{"id":2028,"date":"2012-09-24T09:41:40","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T08:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=2028"},"modified":"2012-09-24T13:22:55","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T12:22:55","slug":"jon-cogburns-plea-to-grad-students-and-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2012\/09\/24\/jon-cogburns-plea-to-grad-students-and-others\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Cogburn’s Plea to Grad Students (and Others)"},"content":{"rendered":"

[IB<\/strong>: I’m taking the liberty of copying in its entirety Jon Cogburn’s post on NewAPPS<\/a> about submitting papers to journals, because it’s worth reading.\u00a0 He directs it to graduate students – but I think that the same point applies to anyone, especially if they’re new to the field in which they’re writing.\u00a0 Since a lot of people writing for journals like the <\/em>JME – especially on topics in clinical ethics – are medics before they’re ethicists, or are coming at ethics from a non-standard direction, I think that the advice is particularly pertinent.]<\/em><\/p>\n

A\u00a0Plea to Graduate Students Submitting Papers<\/h3>\n
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Three times this year a bad thing has happened after I’ve encouraged editors to give a paper “revise and resubmit.”<\/p>\n

Note that whenever I review a paper and don’t recommend immediate acceptance I work really hard trying to help the writer so that their rewrite will to be up to the quality of the journal.\u00a0 Even when I counsel “rejection” I still try to give detailed constructive advice about how the paper could be recast, even suggesting places the author should send the rewritten paper.<\/p>\n

So three times this year instead of making the changes I recommended the author resubmitted substantially the same paper and argued with some vehemence that they should not have to change their paper in the ways I suggested.\u00a0 In all three cases the journal editor had given the paper “revise and resubmit,” but then rejected the insufficiently rewritten paper.\u00a0 In two of these cases I googled the paper title after this was over and found out that the submitters were graduate students.\u00a0 This is so bad on so many levels.<\/p>\n

First, it’s clear to me that some graduate students have no idea that “revise and resubmit” is a very, very good thing, that if you just rewrite the paper up to the reviewer and editor’s standards that at most journals it is almost certain to get accepted.\u00a0 All three of the people viewed “revise and resubmit” as if it were a kind of rejection, and not a kind of conditional acceptance, as it usually amounts to (de facto<\/em> if not de jure<\/em>).\u00a0 Second<\/strong>, it’s clear to me that some graduate students have no idea what “idiot-proofing” a paper amounts to.\u00a0 Let me explain.\u00a0 Suppose that your reviewer is an uncharitable idiot.\u00a0 Suppose I was when reviewing the papers.\u00a0 It doesn’t matter!\u00a0 My comments are still invaluable because you still need to rewrite the thing so that the next uncharitable idiot reviewing it doesn’t make the same mistakes. \u00a0Third<\/strong>, it’s clear to me that some graduate students have no idea how high the burden of proof is if you want to convince an editor that the reviewer who has published extensively in the topic in question is making elementary mistakes about the paper.So please communicate this to all and sundry: (1) Revise and resubmit is something to be celebrated, (2) always take into account criticism and suggestions, even if only to idiot-proof for the next reviewer, (3) have some humility.I”m not trying to be censorious here.\u00a0 If I was I wouldn’t spend so much time giving detailed advice about how to get papers up to publishable standards.\u00a0 In addition, I know first-hand how stressful this process is for writers and first-hand how stress can produce weird and suboptimal behavior.\u00a0 I’m trying to help.<\/p>\n

I’d very be interested to hear if other reviewers have faced this kind of self-destructive behavior, and if so if there’s anything more we should be doing to stop it.\u00a0 But if I’m being a jerk here, I trust that someone will point that out too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[IB: I’m taking the liberty of copying in its entirety Jon Cogburn’s post on NewAPPS about submitting papers to journals, because it’s worth reading.\u00a0 He directs it to graduate students – but I think that the same point applies to anyone, especially if they’re new to the field in which they’re writing.\u00a0 Since a lot […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1240,1542,443,577,1543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogosphere","category-in-the-journals","category-jme","category-resource","category-the-academy"],"yoast_head":"\nJon Cogburn's Plea to Grad Students (and Others) - Journal of Medical Ethics blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2012\/09\/24\/jon-cogburns-plea-to-grad-students-and-others\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jon Cogburn's Plea to Grad Students (and Others) - Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[IB: I’m taking the liberty of copying in its entirety Jon Cogburn’s post on NewAPPS about submitting papers to journals, because it’s worth reading.\u00a0 He directs it to graduate students – but I think that the same point applies to anyone, especially if they’re new to the field in which they’re writing.\u00a0 Since a lot [...]Read More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2012\/09\/24\/jon-cogburns-plea-to-grad-students-and-others\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-09-24T08:41:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-09-24T12:22:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2012\\\/09\\\/24\\\/jon-cogburns-plea-to-grad-students-and-others\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2012\\\/09\\\/24\\\/jon-cogburns-plea-to-grad-students-and-others\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"BMJ\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ba3da426ed20e8f1d933ca367d8216fe\"},\"headline\":\"Jon Cogburn’s Plea to Grad Students (and Others)\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-09-24T08:41:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-09-24T12:22:55+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2012\\\/09\\\/24\\\/jon-cogburns-plea-to-grad-students-and-others\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":631,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Blogosphere\",\"In the Journals\",\"JME\",\"Resource\",\"The Academy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2012\\\/09\\\/24\\\/jon-cogburns-plea-to-grad-students-and-others\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2012\\\/09\\\/24\\\/jon-cogburns-plea-to-grad-students-and-others\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2012\\\/09\\\/24\\\/jon-cogburns-plea-to-grad-students-and-others\\\/\",\"name\":\"Jon Cogburn's Plea to Grad Students (and Others) - 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