Critique writing: Manuscript review

challdreams wrote on rejection.

 These things may or may not be part of your personal life, where rejection rears its head at times and you are left to deal with the fall out. And that type of rejection is seldom based on “your writing” but rather on “you as a person” or “things you did“, which is a little more personal and a little harder to ‘accept and get back on the horse‘.

It made me think of how I try to write criticisms of manuscripts that focus on the document in front of me. The data provided and the interpretations advanced. The hypothesis framed.

I try to write criticisms about whether  the data as presented do and do not support the claims. The claims as advanced by the authors. This keeps me away, I hope, from saying the authors are wrong, that their experimental skills are deficient or that they are stupid.

It can be all a matter of phrasing because often the authors hear “you are stupid” when this is not at all what the reviewer thinks she is saying.