All Questions
4,958 questions
32
votes
3
answers
6k
views
What to do if one reviewer asks to delete and another asks to add more details to a proof?
I received a referee report for my single authored paper recently in Mathematics. Both the referees have asked for a revision.
I am having a problem with a proof of a theorem in the paper.
Reviewer A ...
- 2,786
32
votes
3
answers
19k
views
Are magazines (journals) "Scientific American" and "Popular Science" peer reviewed?
Wikipedia says that New Scientist publishes articles which are not peer-reviewed.
But I found no information about "Scientific American" (SciAm) and "Popular Science" (PopSci).
- 423
32
votes
4
answers
6k
views
How can an author get assurance that his work will not be stolen by journal staff or reviewers?
Suppose some author provides his original research article to a journal for publication. In this way, he is disclosing or revealing his confidential research work to that journal. Now, consider the ...
- 599
32
votes
2
answers
16k
views
How to display your own name in publications list when you are a middle-author on a publication with a large number of authors?
My Name is among tens of authors of a paper on global health.
For the purpose of my CV update, I need to show my name without showing the names of all authors of the paper.
My preferred style ...
- 321
32
votes
3
answers
73k
views
What are the different acceptance levels in peer review?
I'm new to academic writing. I submitted a paper which I co-authored with my supervisor to an upcoming conference. I wasn't too confident that the paper would be up to scratch because I'd never ...
- 965
32
votes
2
answers
5k
views
How to handle a common misconception when writing a Master's thesis?
I'm writing my Master's thesis in a field where there exists a common misconception regarding the properties of a material, stemming from some papers published in the 80's and 90's and disproved in a ...
- 421
32
votes
5
answers
12k
views
What happens if the editor cannot find reviewers?
I submitted to a journal a couple of months ago. The editorial flow is somehow quick and very transparent. I receive notifications for all events happening to the manuscript.
Unfortunately, the ...
user7112
32
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Paper accepted with no report?
I submitted a 60-page paper to a reasonable math journal (Journal of Algebra) about 6 months ago. A few days ago I received an email stating that my paper was accepted. I did not get a referee report. ...
- 499
32
votes
2
answers
6k
views
Why is the city of publication important in most bibliography format?
Most bibliography formats require the city of publication for books. Why? In this digital era, ISBN would be way more important. But even before the digitalization of everything, why was the city of ...
- 1,124
32
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Studies over how noisy is it to accept/reject submissions
This year, the NIPS 2014 conference did an interesting experiment: conference chairs duplicated 10% of the submissions (170 papers) and sent them to two different groups of reviewers. The result: 25.9%...
- 13.9k
31
votes
8
answers
12k
views
Can I call out a researcher for using Maple without citing it?
I am currently reviewing a theoretical CS paper that is incredibly technical and mathematical. I’ve been reviewing the paper for longer than a year now, and I am finally recommending the paper to be ...
- 3,927
31
votes
8
answers
14k
views
Where to publish research if I do not want a peer review process?
I have a few papers, one of which is on a topic that, after thorough checking, has not been researched from this particular angle before.
My question is where can I publish this without going ...
- 697
31
votes
3
answers
8k
views
Pros and cons of writing a book review?
I am a postdoc in a biology department. I am friends with a professor in the philosophy department who is the editor of a Nature journal which publishes book reviews. A 150-page popular science book ...
- 1,411
31
votes
6
answers
12k
views
Should I agree to review a paper that I've already recommended that another journal reject?
I recently reviewed an article submitted to an academic journal and recommended that the editor reject the submission (which he did). There were no errors or problems with the submitted article, but I ...
- 2,365
31
votes
3
answers
10k
views
Is it ethical to cite a paper without fully understanding the math/methods, if the math is not relevant to why I am citing it?
I'm writing an article for a university assignment, and I am essentially looking for sources to support fairly surface level points. Two of the points I am searching for is evidence of diffusion ...
- 765
31
votes
5
answers
12k
views
Who can submit papers to peer-reviewed journals?
Financial terms, content quality, etc, is not a problem. The author has a contribution that will significantly impact the advancement of human knowledge about a particular topic.
Can anyone submit a ...
31
votes
5
answers
6k
views
How to handle newly discovered problems in second and third round reviews
For the first time, I had to review a revision of an academic paper (I have already reviewed several other papers, but they were all rejected after the first round). While the authors had clearly ...
- 502
31
votes
5
answers
4k
views
Who benefits from the anonymity of the peer review process?
I was reading an answer to another question, which says on the topic of a reviewer potentially contacting an author under a special set of circumstances
Some would say you should wait until it is ...
- 4,171
31
votes
7
answers
2k
views
What to do when a referee wants to criticize someone else through me
A couple of months ago I submitted a paper for which a referee review came back recently, recommending minor corrections. There are two methods to calculate some quantities in the literature which do ...
- 7,957
31
votes
3
answers
26k
views
How to write a rebuttal for a conference
What are good practices (does and don'ts) when writing a rebuttal for a conference?
For example, for a journal rebuttal letter you can make changes to your paper, and resubmit it for another revision....
