Repost: A nonpology for my Glamour hatred. And for PP.

I wrote this awhile ago. Seems worth reposting for new readers:

I really should apologize to my readers who get their feelings hurt when 1) I bash GlamourMag science and 2) CPP bashes society journal level science. I just couldn’t figure out how to make it something other than a nonpology. So the nonpology version is, sorry dudes, sorry that your feelings are hurt if there is some implication that you are a trivial fame-chasing, probably data faking GlamourHound. also, if the ranting that I trigger from certain commenters has the effect of making you feel as though you are a trivial, meaningless speedbump who is wasting NIH dollars better spent on RealScientists who do RealGrandeWorkEleven. The fact is, CPP and I are in relatively comfortable situations compared with many of our readers. It is no secret that we have jobs and grant funding. Although it is true that both of us are not above making an exaggerated point for dramatic discussion-encouraging purposes, it is probably no surprise that we come from distinctly different points of view ForRealz on this particular issue. Speaking only for myself in this case, I’ve been around long enough and enjoyed enough of what I consider to be success in what I want to do as a scientist that it tends to insulate me against criticism. I get that this is not true for all of you. If my intent in raising these issues (i.e., to show that the dominant meme is not reflective of the only way to have a career) backfires for some of you, I do regret that.

Brief Reader query

Do you ever click on the category links at the top of a post to read other items that I have placed in that category?

If so is it helpful?

Scientific peer review is not broken, but your Glamour humping ways are

I have recently had a not-atypical publishing experience for me. Submitted a manuscript, got a set of comments back in about four weeks. Comments were informed, pointed a finger at some weak points in the paper but did not go all nonlinear about what else they’d like to see or whinge about mechanism or talk about how I could really increase the “likely impact”. The AE gave a decision of minor revisions. We made them and resubmitted. The AE accepted the paper.

Boom.

The manuscript had been previously rejected from somewhere else. And we’d revised the manuscript according to those prior comments as best we could. I assume that made the subsequent submission go smoother but it is not impossible we simply would have received major revisions for the original version.

Either way, the process went as I think it should.

This brings me around to the folks who think that peer review of manuscripts is irretrievably broken and needs to be replaced with something NEW!!!!11!!!.

Try working in the normal scientific world for awhile. Say, four years. Submit to regular journals edited by actual working peer scientists. ONLY. Submit to journals of pedestrian and/or unimpressive Impact Factor (that would be the 2-4 range from my frame of reference). Submit interesting stories- whether they are “complete” or “demonstrate mechanism” or any of that bullshit. Then submit the next part of the continuing story you are working on. Repeat.

Oh, and make sure to submit to journals that don’t require any page charge. Don’t worry, they exist.

Give your trainees plenty of opportunity to be first author. Give them lots of experience writing and allow them to put their own thoughts into the paper..after all, there will be many more of them to go around.

See how the process works. Evaluate the quality of review. Decide whether your science has been helped or hindered by doing this.

Then revisit your prior complaints about how peer review is broken.

And figure out just how many of them have more to do with your own Glamour humping ways than they do with anything about the structure of Editor managed peer-review of scientific manuscripts.

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Also see Post-publication peer review and preprint fans