As a reviewer and recipient of reviews, I've noted a recent trend among IR papers. A study uses cross-national data with regression analysis, and runs multiple models with different variables or sub-sets of the data. Sometimes the results are consistent, sometimes...
This brief post started life as a comment on a Facebook discussion thread about peer reviewing practices but I thought it might deserve a wider readership. The question was raised: is it kosher for...
I understand that there's been some recent blog-chatter on one of my favorite hobbyhorses, peer review in Political Science and International Relations. John Sides gets all 'ruh roh' because of an...
Note: this is the second in a series of posts opening up issues relating to journal process for general discussion by the international-studies community. All journals commit to publishing "the best...
Sort of safe-for-work (as long as no one is reading the subtitles)...
I just turned down a request that I review for a journal because, in part, they failed to send me an anonymized copy of the decision letter the last time I reviewed for them. And this despite the journal using an electronic review system that automates the process.I can think of a number of reasons why all peer-reviewed journals should be required to supply reviewers with copies of their decision letters. In no particular order:(1) It provides closure to the reviewer.If I invested--at minimum--a few days in carefully reading an article and writing a review of anywhere from two to six pages,...
I recently received a rejection on a piece from a major journal in my field. The piece had been with the journal for about seven months, which is very long in international relations.The rejection was fair, but, like all authors, I had some issues with some of the substance of one of the critiques--although other aspects of it were spot on. So, having received the decision, I write a quick email to my co-author in which I say something mildly positive about the editors and something pretty negative about one of the reviews. I conclude, however, that I won't send another piece to the journal...
With apologies to xkcd:Image and original idea by Randall Munroe.
I've written before on issues related to the state of peer review. The topic comes up frequently on many academic blogs. But having just received the final report on a manuscript I reviewed (note: not that I wrote), I feel compelled to ask the following question:Given the ABYSMAL level of professionalism among peer reviewers, why do we continue to place so much stock in peer-reviewed publications in International Relations?I wish I could say more about the review that sent me (yet again) over the edge, but I feel comfortable pointing out that writing ten sentences on a long, well-developed,...
Via scatterplot, an on-line mathematics journal for rejected papers. Joke? They say not. And the idea, even if Swiftian, makes a great deal of sense. Maybe the time is ripe in Political Science? Given the vagaries of peer review, and the black hole of bottom-tier journals, I think so.