as a regular writer in peer reviewed journals I have to say that the author of this article is not a knowledgable person; he is not a researcher and as a result he has no direct experience. Al most all journals today have peer reviews; that is also true for most publishing companies. It is mandatory. If a journal has no such system, it is not considered to be an academic journal and authors do not get any credit for publishing in those journals ( for example Harvard Business Review is not a journal from where one can get any credit but one may get a lot of publicity).
normally widely publicised magazines are not peer reviewed.
However, that does not mean I am supporting this system. The system has many flaws and it should be abolished. I know personally most reviewer do not read the article; they may not have any knowledge; they may reject a paper but he will copy from that rejected paper and publish in the same journal in his own name( I was a victim of that kind from one M.P of the Dutch Parliament Rick Van Der Flaugh who has rejected my paper but copied the most important parts of it and published in the same journal). There was a study made by Joan Martin of Stanford University, where she has sent 10 already published papers in well known journals to some of the well known journals, most of the papers got rejected by the new referees. There is the classic example of S.N.Bose, whose paper on Thermodynamics was rejected in every English language journals. So in fru
I agree with the author, many scientists will shy away from the so called peer reviewed, reputed journals which show lot of geographical descrimination.
I can say as a medical professional ,it is rampant in most of the western medical journals as well.
Internet may be the greatest revolution
for those who do genuine work still fail to get into the mainstream.
It is also a fact, much of what is published in the peer reviewed journals pure junk.
and the question is who is a peer ? and who is going to review them ?
It is fact that most of published material is directly or indirectly nothing but recycled and enriched trash like uranium enrichment from ore.The scholars quote each other and base judgement on that which further goes as citation.Infact we are creating more and more trash and enriching it. If you do some original work and dont refer to some past literature ,these idiots in publishing business posing as custodians of quality research and knowledge don't accept it.
This is ridiculous.
These journals instead of serving the very purpose for which they are published rather resort to all types of rhetoric to show that they are sought and precious. Fact is otherwise. They carry as much trash as others.
In internet based publications not only you get published immediately and not harassed by these idiots but reach is far and wide. It is more visible. Peer review thought a good safety valve does not really create any value. Talking of plagiarism, almost 90% of world research is indirectly plagiarism only. let Internet publications take over these slow paced over dramatic and costly and idiotic publiscations. They have nothing but pseudo quality and are merely posers. The peer review is not needed and is surely dead.
I am quite amazed about the comments of the author of this article which are not based on any sound research or empirical data. By taking just one or two examples in a single subject area author is trying to generalise his hypothesis (Scientific?).
First of all, the peer-reviewing is not dead and it won%u2019t be in coming decades. The most admired universities in the world still consider research publications in the journals as the top criteria in recruiting their academic staff. For instance, the RAE (UK Govt body which ranks the quality of the Universities) considers research publications in the international journals as the most important measure of research esteem. Book publication comes 3rd on the priority (simply because any Tom, Dick or Harry can write a book and get it published as there may not be a methodological rigor or academic stance in a book).
There is no truth in the argument that the top journals have a negative bias towards the research work from the East. All the top journals follow a procedure called %u201CBlind reviewing%u201D wherein the reviewer will not be able to know the details of the authors and their affiliation. Each of the submitted papers will be blind reviewed by at least 2 or 3 people. Moreover, if you do some background research on these journals, you will know that the editorial boards and review panels of these journals are filled with experts (A LOT OF THEM ARE FROM THE EAST) in their respective subject domains. As a researche
RE:Think before writing
by kandadi reddy on Aug 04, 2007 08:30 PM
(Continued)...As a researcher, I have seen people around me receiving a lot of rejections and some rare acceptances from top journals. The reason is simple%u2026not every one is (or can become) a good researcher and therefore cannot write truly outstanding empirical papers. World class journals publish world class work. If a paper is rejected it means only one thing %u2013 %u201Cits not world class research work%u201D. So instead of blaming the journals it will be beneficial to do some sound, rigorous and valuable research and then try to publish in reputed journals. Finding an excuse that someone can publish their work on a website or some other media is only a way of escapism. I am not saying that the work published on the websites is not valuable. I am only reinstating that it is not an equivalent alternative for publishing in journals. The work you publish on a website will not have equal academic value and stature and it may disappear tomorrow for a million reasons.
So I request the author and also the commentators not to mislead novice researchers by making such generalised statements about the academia with out a sound analysis of the circumstances.
Eventhough there are journals that subject manuscripts for stringent peer-review procedures, I personally feel that the standard of the review procedures have drastically come down! Moreover, one can easily appreciate bias; especially scientific journals entering the peer-review procedures from eastern world are outrightly rejected or often blamed for their 'mediocre' intellectual content. One should, at the otherside notice published articles emerging from the west reflecting poor quality of research! The papers allocated for a perticular reviewer is again not reviewed by the 'reviewer' instead his subordinates who are totally naive or new to the content! Who to blame? What role does the peer-review procedure has? Reviewers are often 'proud' of rejecting papers and these papers irrespective of whether they are of good scientific quality or poor.. often becomes the targets for these 'intelligent' reviewers especially when papers are from eastern nations. We need to have a common platform, which has reviewers from all disciplines, and who can act indifferently and independently! Also the peer review of one paper need to be reviewed by atleast 5 reviewers so that the quality can also be improved and the chance of bias can also be substantially reduced! Finally, an universal guideline must be framed to ensure the selection of potent and expert reviewers who can critically carry out the review procedures. In this context, I appreciate British Journals that adopt this policy witho
RE:Peer Review
by Venkat Ramanan on Aug 04, 2007 07:21 PM
Shankar, I really agree with you. Majority of the journals suggest that the reviewer had declined publishing of a persons work for reasons cited by the reviewer (which at times are incorrect). Meanwhile as i understand most of the reviewers just glance at the abstract and conclusion and decide the paper fate rather than studying the whole paper. Apart from this the qualification of the reviewer and his conversent in the field is kept anonymous for reasons best known. To curb the these, the suggestions made by you stands valid. :-)
RE:Peer Review
by shekhar nath on Aug 04, 2007 07:26 PM
We have also face similar problem when we submit papers in reputed journals of west. The best way is not to reveal the authors name and address to the reviewers. Then they can not know the location, and bias can be minimized. Even I observe that few indian journals follow this rule.
