I recommended Journal A to reject a paper a few months ago, and Journal B invited me to review the same paper. Although I have not read the revised paper, I think I am going to reject it again (basically, the abstract remains the same). Should I accept the invitation and reject the paper or should I let the editor(s) know the situation and decline the invitation?
Political Science Job Rumors » General Job Market Discussion » Journals Discussion
Journal Reviewer's Etiquettes
(19 posts)-
Posted 7 months ago #
-
I would decline. Since you've already seen the paper and have some sort of bias against it you might not be able to appreciate the improvements (if they exist). Best to let someone else read it with fresh eyes.
Posted 7 months ago # -
You should let the editor know about the situation, and then let him/her decide whether or not it would be appropriate for you to review the paper.
Posted 7 months ago # -
Do not reject a paper just because the abstract remained the same. If you are going to review it again - and your bias suggests you shouldn't - then be sure to see what revisions (if any) have been made.
Posted 7 months ago # -
I agree with John. Let the editor know. And if you are asked to review it again, please read the paper again and try to keep an open mind - especially if this journal is ranked lower than the original. One issue to consider is that assuming the paper has not changed much, it becomes difficult to disguise your comments. Unless you come up with entirely original grounds for rejection, the author is likely to recognize the review. I've even had a reviewer or two reveal in their review that they have reviewd my manusript before. Simply copying and pasting a prior review may give the author some grounds for protesting the rejection. So, best to be up front with the editor.
Posted 7 months ago # -
These are all good recommendations. Inform the current editorial team you have previously reviewed and rejected this paper. The team can then make a decision whether or not to use you again. Our team was often informed of the situation, and then would consider asking if the person was capable of being objective (as Mech points out). For those in a small/specialized subfield we often had little choice. I must say, however, that you should not make a rejection based simply on the fact that the abstract is the same.
Posted 7 months ago # -
You should also remember that what may not fit for journal A could be good enough for journal B
Posted 7 months ago # -
but ... inclination to reject a paper is not necessarily "bias." we are all social scientists, right? "bias" would imply that the inclination is wrong. it could just be a crappy paper.
Posted 7 months ago # -
If it's a crappy paper, any reviewer would reject it. If I were an editor, I wouldn't send a paper to someone who's already rejected it. This review contributes no new information. And asking the "can you be unbiased, despite X?" question is total BS and I think editors should be ashamed of engaging in this practice. Who would say no?? When this no implies that you have something against the paper or its author, rather than that you just think the paper is crap. I've been asked that question when I've informed editors that the authors are my friends? Of course, I said yes, cause otherwise I look like a dummy. But I'm not sure that I'm totally unbiased. Especially, when it comes to reviewing papers that are quite good, but possibly not good enough for the journal they were submitted to.
The problem is especially acute in small subfields, because if papers get sent to the same people over and over, the likelihood of publishing something new and interesting diminishes greatly.
Come on, editors, don't be lazy, find new reviewers!
Posted 7 months ago # -
Relax. There is nothing lazy about the vast majority of those who head up major journals. The single biggest impediment to getting manuscripts turned around was, in our case, locating reviewers. And you ^ point out part of the problem, in that smaller subfields have very few options. If we run down a list of qualified scholars who could evaluate a sophisticated formal model of international conflict; there aren't many. Just as bad is the field of *good* IPE. Those reviewers that there are, are taxed mightily by numerous requests from a burgeoning number of journals. As social scientists, it's possible to be objective and evaluate if changes have been made to rectify errors, etc. If you've reviewed a piece before, say so. It will be taken into consideration. Multiple requests for the same piece should never be the first preference, but given that journals do not know who has reviewed what before is a major time impediment. It was never our first choice to have a previous reviewer look something over again, as I agree here it should not be, but it did happen from time to time if other options were exhausted.
Posted 7 months ago # -
When John Geer was the JOP editor, he tended to let all the reviewers share each other's reviews. One reviewer candidly mentioned in her report that she is reviewing the piece for the third time and really likes it now even though she did not like it earlier. Apparently, it's quite common.
