Referees as a "useless lot."

by Liberty and Power

Over at Econolog, Bryan Caplan, one of my favorite economists, offers this sound advice about coping with referee reports . The last point is especially good:

Referees are on average a useless lot. If they give you a revise and resubmit, you must kowtow to their idiocyncracies. But if they reject you, your best response is almost always to immediately put your article back in the mail, unchanged. The next referee probably won't like your piece either, but he will have totally different complaints. Indeed, referees frequently contradict each other.

If a journal rejects you, you should only revise your article prior to resubmission if (a) multiple referees share a complaint; (b) if any referee says your article"sounds like it was written by a grad student"; or (c) if you honestly agree with a criticism. Give yourself a one-week" cooling off" period to decide if any of these three conditions hold. If you think not, grit your teeth and throw the dice again.

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David Timothy Beito - 6/23/2005

The JAH is up to its old tricks. I had very painful similar experience during the Thelen years. I sent an article to the JA and it sat there months and months. After the initial reports came in, Thelen responded by sending it to yet more readers. It dragged on for several more months when the editor finally overruled the majority of readers who were favorable to publication.

Ralph E. Luker - 6/22/2005

This is excellent advice. As I mentioned over at Cliopatria, I've just had an article chosen by 9 judges for the OAH, who surveyed 300 journals over the last year to be published in a new OAH sponsored annual series, The Best Articles in American History, published by Palgrave/MacMillan. As it happens, this article went through peer review hell. Sent to the JAH, it went to four readers. One said "Publish as is." The other three gave conflicting recommendations for change and the editor wanted to publish a piece of it. Similar experience at American Quarterly. At an important journal of southern history, not to be named here, the editor sent it to one of my peers from graduate school, who was known to be a young jerk then and has, in the meantime, only become an old jerk. His sarcasm virtually signed his name to a blind peer review. He simply wanted me to kowtow to his imperious requirements for revision. Up yours, says I, and send it off to another journal. So, here's my vindication and my royal middle finger to a blind peer reviewer for an unnamed journal of southern history.