5 ms·

I agree. My own most influential paper received strong rejects the first time we submitted it, and rightfully so, I think. In retrospect, we didn't do a good jo

I agree. My own most influential paper received strong rejects the first time we submitted it, and rightfully so, I think. In retrospect, we didn't do a good job motivating it, the contributions weren't clearly presented, and the way we described was super confusing. I'm genuinely grateful for it because the paper that we eventually published is so much better (although the core of the idea barely changed), and it's good because of the harsh reviews we received the first time around. The reviews themselves weren't even particularly "insightful", mostly along the lines of "this is confusing, I don't understand what you're doing or why you're doing it", but sometimes you just really need that outside perspective. I've also reviewed and rejected my share of papers where I could tell there is a seed of a great idea, but the paper as written just isn't good. It always brings me joy to see those papers eventually published because they're usually so much better.

KittenInABox 3y ago
> The reviews themselves weren't even particularly "insightful", mostly along the lines of "this is confusing, I don't understand what you're doing or why you're doing it", but sometimes you just really need that outside perspective. IMO maybe scientists should have experience critiquing stuff like poems, short essays, or fiction. Expecting a critiquer to give actually good suggestions matching your original vision, when your original vision's presentation is flawed, is incredibly rare. So the best critiques are usually a "this section right here, wtf is it?" style, with added bonus points to "wtf is this order of information" or other literary technique that is either being misused or unused.
- gms7777 3y ago
  Oh, I do completely agree and didn't mean to imply otherwise. I have had experiences where reviewers have given me great ideas for new experiments or ways to present things. But the most useful ones usually are the "wtf?" type comments, or comments that suggest the reviewers completely misunderstood or misread the text. While those are initially infuriating, the reviewers are usually among the people in the field that are most familiar with the topic of the paper--if they don't understand it or misread it, 95% of the time it's because it could be written more clearly.
0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
This is the first time I ever saw a scientist say something positive about peer review
- ska 3y ago
  Eh, happens all the time. It's an extremely rare paper that isn't improved by th e process (though it's also a pain sometimes, and clueless/antagonistic reviewers do happen)
- jll29 3y ago
  I haven't seen a manuscript that could not made a better paper through peer review. Now there are good and bad reviewers, and good and bad reviews. However, because you usually get assigned three reviewers, the chance that there is not at least one good reviewer or at least a good review from a middle to bad reviewer is not that low, which means if you get over the initial "reject" decision disappointment, you can benefit from that written feedback. The main drawback is the loss of time if a rejection means you may lose a whole year (only for conferences, and only if you are not willing to compromise by going to a "lower" conference after rejection by a top one). I have often tried to fight for a good paper, but if the paper is technically not high quality, even the most original idea usually gets shot down, because top conferences cannot afford to publish immature material for reputational reasons. That's what happened to the original Brin & Page Google/PageRank paper, which was submitted to SIGIR and rejected. They dumped it to the "Journal of ISDN Systems" (may this journal rest in peace, and with it all ISDN hardware), and the rest is history. As the parent says, you want to see people succeed, and you want to give good grades (except in my experience many first year doctoral students are often a bit too harsh with their criticism).
  - smcin 3y ago
    > I haven't seen a manuscript that could not made a better paper through peer review. Authors don't object to revision suggestions, they object to arbitrary/unfair rejections plus 4-year delays. > The main drawback is the loss of time if a rejection means you may lose a whole year (only for conferences, and only if you are not willing to compromise by going to a "lower" conference after rejection by a top one). No, it's much worse if you're a masters student who wants to publish and have that publication accepted within 12-18mths for your jobhunt; you'll necessarily compromise by skipping most journals and aiming for middle-tier conferences (high accept rate and fast turnaround), then falling back on journals only if you get rejected. This was why arxiv was created. (Some academic type here is inevitably going to retort "But conferences (not even those with official proceedings) aren't considered 'real' publications in my field", to which the counter-retort is "the job market doesn't care about that attitude".)

KittenInABox 3y ago

> The reviews themselves weren't even particularly "insightful", mostly along the lines of "this is confusing, I don't understand what you're doing or why you're doing it", but sometimes you just really need that outside perspective. IMO maybe scientists should have experience critiquing stuff like poems, short essays, or fiction. Expecting a critiquer to give actually good suggestions matching your original vision, when your original vision's presentation is flawed, is incredibly rare. So the best critiques are usually a "this section right here, wtf is it?" style, with added bonus points to "wtf is this order of information" or other literary technique that is either being misused or unused.

gms7777 3y ago
Oh, I do completely agree and didn't mean to imply otherwise. I have had experiences where reviewers have given me great ideas for new experiments or ways to present things. But the most useful ones usually are the "wtf?" type comments, or comments that suggest the reviewers completely misunderstood or misread the text. While those are initially infuriating, the reviewers are usually among the people in the field that are most familiar with the topic of the paper--if they don't understand it or misread it, 95% of the time it's because it could be written more clearly.

0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago

This is the first time I ever saw a scientist say something positive about peer review

ska 3y ago
Eh, happens all the time. It's an extremely rare paper that isn't improved by th e process (though it's also a pain sometimes, and clueless/antagonistic reviewers do happen)
jll29 3y ago
I haven't seen a manuscript that could not made a better paper through peer review. Now there are good and bad reviewers, and good and bad reviews. However, because you usually get assigned three reviewers, the chance that there is not at least one good reviewer or at least a good review from a middle to bad reviewer is not that low, which means if you get over the initial "reject" decision disappointment, you can benefit from that written feedback. The main drawback is the loss of time if a rejection means you may lose a whole year (only for conferences, and only if you are not willing to compromise by going to a "lower" conference after rejection by a top one). I have often tried to fight for a good paper, but if the paper is technically not high quality, even the most original idea usually gets shot down, because top conferences cannot afford to publish immature material for reputational reasons. That's what happened to the original Brin & Page Google/PageRank paper, which was submitted to SIGIR and rejected. They dumped it to the "Journal of ISDN Systems" (may this journal rest in peace, and with it all ISDN hardware), and the rest is history. As the parent says, you want to see people succeed, and you want to give good grades (except in my experience many first year doctoral students are often a bit too harsh with their criticism).
- smcin 3y ago
  > I haven't seen a manuscript that could not made a better paper through peer review. Authors don't object to revision suggestions, they object to arbitrary/unfair rejections plus 4-year delays. > The main drawback is the loss of time if a rejection means you may lose a whole year (only for conferences, and only if you are not willing to compromise by going to a "lower" conference after rejection by a top one). No, it's much worse if you're a masters student who wants to publish and have that publication accepted within 12-18mths for your jobhunt; you'll necessarily compromise by skipping most journals and aiming for middle-tier conferences (high accept rate and fast turnaround), then falling back on journals only if you get rejected. This was why arxiv was created. (Some academic type here is inevitably going to retort "But conferences (not even those with official proceedings) aren't considered 'real' publications in my field", to which the counter-retort is "the job market doesn't care about that attitude".)