[Taxacom] Pre-submission peer-review and online import of specimen records from BOLD

[Stephen Thorpe]

Yes, but you are a rare scholar and a gentleman Bob. In the real world, there are others not at all like you.

Stephen

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On Thu, 24/9/15, Bob Mesibov <robert.mesibov at gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Pre-submission peer-review and online import of specimen records from BOLD
 To: "Thorpe, Stephen" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
 Cc: "TAXACOM" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
 Received: Thursday, 24 September, 2015, 10:25 AM
 
 Hi, Stephen.
 
 "In the real world, particularly for small taxonomic
 communities, it often happens that a reviewer is a close
 colleague of an author, and this relationship influences the
 way that the review is handled. It can easily (but by no
 means always) result in only cursory attention being paid to
 the review, and an unwillingness to be seen to be
 "nitpicky", given that the author will likely be a reviewer
 of future manuscripts of the present reviewer. Life is
 easier for both parties if critiques are kept to a
 minimum."
 
 My experience as a reviewer and author over the past 25
 years isn't like that. 'Nitpickiness' (a good thing in
 reviewing) is a characteristic of individuals, not
 communities, and I (as author) and colleagues (as authors)
 have been grateful to have mistakes pointed out and
 improvements suggested. This has been the case regardless of
 whether the reviews were signed or anonymous.
 
 The quality of a review, it seems to me, is mainly dependent
 on how much time the reviewer can afford to spend looking
 carefully through the manuscript. Experienced reviewers have
 developed tricks to make their reviewing quicker, and
 hopefully ARPHA will allow those tricks to be used without
 too much extra effort.
 
 Cheers,
 Bob
 -- 
 Dr Robert Mesibov
 Honorary Research Associate
 Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
 Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
 --
 Home phone: 64252630 [61 3 64252630]