Reviewer 2 Guest Editor Article: My Reviewing Process

Jul 1, 2024 · Reviewer 2
Reviewer 2 Guest Editor Article: My Reviewing Process

For many scientists, their ultimate goal in life is to push the boundaries of mankind’s knowledge, unearth the secrets of the world, and improve the lives of future generations. Not for me. My single goal in life is to make the life of the scientists around me markedly worse. Because so few know of my job as the second reviewer for every single scientific journal submission, I’d like to share my typical workflow in reviewing and accepting (lol) publications.

The process begins with my email inbox, where I allow thousands of emails to pileup. My style is to be “fashionably late”, so I ignore deadlines from the editors to pileup for weeks until the mandated last moment. Then, I ask for an extension so I can binge watch the most recent season of Love Island (I know it’s trashy but I love it so much!). Now, it’s week 6 and I finally open up the document submitted for publication. This is when my years of experience as a certified hater come in. I rapidly skim the abstract, picking a few key words to harp upon (specificity, novel, etc.) and I insert them into my “primary rejection MADLIB”. I have a few of them, but they typically read something like:

While this paper claims to improve insert cause, it fails to provide enough evidence for insert technique to demonstrate this phenomenon. Other techniques, like insert my work here, provide the same if not better information. Ultimately, this paper would have been stronger if the authors showed insert proof I would have seen if I actually read the manuscript. Respectfully, I must recommend this paper not be accepted to insert journal.

After I diligently sign off the email with a quick “Cheers”, 80% of my work is done. If the paper was actually worth accepting, the editor will email me back and tell me to read a revised version of the manuscript. At this stage, I actually have to read the paper. After intentionally misreading claims by the author, I ask for additions tailor-made to aggravate the authors. These typically include splitting hairs over terminology, asking for repetition of the entire experiment (but in a slightly different temperature or buffer), and asking them to do a completely irrelevant form of spectroscopy (my personal favorite is Mössbauer). If they did the experiment in liquid: tell them to do it in buffer! If it’s in a buffer, tell them to do it in the gas phase! If it’s gas phase, tell them their work is irrelevant! Sometimes I’ll even pass the paper to an undergrad to spice up the comments. Once that 30 minutes of work are up, I’ll wipe the sweat from my brow and wait another 4 weeks to email the editor. At this point my work is 95% done! By now the editor has ultimately rejected the paper, or has gotten fed up with me and has ignored the vast majority of my recommendations. If the editor decides the paper is worth publishing, I ask them for my usual $1,000 paper acceptance fee, or 50% of the open access fee (whichever is greater) and send my final opinion: accept with minor revisions. I mean, I’ve gotta get a few more citations for my papers. So this is the process of being a professional scientific reviewer! I am glad The Graduate Cylinder has given me this platform to share my incredibly important work, and I look forward to rejecting your papers in the future.

-Reviewer 2

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Guest Editor Request: January 5th 2024

Date of Acceptance: July 1st 2024

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