they are the most thankless of all the scholarly devil’s spawn. To say nothing of being five years out of date by the time they finally appear in print. I’ve done one once, and never again.
The only good thing about this current review article is that it’s forced me to swot up on one aspect of my new field that I had, frankly, been rather avoiding. Something to do with old dogs and new tricks, I suspect.
Oh, don’t complain about having to write reviews. Some people would love to write reviews, and found thesis writing to be the most rewarding of their entire PhD experience. But review writing, like teaching, only ever ends up being the unwanted side-project of researchers. And “some people” may not want to devote 150% of their life to one tiny research project just to get a chance at maybe one day getting to write a review or teach a class, so they step aside, and let the researchers grudgingly do the job they would have enjoyed so much more than them. [end drama queen speech. exit stage.]
Oh, don’t complain about having to write reviews.
Pssst. Come here, Eva. I’ve got something for you to do. Ever had a taste for ghost-writing?
But seriously, editors are always looking for thoughtful reviews and willing victims. If you have a great idea, something from your thesis intro, for example, that would make a good review, why not chat with your adviser then pitch it to your favorite journal?
@ Eva- review articles always get zillions of citations (book chapters, on the other hand… )
As an editor I like talking to authors on the phone, but unless I know them really well already, prefer communication either face to face or by letter. The latter is especially important in the case of disputes, in case a clear paper trail is required. Sometimes an author will phone me to pitch an appeal against a rejection, and I invariably advise them to write instead, so I shall have a chance to dig out the file, review decisions made, consult colleagues etc. It’s not fair on me or the author to expect me to amend or reverse a decision simply on the basis of a phone call.
Actually, I think voice calls are the worst possible form of communication . They fool you into thinking they contain a lot more nuance than they actually do. Better to have less nuance in the form of a letter – or more, in the form of expression or body language.
Ah, letters. Perhaps we try too hard to write rejection letters that don’t hurt a recipient’s feelings. Sometimes I’d love to write to persistent appellants along the lines of ‘which part of the word NO don’t you understand?’ but of course one can’t.
bq. Dear Submissions Editor
Dear Desperate Postdoc
One should never admit one’s desperation, just as one should never show fear when surrounded by a pack of
childrenundergradswolves. Given that you have, though, I shall have no hesitation in telling you to take your manuscript and go play with it in the traffic.Love and kisses
Dr Henry Gee
Jenny: Interesting — the word choice ‘less room for misinterpretations’ sort of emphasizes that an expected conflict is the default. Also, I think the printed word is ripe for misinterpretation. Even after a year and a half, people in my institute are still trooping upstairs to ask me to ‘translate’ their rejection letters. It must be far from clear if people can see a glimmer of hope in what, to me, is clearly a “I never want to see this again” letter.
ehh… but it would be so much harder to understand the “nice rejection” on the phone than to read the less nice rejection in a letter. Maybe I am hiding behind my English and understanding things on the phone rather than having an email in front of me that I can reread and really understand the “nope, sorry but we have filled the qouta of papers like yours” 😉
Dear Dr Henry Gee
please pass my letter on to a proper editor.
KTHXBAI
rather than having an email in front of me that I can reread and really understand
But that’s my point, Eva. There are three or four different grades of “we don’t want to publish this as it stands” letters (for which Nature set the template standards, and other journals followed as Nature staff migrated to other companies) and it is exceedingly difficult for authors — who desperately want to believe they have a chance, no matter how remote — to understand, as Henry says, that no means no. The letters are open to interpretation only because the authors are in denial and see what they want to see. There is a sort of “open-door” style “no” letter that causes the most trouble, but I think they all could be spelled out more plainly.
By the way, when I was advocating talking on the phone, it wasn’t necessarily to discuss overturning a rejection. Phone calls are good for productive things like asking exactly what experiments are the most important in a revision — and if I had one of these with an author I would always follow up with a letter to codify what we’d discussed.
