Hi Dennis,
If that is indeed the trend, I agree that it is overdone and potentially harmful to the willingness of the community to review.
I have not experienced this trend myself over the last years. The only papers that get sent out for a second review (with me as reviewer or author) were given a 'rejection with invitation to resubmit' editor's decision. Only once in the last 5 years, a paper was sent back to the reviewer twice after only minor revisions, but I think that was on the reviewer's request (still annoying though).
The opposite occurs more often: I reject a paper, or recommend major revisions, and the paper is published ignoring most of my recommendations, without me seeing a rebuttal, or a chance to re-review. But in the end, that's up to the editor.
I have just the common frustration felt by many of us that the review process takes a very long time (~3-4 months per review round, even for 3-4 page papers, with exceptions lasting up to a year). But I guess it would be naive to say 'don't accept to review a paper if you can't do it within a month'. I tend to get reviews out of the way immediately, within a few days, but that's without a teaching load.
Cheers,
Douwe
On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 11:49 AM, dennis brown
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear List Members
In the last year or so I have noticed that more and more papers go to a second or even third round of reviewing before editors make a decision. I find this for my own papers, papers that I review, papers for which I act as Associate Editor, and from looking at the review history of published papers. It doesn't seem to make a difference if the first reviews recommend minor revision, the editors still seem to want a second round of reviewing before taking a decision. I suppose that this arises from a number of factors, including the publishers pressure to increase impact factors and a further veting process because of an increase in the number of papers received by the journals. Nevertheless, what it does do is double or even triple the work of the reviewer and the AE's: at times to the point of becoming tiresome. If you expect that accepting a paper to review could be a threefold process that lasts six or eight months, then one thinks twice before accepting to review it.
I realise that this as nothing to do with geotectonics as such, but I would like to hear other people's opinions and experiences on this are.
Sincerely
Dennis
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Dr. Dennis Brown
Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra "Jaume Almera"
c/Lluis Sole i Sabaris s/n
08028 Barcelona
Spain
Tel: 34 93 409 54 10
Fax: 34 93 411 00 12
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://wija.ija.csic.es/gt/dennisbrown/
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http://www.geologist.nl
Douwe J.J. van Hinsbergen, PhD
Physics of Geological Processes (PGP)
University of Oslo
Sem Sælands vei 24
NO-0316 Oslo
Norway