Have you ever overhead a conversation that infuriated you so much that you had to physically restrain yourself from butting in?<\/p>\n
\nThe other day, I was sitting on the morning shuttle bus that ferries people from the ISG Hotel to the laboratories of EMBL. Normally it is sparsely occupied by visiting scientists like myself, but occasionally EMBL hosts a conference and the little vehicle becomes anchovy-packed with delegates. I was staring at the green leafiness of the woods, hypnotized by lack of sleep and the way the sunlight shafted golden through its canopy, when the loud conversation of the men in the seat behind me finally permeated my concentration.<\/p>\n
\n“So then after all this \u2013 three rounds of review \u2013 they rejected our paper,” the first man said. “If they didn’t want it, why did they string us along for so long?” <\/p>\n
\nNow, this guy was American: West Coast, late fifties. I’m American myself, so I’m allowed to say that he deployed that particular tone not uncommon amongst a certain generation of American males in the biomedical sciences \u2013 smug, arrogant, over-confident, reckoning themselves a science celebrity whose reputation alone should be enough to vouchsafe their work. <\/p>\n
\nThe second man asked what the referee comments had been like, and reading between the lines of the first man’s indignant description, I gleaned that the data were highly controversial and he hadn’t provided the extraordinary evidence required to back up an extraordinary claim.<\/p>\n
\n“But these Nature<\/em> editors,” the first man said. “They’re just glorified secretaries nowadays.” <\/p>\n \nThe second man, bless him, did at least attempt a defense: “They’re scientists, aren’t they?”<\/p>\n \n“Yeah, like back in the Stone Age.<\/em> Whatever. They’re completely out of touch with the field, and overwhelmed by manuscripts. And this puts them at the whim of the experts they rely on to make the decisions. Even if those experts have a political agenda ,<\/em> they can’t go against them. It’s totally different when you have real<\/em> scientists on your editorial board.”<\/p>\n \nI wisely held my tongue as my blood pressure rose, but I did glance back and memorize the first man’s face, just in case I ever ran into him again. In the meantime, because I used to be an editor, and because some of my best friends are (literally) Nature<\/em> editors, I hereby present the apologia that I barely repressed during the rest of the bus ride.<\/p>\n \nMyth 1: Editorial staff are scientifically out of touch<\/strong><\/p>\n \nImagine you are an editor at a prominent journal like Nature<\/em> . You spend every working hour seeing the top manuscripts in your field, months and sometimes years before they are published. When you are not seeing all this privileged information that normal researchers in the field know nothing about, you are attending the conferences that matter \u2013 and not just the talks and poster sessions. You are also working the bars and after-parties, gathering intelligence, hearing the latest rumors and being receptive at a time when scientists, after a few drinks, often say a lot more than they intend to. Now imagine you’ve been doing this for many years. Who do you think knows more about the field, both in breadth as well as depth: the editor, or the scientist who spends most of his time thinking about his one particular little niche of a problem? Who do you think is better placed to decide how a discovery in this niche stacks up against the broader picture of all the rest of the data coming in?<\/p>\n \nMyth 2: Editors are too stupid or uninformed about the politics of a field to notice when referees aren’t being straight.<\/strong><\/p>\n \nBelieve it or not, maneuvering and manipulation are blatantly obvious and, because the editor has been involved socially with all the personalities, they already know that Dr X hates Professor Y and take this into account when choosing peer reviewers and, if necessary, when interpreting their vitriol. Good editorial practice is a triumph of data over personal feelings: it’s the same ethos that would induce me to accept the first man’s paper if it were worthy \u2013 even if I did think he was a jerk.<\/p>\n \nMyth 3: Editors dare not overturn a referee decision<\/strong><\/p>\n \nAnyone who’s ever compared a manuscript decision letter with the referee reports knows that this is simply not true. And just because the editor agrees with the referee who wants to reject a paper over the word of the referee who did not does not mean the negative referee somehow overpowered the poor editor into taking his side.<\/p>\n \nMyth 4: Bench scientists make better editors than professional editorial staff<\/strong><\/p>\n \nAs someone who has worked with journals employing both modes \u2013 professional editors, and academic editorial boards \u2013 I know that this common assertion is definitely not true in all cases. Of course there are many highly skilled scientist editors out there, but I’d like to focus on those who aren’t. Not a few academic board members are, how shall we phrase it, reaching the end of their career cycle: if not outright retired, they are often nearly there. Some are no longer performing cutting-edge research and have become fixed in their ways; some don’t attend many meetings, so are not up on the latest new theories. Many seem to be unaware of the basic tenets of the editorial credo, which is not to take an author’s word for anything. For example, I ran across a revised manuscript that one of the board members was about to accept. I remembered that there had been a contentious issue with one of the referees and was curious how it had been resolved by the author.<\/p>\n \n“They said in their rebuttal letter they addressed it,” the board member told me.<\/p>\n \n“Did they do it well?” I asked.<\/p>\n \nSilence down the phone. And when I flipped through the revised manuscript personally, I saw that the authors \u2013 as many do \u2013 had simply lied. Yes, they had fiddled with a few words in the offending sentence, but had not addressed the underlying concern with new experimental data as requested, even though their breezy rebuttal letter certainly implied that they had.<\/p>\n \nProfessional editors are less likely to side automatically with authors precisely because they are not peers. They are trained to be incredibly skeptical of claims. They spend all day plying and honing their professional skills, not a few snatched moments here and there between the stresses, strains and distractions of a research career. This perception that only practicing scientists make effective editors is completely missing the point that certain editorial skills are different from the skills you need to be a good scientist \u2013 and it is not something one is automatically good at. It is an entirely different profession requiring talents that do not completely overlap.<\/p>\n \n“So what finally happened to the manuscript?” the second man asked once his colleague’s diatribe had trickled out.<\/p>\n \n“Oh, we send it off to our old standby, where at least it will get a fair hearing.”<\/p>\n \nAnd what I really wanted to say then was, if Nature<\/em> editoral staff are so bad, then the journal’s quality would certainly reflect this. So why did you so desperately want to have your paper published there in the first place?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever overhead a conversation that infuriated you so much that you had to physically restrain yourself from butting in? The other day, I was sitting on the morning shuttle bus that ferries people from the ISG Hotel to … Continue reading