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From: "Pam Shurmer-Smith" <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: Faculty of Environment, Portsmouth
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 11:42:36 GMT
Subject: Re: Publication lags etc.
Priority: normal
Joe,
I've long been wondering about referees comments. It isn't just that
it is irritating when writing to take on board the agendas of
anonymous people who often miss the point of what you're trying to
do, it is also depressing to think that most of what one reads is the result
of a compromise between author and referees. Yes, we need referees,
not only for strategic reasons (publications won't "count" without
them) but also as a way of giving a journal an identity, but why do
they have the right to stick their ore in quite so much? I have a
paper on my desk which is in danger of becoming one of those you
refer to as taking too long to bounce back (not to you) because I think the
fairly minor comments are pointless.
What I'm saying is, could we speed things up and make things fresher
if referees just said yes/ no/perhaps but that, like "Current
Anthropology" some papers are sent to a range of people in the same
field, but with potentially different points of view, for critique,
further discussion etc. This is then published alongside the core paper,
authorship being ackowledged and the original author responds
in the same issue, but the original paper stands and readers can see
the whole process. (I'm sure it isn't quite as open as this, but this
is the ideal.)
I'm also aware that some people use referees to help speed up
publication of work in progress and half thought through ideas -
They get stuff into the system early, continue to think about it,
incorporate suggestions etc - not necessarily a bad thing, but one
wishes it were all more open and genuinely collaborative. At it is it
sometimes appears to be rather cynical.
Pam Shurmer-Smith
University of Portsmouth
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