INVESTIGADORES
FARJI-BRENER Alejandro Gustavo
artículos
Título:
Rejecting editorial rejections: a critique to avoid real revisions in submitted papers
Autor/es:
FARJI-BRENER, ALEJANDRO GUSTAVO
Revista:
BULLETIN ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Editorial:
Ecological Society of America
Referencias:
Año: 2007 vol. 88 p. 18 - 19
ISSN:
0012-9623
Resumen:
The divulgation of ecological studies is essential to improve our knowledge of the natural systems. The adequate spread of this information to the scientific community minimizes the duplication of research efforts, sustain or discard hypotheses, and stimulate the generation of new ideas. To do this, researchers often try to publish their studies in specialized journals. However, scientific studies can differ in subject and quality. Consequently, there are a broad number of journals focused on different topics and with different quality standards. Competition for space in high ranking journals is very severe, and these journals require an objective way to accept the best works.
Traditionally, the quality of a manuscript is evaluated through a procedure named peer-review. In this process, a submitted manuscript is sent to several specialists in the topic of the work, and the subject-editor make a decision based on the reviewers comments and their own opinion. The revision of a manuscript for several colleagues reduces subjectivity and improves the quality of suggestions (see Harrison 2004). Overall, in a good peer-review process everybody win: authors, referees and the journal. Authors and reviewers learn something about the topic of the work, and if the paper is accepted for publication, the published manuscript is a better version than the previously submitted. However, this fruitfully practice is now decaying.
More and more ecological journals are jumping over this process and rejecting papers based only on the opinion of one person: the subject-editor. The main reason that the journals argue is that they prevent the authors from wasting time on waiting the revisions that will be surely negative, and quickly resend the rejected paper to another - obviously, lower ranked- journal. Ironically, this argument is given as a benefit for the author. I am convinced that this explanation is irrelevant and unconstructive for science progress.
First, saving time avoiding the stage of colleagues revisions to re-send the same manuscript elsewhere as soon as possible is not a genuine advantage for anybody. As an author, I am not hurried. I want to gain knowledge from nature and not to collect published papers as quick as possible. Hence, I prefer to wait, learn from the reviewers comments, and if eventually the manuscript is rejected, to send a better version to another journal. As a reader, I demand to read the better not the worst- version of a paper. It is clear that a real revision of a manuscript implies a profit for the author and the readers: the author improves it knowledge, and the scientific community reads a better paper. Moreover, the reason why specialized journals reject papers without real revisions (i.e., saving time for authors) is now slight. The use of internet currently reduces the review process to 4-6 weeks, a period not particularly huge; and this wait could be even shorter if reviewers and editors did a more efficient job.
Second, a decision made by only one person (e. g., the subject-editor) is unconstructive, likely biased, and attempt against the spirit of discussion that build the progress of science. It is difficult to understand how the subject-editor can prejudge the opinion of other experts about the quality of a paper. Despite the subject-editor is often an authority in the general topic of the study; he/she often is not a specialist in the specific subject of the submitted manuscript. Normally, this fact generates a bias against publishing scientific novelty (Nature Publishing Group 2003). Furthermore, the opinion of one person, independently of its expertise, is always subjective. This is the reason why in the traditional peer-review process of submission, papers are sent to 2-3 reviewers and not to only one. A revision performed only by the subject editor is like a study designed without real replications (e. g., n = 1); thus no strong inference can be made from it (e. g., about its quality).
In sum, the practice of rejecting submitted papers without real revisions attempt against the spirit of forum that stimulates the progress of science. Nobody, neither authors nor reviewers or journals learn from evading revisions, and the only advantage of saving time for the author is trivial and unhelpful. It is out of discussion that journals must establish their own quality standards and need an acceptance criterion. Perhaps it is time to re-think which of the discussed ways of manuscript evaluation is more constructive to the scientific community: a monarchical criterion supported in the opinion of only one person, or a parliamentary criterion supported in several contrasting opinions.