Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
reviewer, who always seems to have an opinion that diverges wildly from those of
the other two reviewers, presenting editors and authors alike with head-scratching
dilemmas.
Once the reviews are in to the editor, she or he makes a decision about the pa-
per. Choices are: accept it into the journal with minor revisions; accept it but with
major revisions; or outright rejection. Most journals also have an “anonymous re-
viewer”policyinwhichtheykeepthereviewers'identitiessecret,unlesstheymake
themselves known to authors after the review, which allows for some dialogue. To
makemattersevenmorechallenging,editorsandreviewersarevolunteers,perform-
ing these duties for free on top of their other professional obligations. This means
thatreviewingascientificpapercaneasilybecomealowpriority,perhapsekingout
aspotaheadof,say,takingoutthegarbageorcleaningthekittylitterathome.Then,
if the article is accepted, authors must revise it, which includes formatting each and
every cited reference to the exasperatingly exact and idiosyncratic standards of that
specificjournal.Sometimesauthorsgetsodiscouragedthattheygiveupduringthis
part of the process, and the article never gets revised and resubmitted. All of this
means that science is not just about making discoveries and announcing them to the
world, but also is about jumping through hoops and hopefully being rewarded with
publication, or slinking away in abject failure.
With all of this in mind, Dave, Yoshi, and I wrote our report about this new
species of burrowing dinosaur, its young, and its burrow, and we gave it a simple
title:
A Burrowing, Denning Dinosaur
. If you had asked us then, we would have
told you that our paper was astonishing, a true masterpiece of paleontological lit-
erature that would surely earn the academic equivalent of an A++++++ (evoking
Ralphie's daydream from the movie
A Christmas Story
). With supreme confidence,
in mid-2006 we submitted it to an elite scientific journal, one in which Dave had
published papers before.
Butthenpeerreviewstruck.Remember intheprecedingdescriptionwherethe
editor can say “not worthy” and kick it back to you without further review? That
