I have been considering publishing my next article in #elife
I was not very convinced by their new #publishing method, but the more I think about it, the more I like it.
What convinced me is that I think of the way I review papers myself. I won't ever reject a paper unless there is something majorly wrong e.g. from an ethical point of view. Instead, I would rather spend time and give constructive and realistic feedback to improve the study.
This is because of two reasons:
1. If the study idea/methodology etc, is good but maybe is missing some key experiment, I think that the authors must have put a lot of effort, time and money into producing this. I have been through the "your work is not fancy enough for our prestigious journal" crap enough times that I will not engage in that. Ever. There is no reason your paper should not publish negative results if the study is well done.
Also, people's jobs and mental health depend on that, which is way more important.
Also, there are plenty of papers in "fancy journals" that are just piles of bs, so I really won't buy into shiny names (I have just spent an entire day trying to run code from several papers published in high-IF journals to no avail...).
2. If the study is poor, it is easy to say: "This is cr*p, straight reject". This just means the authors will submit elsewhere, hoping the next reviewer won't be bothered reading the paper in depth and will let it through. Even worse, this plays into the hands of #predatory journals. I would rather say this can be accepted after all of these major revisions.
The authors get useful feedback on how to improve their study; they might choose not to act on it, but at least I have made my part.
I would be interested in hearing other views on this.
@nicolaromano I rarely recommend rejection, but I have when I considered the papers pointless. One that comes to mind was analysis paper with no hypothesis that was basically just a public database search with a little additional standard analysis. Another was a method that did not work, but they claimed it did due to poorly designed validations.
I don't think revisions could have saved them, but maybe it is best to just publish alongside a short assessment and be done with it.
@adamr Absolutely, I am not advocating never rejecting, and agree certain works can't be saved. However I think/hope those are not the vast majority. I found it bizarre that many journals boast their high rejection rate. It sounds like a reflection of an 'old-boys club' type of culture that we should work to get rid of.