Rejections commonplace, rejectee in denial, rejector’s comments and messages frantically scrutinised for the tiniest sign of hope… hmm, which other area of life does this remind me of?
I’m pleased to report (being an industrial type who’s long since left behind any ambition of building up a publication record) that the first and last rejection letter I received from a (third-rate at that) journal left me in no doubt at all as to what they thought of my paper. If only girls were that direct.
please pass my letter on to a proper editor.
I’m working on it
@Tom: if you make a proposition to me, I could be quite direct for you.
@Jennifer: don’t you think the tears, prized or not, reflect just that very dynamic? We all hate getting rejected, no matter from what or by whom.
Oh, yes, Tom and Heather. It is a wonderful parallel that I confess did not occur to me.
Hell hath no fury like an author scorn’d?
KTHXBAI ?
At first I thought this was some early-Christian acrostic, possibly in Etruscan. But now I have my doubts.
“But that’s my point, Eva.”
That was Åsa. I know, my name is easier to type.
Haha! Sorry. It’s a phenotype of the same gene that somehow prevents me from reading to the very end of an email.
Henry, I’m no wiser than you on that point, but to me it looks more like some ruthless Aztec god to whom you’d feed the hearts of your rejected authors.
Allow me to translate:
K = ok
THX = thanks
BAI = something LOLcats and postdocs say instead of “bye”
“LOLcats and postdocs” – sounds like the name of Henry’s newest libretto… hm.
Also, Eva is cleverly not mentioning that she also solicits review articles from time to time. 😉
Well, I don’t do a lot of field work there as of late. I listen to suggestions from people who ask people to solicit a review, kind of.
Jenny: I think I agree with you. I just did not see the finer things you now clarified 😉 I guess it is easy to read a rejection letter as you want to read it?! Although I am part of the club reading things in more dark tones than light ones 😉
Yes, Asa, your rejection letter is half empty, not half full!
There’s at least some good gossip/anecdotal evidence (if not hard fact) that suggests certain journals practice an “open” rejection policy which is used to minimise their turn-around times from article submission to publication.
i.e., the “rejection” letter encourages resubmission. I quote: “Although based on these reports, I have decided to decline your manuscript for publication consideration in insert journal title here, if you believe that you can fully address the points raised by the reviewers, then we would be prepared, in principle, to consider a revised and resubmitted manuscript.”
The journal, if it accepts the revised MS, shows a much shorter turn-around than the true time taken to process the MS, which makes it more appealing to potential submitters.
My most recent was a “reject without prejudice” (different journal), which again asked me to evaluate whether I could deal with the reviewers’
misunderstandingsconstructive criticisms. I don’t think I will.No means no. But “no, not yet, but maybe keep trying” is somewhat less clear.
Well, Mike, the thing you’ve quoted sounds pretty much like what we used to call an RTA/Open Door — and it didn’t have the sinister undertones you are suggesting. (Most editors don’t care about stats like that; they just want a nice paper no matter how long it takes. It’s the upper management who are worried about those thing.) It just means – we like the sound of this work, but it’s really not up to scratch. If you could do a LOT of work and make it live up to its promise, we’d like it – but then it would almost be a new paper. But we don’t think you’ll be willing to put in that sort of time, as you’d probably rather get it out quickly as is. We leave it up to you.
It’s clear, but the outcome is variable because it depends on what the author wants to do.
Thanks for the explanation! It’d be nice to have that sort of detail either in the letter, or somewhere easily found on the journal website.
Jenny’s explanation of the ‘open door’ reject applies to Nature, too.
Mike, I’ve always thought that the standard editorial letters are like a secret code that only editors understand. Which is why if you’re not sure, ringing up the editor certainly couldn’t hurt.
Having said that, there have been a few letters I’ve seen around here (people tend to bring them to me for parsing, as you can imagine) where I could have sworn that the editor would not consider a revised manuscript — and the corresponding author managed to convince the editor to give it another go. So nothing is set in stone, I guess, and persistence can sometimes pay off.
