The Ghosts of Reviewers Past
These are all comments from past reviewers of my manuscripts. Some are
vehement declarations of my inadequacies as a writer,
some are examples of the many ways to view an elephant, others are merely
good turns of the phrase. I have assembled them for my own amusement and to
remind me that opinions often differ. Many (though not all, in my opinion)
of the more scathing and offensive comments had some substance behind them,
but I found the presentation worthy of note.
I also present these tidbits so others, particularly
beginning researchers & students, will not be too discouraged if they
receive similar spleen ventings from their reviewers.
REMEMBER: If you don't like what they have to say, you can always feed them to your dog...
Reviewer 1
"You also seems [sic] unaware of other pertinent
literature on selection...(Bad scholarship defaces an otherwise excellent
study)"
"My general reaction to the discussion is that it reads
like the first draft of a PhD. thesis... Cut this out! The discussion is
schizophrenic between trying to be a good theoretician and a good empiricist
testing theory." [EDBIII - yes, well, it was. But I still think it had
something to offer]
"you seem to be trying to be a theoretician, but failing
because you do not produce any new evolutionary ideas"
Reviewer 2
"The ms is generally well written, and the literature
adequately covered and interpreted. It is an excellent manuscript well
suited for publication in Evolution."
Reviewer 1
"Brodie is being, it seems to me, positively devious when
he refers only to the murky field of failed attempts...The author does not
improve the paper by making innacurate claims."
Reviewer 2
"As far as I know this is the first demonstration of such
a correlation."
1989 Copeia 1989 1068-1071 (Tall tails and sexy
males....)
Reviewer 1
"The subtitle is quite descriptive. The main title is
cute but I advise not using it."
Reviewer 2
"I enjoyed the title and hope that it is retained - some
will regard it as flippant and "unscientific", others like myself will view
it as witty."
from an earlier submission
"Brodie seems not to be aware of two studies...by Smith"
[EDBIII - both cited and discussed at length]
"No proof is given that it is indeed predatory birds
which are attacking the models. For all we know the clay models may be
perceived as dead material...the photograph is not at all convinceing, this
looks like marks left by heavy leaves falling onto the surface petiole
first." [EDBIII - Right. And they leave paired marks on the underside, and
fall most commonly on plain brown controls, not coral snake patterns]
from the accepted version
Reviewer 1
"this is an interesting and important manuscript, but
the clumsiness of the writing makes it difficult to understand...I won't go
on - I find it too irritating."
"I don't know of a way to get post hoc comparisons from a
G-test and neither did our department's tame statistician" [EDBIII - both
should check Sokal and Rohlf, p 728-731]
"As you can see, I feel that this paper is so poorly
written that it's discourteous of the author to have submitted it for
publication. I would not accept this as a term paper from an undergraduate,
and I'm not sure that in my days as an editor I would have wanted to
undertake the job of teaching this author to write. [EDBIII - in
fairness to this reviewer the draft was overwritten, chiefly in response to
inane comments to previous drafts like those shown above]"
"It is important for the readers to be reminded that this
is an approximation, particularly now that quantitative genetics
is passe."
"This paper thus suffers from the obvious problem that
the result supports orthodoxy..."
"I think there is a very good manuscript (or two) here
but this current paper is too schizophrenic in purpose and too loosely
linked to what is already known...to work as a paper" [EDB III and this is
from a very positive review!]