Safety of Anonymity

Except for 46^o days, no pretense of Fall remains. Dormant grass, leafless trees, died back brush, dim days — everything it seems has acquiesced to the coming change.

Happy Wife is back from Seattle. Told you so. She returned with various bits of wisdom relating to her professional work, plus homework for me. She asked that I read and comment on a paper relating to genetic risk assessment in breast cancer and clinical implications, something like that. Ohhh-kay then. Next time my normal sleep aids are failing me there’s this!

Srsly. Happy to help. Since it already made past peer review it must be correct, right?

Speaking of which…

Of the dozen or more papers I’ve been asked to review over the last four years or so, I’ve probably rejected half of them, or at least said the paper would need significant revision to be reconsidered. Most of these I never saw again, meaning the authors evidently decided not to revise the manuscript and re-submit it, because if they had I would’ve been asked to review the revision. Ordinarily that’s the way scientific peer review works, if you want a second chance with a manuscript in the same journal you’re stuck with the same set of reviewers, usually more than one.

As a reviewer I consider myself pretty generous. I try to give comments that are helpful to the authors, suggest changes I think will improve the quality of the paper, etc.. Other reviewers are not so generous, and because I am usually privy to the criticisms of my co-reviewers I’ve seen some pretty harsh comments, things like “totally ill-conceived…fool’s errand…pile of dung”. I’ve often wondered if these reviewers would make comments like this if they weren’t guaranteed anonymity as a reviewer, as you always are. It’s safe to flip somebody off from your car as you speed by them on the freeway, but face to face, not so much. I think one rule of review is that even after a paper is published reviewers are supposed to remain anonymous, otherwise I’d have no problem linking to the papers I’ve personally reviewed. However, I don’t think there’s any rule forbidding me from disclosing what journals I’ve reviewed for, PLoS Computational Biology, Human Molecular Genetics, and Proteomics, to name a few with the highest impact factor.

Happy Wife just added one more fleeting sign that Fall hangs on here; she’s still harvesting chives from our backyard, some of which are right now being added to the breakfast omelet frittata she’s making for me. Good to have her back home!