My one published paper was initially rejected (not in vague terms either) but got in eventually after communication with the editor to clarify (with relevant citations) why one of the reviewers was clearly not up to speed in the area of the paper, and that we (read “I”) would be happy to do the reasonable suggested experiments, and then we got another 3 months and
weI managed to get one missing key experiment to work (batch of extra strong antibody did the trick!) and all was well.Jenny> half empty indeed 🙂 Good to have it from an expert!
Eva> I remember my first rejection on my first ever paper, and it wasn’t vague either. Although one of the reviewers didn’t really know the field at all and therefore [at least I thought so at the time] wrote “this is not relevant at all” 😉 THe others at least gave some comments and feed back on why more experiments would be necessary in order to publish… ah well, I think I was more scared sending in my second paper since I thought “once is only one time but please don’t let my second one be slaughtered again”.
bq, Which is why if you’re not sure, ringing up the editor certainly couldn’t hurt.
Oh, Henry’s going to love you for saying that.
‘bq,’? Damn.
Boys always forget to close their tags.
They’re like teeny-tiny toilet seats.
laugh
I’ll get you for that.
Look who’s left their tags undone, eh?
Happens all the time in here, I’m afraid.
One does not wish to know that, dear. Would you like another biscuit?
How kind. How’s the weather over there?
I suppose this is a bit boring on this sparkly blog, but for Mike and others, the Nature journals explain their publication process here, including a description of what the editors’ letters mean. Each Nature journal has its own description on its own website also, for example the one for Nature is here. I believe that most journals carry such descriptions, but I think from various comments one reads around the internet, people often don’t think to check first before sounding off about how journals do things.
I think it’s brilliant that journals are (becoming) more open in the publication process. Most scientists, I wager, have no idea about the value added by professional publishers (as demonstrated by nutjobs on FF who think that all you need to know is how to use LaTeX, God help us).
LaTeX – yeurgh. My dad used to rattle on about that (ok, he’s a physicist, I guess he gets a pass).
Of course, he used to get figures for his papers done in pen and ink by the art department. Ye gods.
Yeah. You’ve got to be sick to want to work with LaTeX. But interestingly, Richard, your dad outsourced the figures, which in the real world would involve paying for it, so really, nothing’s changed.
Hm. Good point – I had not considered that ‘outsourcing’ but I guess it is, really. I used to do the same, back in the days of ‘photographs’.
*natters on about young whippersnappers and their photoshop-mahoozits
You guys remember ‘dodging’?
and ‘burning’?
“as demonstrated by nutjobs on FF who think that all you need to know is how to use LaTeX, God help us”
That made me burst out laughing, Richard! And – you person you – why did you start that thread there? Are you winding them up or me? 😉
BTW, many people, including some colleagues, passionately believe that about LaTeX, I must say. It’s a bit Greek to me though.
Heh. ‘Dodging’ and ‘Burning’ are things I only.know.about.because.of.Photoshop. They’re the little thingies in the toolbox on the left, correct? 😉
*whiffles about the ‘unsharp mask’ and what it might mean, in a historical sort of context
Maxine – it reminds me (as html does, come to think of it) of the old-skool word processors (early versions of WordPerfect and ChiWriter come to mind) that used markup tags for everything. I do not miss those days.
Dodging was great fun: as the exposure was being taken, you waved your hands frantically between the lens and the thing being photographed.
Takes the phrase “hand-waving over your data” to a whole new level!
I can’t remember what burning was, though.
I have to admit that I left that level of detail to Photographic. Although I do remember processing film from the flurosecent ‘scope… red green red green red green…
the what? ‘Fluorescent’, obviously.
I wish I’d never started…
Oo…you got called a ‘person’. They should try saying that to your face!
Yes, I thought “person” might be an amusing noun to apply to our dear rpg.
clique alert