More Editorial Musings

Tuesday, 28 November, 2006

Some more musings on the role of editors in academic journals as a result of a paper I submitted a paper to the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology last year. In its original form, two reviewers highlighted both the strong and weak aspects of the paper. One suggested it would sit well if re-submitted (and actually noted that the topic was “excellent”. Warm glow!) as a short communication and on this basis the editor recommended a re-write. After six months (yes, I really should have done it sooner) I sat down and shortened the paper, re-submitting it. It then took another six months for the review to be completed before it was finally rejected. What surprised me was that the paper was reviewed from scratch and the original reviewers comments were abandoned, with one of the new reviewers stating it is “not likely to be of interest to the readers” (definitely not a warm glow on that count!).

So what is going on in all of this?? Well, I would normally re-submit a paper, addressing the points raised by the reviewers in an attached letter. An editor would be expected to check that these points had been correctly addressed and then either accept or reject on this basis. For whatever reason, the paper went out for a second review, which was not favourable. Clearly this placed the editor in a difficult position. Two sets of reviews, the first generally positive and the second generally negative. Which are “better”? In the end the paper was rejected but it clearly highlights both the role of the editor in the whole process and, more importantly, the careful selection of referees (something also highlighted by the IJRS article retractions). And it is referees that are both the strong and weak link in the whole review process. You need “experts” in a field of study, but can you find them? Are they expert across the scope of a whole paper? Are they biased? And will they do it?! Ultimately, these things need to be balanced.

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