Reviewing was Re: [ RadSafe ] uranium smoke is a teratogen

[Jeff Terry]

Hi Steven,

It is an interesting question that you raise about reading cited  
papers. I would not expect every author to read all of the papers that  
they cite. One must have a level of trust in the co-authors of a paper.

While it is never good to use oneself as an example as it is too easy  
to put ones foot in mouth, here I go anyway. I would imagine that I in  
general have around 20 references in my papers and an average of 5  
authors on any given paper. That would be 4 papers per author and it  
is a manageable number. I would hope that at least one of the authors  
of any given paper have read each of the papers that they cite.

As for reviewing, that is an entirely different story. I have had  
journal submissions returned with as few as two reviewers. I don't  
believe that we are as effective in peer review as we could be. Maybe,  
it is because of the larger number of papers submitted and the  
explosive growth in the number of journals, which results in too many  
reviews being asked of people. I don't know, but I do not believe that  
it bodes well. When I review, I do not go through every reference. I,  
always, skip those that are not relevant to the major point of the  
paper. For example, in the introduction of a paper you usually get the  
litany of these references are similar to the work described. I do  
read those that are germane to controversial points in a paper and  
often suggest other papers that bolster or contradict that authors  
comments. Hopefully, my comments provide some benefit to the authors.

In my opinion though, peer review must be improved. It is interesting  
to see the Awards program instituted by the American Physical Society  
this year to honor extraordinary reviewers:
http://publish.aps.org/OutstandingReferees

Maybe, other societies can do something similar. I would really prefer  
to see all published papers be reviewed by at least three people.

Jeff

Jeff Terry
Illinois Institute of Technology


> On May 23, 2008, at 10:52 PM, Steven Dapra wrote:
>
> [edit]
>
>        This is a very good point, and one I have pondered at times  
> when reading papers in Health Physics and other refereed journals.   
> Do the authors of these papers take the time to read all the  
> literature they cite?  Can they take the time?  Do they even read  
> the paragraph wherein the sentence appears that they have quoted?   
> We often see papers with 30 or 40 or 50 (or even more) references.   
> No one can read all that stuff before writing a paper --- can he?   
> And to imagine the reviewers reading all that material to ascertain  
> that it has been used properly?  Not to detract from the valiant  
> efforts of any reviewer, I do not see how it would be possible for  
> anyone to read all that stuff.  I don't think it would be possible  
> to check all the references and ensure that they are correct ---  
> meaning correct volume, date, and page numbers.
>
>        I emphatically am not denigrating anyone's reviews.  I am  
> merely noting the enormous amount of work it would be to thoroughly  
> review a paper.
>
> Steven Dapra
>
>