Now that my blog is older and hopefully a little wiser, and also due to the advent of twitter, I try not to rant much. (It just brings out the trolls).
But this is a bit of a rant.
When I was "growing up" in grad school, Dr. Smooth taught me that there is a hierarchy of work. Every academic likely has their own version. The hierarchy I was taught goes something like this:
Priority 1: Manuscripts being revised & resubmitted, grants with hard deadlines
Priority 2: Writing
Priority 3: Data Analysis & Data Collection
Priority 4: Administrative work, teaching, other professor bullshit
Priority 5: Life. If you're so weak you need a god damn life, that is.
My own hierarchy is not as cut and dry as that, as I probably prioritize teaching higher than Dr. Smooth did and I am so weak I need a god damn life. However, we're different people at very different institutions and have different passions, so that's okay.
I'd like to propose a new hierarchy:
Priority 1: Manuscripts being revised & resubmitted, grants with hard deadlines
Priority 2: Peer reviews
Priority 3: Writing
Priority 3: Data Analysis & Data Collection
Priority 4: Administrative work, other professor bullshit*
*Y'all can put teaching where ever y'all want, as far as I'm concerned. No judgment, wherever it goes.
Here is my basic argument: We all want more publications. We all want the things that come attached to more publications, such as lines on our CVs, raises, grants, and oh... I don't know... some of us would like this thing called "tenure." So why can't we just agree that our peer reviews move to the top of the hierarchy a little bit?
Here is why I'm complaining: I really, really want tenure. (I'd also kind of like a raise). I work at an institution with a really, really doable tenure bar. I have nothing to complain about. Except, given the sheer amount of time I have to devote to waiting for the peer review process, I've had to overshoot the publication bar by about 2-3x that needed to get tenure. In my field, it takes me a minimum of 3 months to receive my reviews back. The maximum amount of time I have waited for reviews is about 10 months.
I submitted my first manuscript at PCU about 2 months after I arrived here. Since then, I have consistently been waiting on some review or another, without pause.
The best case scenario in that case is about an 8 month wait - I get one round of revisions, 4 months each time on the submission to have a decision made. I try to get my revisions back to journals within one month (sooner if I can), so that's now a 9-10 month wait. (Proposed new metric: that's a 1-baby wait)
Okay that's not so bad - I need to be constantly working about 18 months ahead (2 baby wait), I'm willing to work like that. I always did it as a grad student, I can do it pre-tenure. That means of course that your tenure clock just lost a year and a half, by the way. Anything you submit after the end of your 5th year or so? Who fucking cares, you won't get that shit back in time for your case file anyway!
The worst case scenario? That's a lot worse. Let's say it takes 6 months to get my reviews back and I do one round of revisions (an ideal situation still). Now that paper has taken me a year. What about the time I had to wait 10 months? Now we're at 22 months (2.5 baby wait...?)
(And please don't say "well pull your article from the journal" or "complain to the editor" - untenured Assistant Professors have no power, and we're certainly not going to start burning bridges with editors).
Here is what I heard back when I complained (both on the blog and in real life): People are busy, everyone has shit to do, I do these last in my list of things to do. Or, "I get around to doing them when the editor reminds me a few times." (Gah! Does no one else have a calendar?!)
Peer reviews are a life blood of the current publish or perish system. They're the "Do Not Pass Go" of the academic publishing world. Yet, everyone prioritizes them last. Dead last. Like.... after my worst administrative crap ever, last. It's like expecting your car to keep running without ever taking time to put gas in it. Or something more communal... expecting the bus system to run without ever... paying taxes.
It takes me about 2-4 hours to do a review. I polled my tweeps, and answers ranged from about 1-3 hours up to a full day of work. When I've been asked to do reviews, I usually get asked to return them within 4 weeks, sometimes longer.
If I know that someone who needs tenure, a promotion, a job, a raise, a grant, WHATEVER, is attached to that anonymous piece of writing, then I can find 4 hours in my month to do it. I bet I could even find a 6-8 hours.
If you can't do it? You really really can't get it done in a timely manner - say no. Just decline. Explain why, be polite, and decline. You're not that special, I promise. Someone else can be found. (And if somehow you are that special... well this is what happens when you're the only expert in your field. Deal with it).
I know it sucks to put aside your own work for a day - I know that you barely have time to fit it in to begin with. It's hard for me too! However, next time you get something to review - when you're holding that paper in your hot little hands (or opening it on your hot little computer screen) - please try to imagine that the person attached to that paper is an untenured Assistant Professor like me who wants tenure, or a graduate student/postdoc who really wants to apply for a tenure track job. And have some mercy upon them, please.
I have much sympathy! And do remember that it's not JUST the reviewer who is holding up the process, the editor can also take ages and ages (some of the journals I submit to have electronic systems with helpful status messages that say things like 'with referee' or 'with editor', so I can see when they have it (makes me SO impatient)).
ReplyDeleteI wrestle with the balance between knowing I can only do so many reviews and feeling kind of obliged to be a good reviewer and a good little people pleaser. I have to admit that when I was a new academic I got it wrong, and was often pretty late with my reviews, and I felt AWFUL about it. So I came up with a few guidelines which work for me, and stop me saying yes to everything, which lets me do a good job on the ones I DO take on.
First, I tell myself I only NEED to do two refereeing jobs for every one paper I submit, unless I am not first author AND one of the other authors is senior enough (e.g. on one of the longer major fellowships or an academic) that they likely referee regularly too in which case I only need to do one, in the course of a year. That's my 'debt to the field' covered. Second, I never take on more than two per calendar month - that's a commitment to at most one full day of work, or say 4 evenings. Any more than that and I'll be both grumpy about too much refereeing (so more likely to let it slip) and at too much risk of unexpected stuff getting in the way of timely refereeing. Third, I put a reminder for every refereeing duty in the calendar in my email and the calendar in my phone one week before it's due back. Fourth, I take 24 hours before I say yes or no to a request; yes or no depends on a) will I be able to do this within 3-6 weeks (depending on journal rules), b) is it on a topic related to my research or teaching tasks during those weeks (in which case it won't take a big mental gear shift to look at it and so it'll be easier to do) and c) if I'm still unsure, is it for a journal which I want to submit to soon [yes, that one's a bit slippery, but it can be a good way to get a feel for the journal style/any layout quirks].
Being slightly detail-oriented, I keep a tally in the back of my diary, and can tell you that right now I'm up by 5 refereeings over submission-costs, as per my system, and the latest any one of those refereeings went back was 10 days past the deadline (due to me being ill). So, as things get busy for the next couple of months, I will say 'no' without feeling bad about it, unless the paper is on something really cool and I want to read it!
Horray, rant time! Peer review is always going to be a sticky endeavor, because it relies on peers (aka people), and people are messed up. Also, "Life. If you're so weak you need a god damn life, that is" made me bust out laughing. That kind of sad laughing where you realize how true it is.
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