Posted 7 months ago # -
I once had a paper where one of the reviewers mentioned that he had read the paper for another journal and while he voted for its rejection before, he now thought it should be published. It was.
Posted 7 months ago # -
Fine, lazy isn't a good word. And I do realize that finding reviewers is hard. My point was that asking perfunctorily "do you think you can be unbiased" doesn't provide any information, because no one will ever admit that they can't be, even if they do realize it (and oftentimes they don't).
Posted 7 months ago # -
I don't think either editors or reviewers should have a blanket policy on this. Reviewers should always give a fresh read to a paper, but sometimes a given reviewer is in fact particularly well situated to review a given paper, whether for methodological, substantive, or other reasons. If that reviewer thought it was crappy the first time, that doesn't mean the author should be able to remove the people best situated to identify the crap from the pool (3 or more reviewers for each submission) and just work their way down to increasingly less competent/expert/skeptical reviewers until they can get the crap published. It means the author should fix the paper until the most competent reviewers in their field (who may or may not have seen an earlier version and formed judgments on it) think this version passes the bar for the particular journal where it has been submitted.
Posted 7 months ago # -
Sometimes people submit the same paper for a different journal for a good reason. For example, if it was first rejected in a way that the senior reviewer wholeheartedly supported the paper for publication but the other (junior scholar) rejected, editors often tell the authors not to tinker with it and to submit it somewhere else. It is bad luck to bump into the same reviewer who rejected it again but common in some fields. As such, he or she should reveal to the new editor that he already rejected it somewhere else. A good editor will understand and assign someone else. Rejecting it again without telling the history reflects bad manners. If the paper is indeed worthless, it should be obvious for the new reviewer as well.
Posted 7 months ago # -
Does accepting it again without telling the history also reflect bad manners :) Funny how there's a lot more worry (by authors) to getting the potentially negative reviewers out of their individual reviewer pools than with getting credulous -- err -- potentially positive reviewers out of the pool. Of course, I'd be happy to ban anyone who doesn' t like my papers from reviewing them as well (heard it at a conference once and didn't like it -- you really should recuse yourself). But from a disciplinary perspective, I'm not sure why this is in our interest.
Posted 7 months ago # -
We don't know. It could have been a crappy paper or a biased reviewer. If the paper was refused by two independent reviewers, it's probably the first. But let's be realistic, blind review is a myth. In most fields people do recognize other authors. It would concern me as an editor (and would suggest to submit somewhere else unaltered) if a paper was accepted by Peter Katzenstein and refused by young hot shot Sibelius from a competing school of thought.
Posted 7 months ago # -
You can review the piece again, but you have to sit down and read it again.
If it hasn't changed substantially, and you believe that at least your review was fair, then it would be worth slapping the authors around for being the sorts of dicks who keep submitting the same damn thing, not caring in the slightest what other scholars in their field think about it, until Reviewer Roulette hands them three uncritical people.
"I recently reviewed this submission for another journal. The authors have made no meaningful changes in response to my comments or those of the other reviewers in that case. Accordingly, what follows is the unaltered text of my original review. Perhaps the authors would benefit from actually engaging with their own discipline instead of throwing the same submission at the wall over and over again in the hopes that it will eventually stick."
Posted 7 months ago # -
Another factor is the quality of journal A vs. Journal B. I have had articles rejected by Journal A that a reviewer said would have been just fine for Journal B regardless of changes. I have also run into the issue of having my own papers cross paths with the same reviewers quite a lot...I re-edit where I see serious changes needed, and do not if the comments seem snarky or basically reflect not a problem with the paper, but simply that the reviewer doesn't like the bent of the manuscript. I agree that the editorial team should decide, but declining is a little better for all concerned than rejecting it KNOWING you are going to reject it It saves some of your time as a reviewer, and the time of the submitter as well.
Posted 7 months ago #