Publishing in the New Millennium forum: topic
This is a public forum
How to choose suggested reviewers?
Heather Etchevers
Thursday, 05 June 2008 21:21 UTC
I have just received my paper back, rejected for good from my latest journal of choice.
I want to send it to a new journal, that requests I suggest four potential reviewers.
Should these people be members of the “advisory board” or “editorial board”, of whom a certain number could be relevant, or could it be anyone? Or should the suggestion comprise a mix of both?
This paper has been painfully making the rounds for slightly over a year now, so I would like it to go to reviewers who are likely to actually do their review quickly as opposed to celebrities, who may not have the time or may pass it off to well-meaning but overly zealous grad students and postdocs.
-
Replies
-
Follow-up: we’re going with a mix-and-match – one editorial board member, three not.
But I’m still interested in opinions on the question.
-
The Nature journals don’t have editorial boards, and I haven’t worked for a journal with one, so I am afraid I can’t provide a “journal editor’s” perspective on your question – which is one best answered by scientists with a lot of experience of different journals and the publication process I imagine.
However, my educated guess is that the journal would most appreciate relevant suggestions, rather than specifically those on the editorial board.
You also might consider, if some of the referees’ comments you received already are positive, that you send them to the journal when you submit your manuscript. This is a fairly common practice at the Nature journals. I don’t think it makes any difference one way or another, on average, but it can provide the journal with an independent take. If journal (1) has rejected mainly on space grounds but the referees found the paper of interest, this information can be quite helpful to journal (2) in deciding whether to send your paper out to review, as it gives journal (2) an indication that your paper is technically sound, for example.
-
Here’s something that you may not know: some journals ask for lists of referees, but then keep these for further reference, and will not send your paper to them. They are trying to expand their list of referees in that area. Choosing people from their advisory board wouldn’t help them. However, they will know that you don’t know about this.
OTOH, mentioning people from the Board would show whether or not you actually know what these people do.
… and then sometimes, you want to tell them that a competing department/university should not be sent the paper (and why).
It’s all fraught. I doubt there’s a “right” answer, given the request’s relationship to invisible journal processes.
-
Linda: what makes you think that journals do this (deliberately ignore authors’ suggestions and keep them for their own use)? On the face of it, it is easier for journals to find names in an area, if it needs them, by searching a database (eg PubMed) than using author-recommended lists (which they’d have to transcribe into another format for their databases, etc).
A good journal will publish advice on its website about whether or not it encourages authors to suggest or exclude reviwers. (For example, we state that authors can exclude two people/groups but no more, as some authors have been known to try to exclude everyone capable of reviewing the ms properly). If the journal is “invsible” in respect of its published author guidelines, it might not be a very good journal.
-
Dear Maxine,
There was a survey last year or the year before that reported that some journals do this — and it stuck in my mind because it seemed to me to be such an odd thing to do.
-
Linda, most editors certainly look at the suggestions given by the authors and also certainly cache away the information for either current or future use. The reason why an editor may not use a suggestion given by the authors is because the suggested scientists may have never reviewed for the journal before. Therefore, depending on the situation, the editor may not feel comfortable placing a “newbie” as a reviewer unless s/he has other calibrated reviewers in that field also assessing the manuscript. In that way, the new reviewer’s report can be compared to the trusted reviewer’s report, providing a calibration of editorial standards, technical expertise, knowledge in that particular field, etc…
Therefore, saving those author lists is not a bad idea, if a journal wants to expand their stable of reviewers in a particular area. But I doubt that editors deliberately avoid suggested reviewers just because the author listed them, especially if the suggestions include the most-trusted, calibrated reviewers (for that particular editor) in the field.
-
I didn’t say they deliberately AVOID using suggested reviewers, just that they often don’t use them. The reasoning you give is very probaby why this is so, and well put.
And, in answer an earlier criticism, I neither said that I did this (having worked on that side of journals for about a decade, where we just never asked authors to suggest names) nor that I would or could characterise these journals in any way.
It does seem to me to be useful information for authors, especially those trying to make a somehow perfect list of sugestions… they need to spend that effort on the structure and readability of the article, instead.
-
Linda: I agree, a list of recommended reviewers is not important compared with the paper itself.
For Nature, certainly, the reason why we have developed advice about reviewer recommendations and exclusions is because authors themselves have asked for it: they want to recommend or exclude reviewers. This is fine if they want to do this, but it is entirely voluntary and I don’t think the journal should be obliged to follow these lists for all the reasons you and Noah have said, and for other reasons, for example—
“Reviewer selection is critical to the publication process, and we base our choice on many factors, including expertise, reputation, specific recommendations and our own previous experience of a reviewer’s characteristics. For instance, we avoid using people who are slow, careless, or do not provide reasoning for their views, whether harsh or lenient.”
So far as author suggestions for reviewers are concerned, Linda, do you think we should make it clearer in our advice that it is optional for authors to suggest/exclude reviewers, or is this clear enough, do you think? We regularly review our policies and welcome input from readers and other scientists for that process:
“All contributions submitted to Nature journals that are selected for peer-review are sent to at least one, but usually two or more, independent reviewers, selected by the editors. Authors are welcome to suggest suitable independent reviewers, but these suggestions may not be followed. They may also request that the journal excludes one or two individuals or laboratories. The journal sympathetically considers such exclusion requests and usually honours them, but the editor’s decision on the choice of peer-reviewers is final.”
By the way, Linda, in light of your comment about an earlier criticism of you, I hope you do not refer to me. I checked back to my question to you above, and there does not seem to me to be a hint of criticism of you there, but if there is, please accept my apology, as it was unintentional.
-
Bit late to this, but, to add to Noah’s comment:
Why might the editors file away the list of suggestions? Well, unless you’re a big name journal, or the editor is well known and owed favours, the editor is not always going to be lucky first time — they might have to ask eight, twelve, or even thirty people before the find two with the right combination of skills, and enough time and interest to review. Therefore, it’s good to keep a cache of potential reviewers in-case of trouble.
Who to suggest? Post-docs and Assistant Profs — who need to prepare CVs and tenure cases (green card cases are also good) — are more likely to have the time/inclination to agree. Most journals will have guidelines for how active the reviewers are — e.g., must have at least 15 publications, including one in the past year, and eight in the past five years.
-