- 661
31
votes
3
answers
4k
views
What is the right place to acknowledge another (simultaneous) paper with the same result?
I'm refereeing a paper for a math journal at the moment. As happens fairly often, some other folks came up with basically the same result independently at the same time, I think the manuscripts ...
- 312
31
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Is it common for research disciplines to have a large gap between theory and practice?
TL;DR: Is it normal that the theory sub-community and the applied sub-community of a single research field to have different goals and different standards for peer review - to the extent that the ...
- 1,045
31
votes
6
answers
3k
views
How much background material should a mathematical research paper include?
I've just written my first mathematical research paper. It proves some new results, which while not ground-breaking are (according to an expert in the field) at least somewhat interesting and ...
- 1,023
31
votes
7
answers
2k
views
How to review bogus science without hurting feelings?
I've been forwarded a four-page outline of some sort of "theory of everything" whose ambition is to explain just about everything in the universe in terms of particles oscillating in and out of some ...
- 1,225
31
votes
4
answers
77k
views
What year to use when citing second editions of books
This seems like a silly question, but I can't find a clear answer online. If Dr. Brainiac's Big Book of Science was first published in 1974, but I have the second edition, published in 1996, should I ...
- 3,645
31
votes
3
answers
4k
views
Extent of "unscientific" or wrong papers in research mathematics [closed]
Kevin Buzzard's slides (PDF version) at a recent conference have really unsettled me.
In it, he mentions several examples in what one would imagine as very rigorous areas (e.g., algebraic geometry) ...
- 1,143
31
votes
3
answers
4k
views
How important are citations when applying for jobs or promotions?
How important is citation count for fresh doctorates? Is this number more important for joining the academia than the industry?
What is the importance of citations for someone seeking tenure? Does ...
- 23.2k
31
votes
2
answers
1k
views
How does peer-review work for "gigantic" collaboration projects?
Big collaboration projects such as LHC experiments (ATLAS, ALICE _e.g.) and LIGO result in academic papers featuring hundreds or even more than 1000 authors. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in fields ...
- 1,171
30
votes
5
answers
7k
views
Someone asks me to cite their paper. Should I cite?
I submitted the preprint to arXiv and the manuscript to a Physical Review journal, and someone asked me to cite their article after seeing it from arXiv.
Their paper is a review. After reading that ...
- 433
30
votes
5
answers
11k
views
Was I wrong to rebutt unjustified rewiewer comments in the review?
Recently submitted a manuscript which got a decision of Reject & Resubmit, i.e. the editor invited a resubmission provided we can address the reviewer's comments. In my previous experience, all my ...
- 402
30
votes
6
answers
5k
views
Writing referee report: found major error, now what?
I'm writing a referee report on a paper. This paper is interesting and, if correct, would be worth publishing. However, I believe they have a major mistake in their method which invalidates their ...
- 4,807
30
votes
6
answers
9k
views
Why call it a "major" revision if the suggested changes are seemingly minor?
I recently got a major revision from an applied math journal. However the only change the reviewer has asked is to put a remark on some theorem in the paper (why the specified theorem will not work ...
- 463
30
votes
4
answers
7k
views
Why do non-governmental organizations tend to publish non peer-reviewed "grey" literature?
Is there any reason why most non-governmental organizations (NGOs) tend to publish non-peer reviewed literature? I have seen some NGO scientists as co-authors, even in some important papers, but most ...
- 11.7k
30
votes
6
answers
5k
views
Should I cite a result if the paper doesn't include a proof?
I'm writing a mathematical paper. In it, I use a lemma. The lemma is not hard to prove and I have verified it myself. The proof is too tedious to include in the paper, so I want to just include a ...
- 303
30
votes
3
answers
7k
views
Are there any papers where two (or more) authors share the same full name?
Because of reasons, I'm curious to know whether there are any simple examples of papers where two or more authors have the same full name.
(To be clear: I am only interested in exact full-name matches....
- 6,935
30
votes
5
answers
6k
views
Referee did not fully understand accepted paper
I just got a paper accepted without revisions in a prestigious journal. This is of course nice. Reading the referee report makes me a bit worried, though. It is clear that the referee has gotten the ...
- 13.6k
30
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Should diacritics be kept when citing a paper written in an abundant diacritics Latin-based script language?
Diacritics, or tone marks (as what they're called in my language), are symbols added to letters to change their sound. For example, diacritics for the letter a in my language can be ă, â, à, á, ả, ã, ...
- 8,292
30
votes
6
answers
4k
views
In single-blind peer-review, can you reveal your identity without the editor's consent?
In my field (chemistry), review is always done in a single blind process, i.e. the author does not know who the referees were, but the referees do know who the authors are. In ten years, I have never ...
- 74.1k
30
votes
3
answers
6k
views
Article "communicated by"
What does it mean when it says under a journal article that it has been communicated by "XYZ" where XYZ is not the author but some other scholar with a very strong reputation? What is the relationship ...
- 1,101
30
votes
3
answers
6k
views
Can a peer review be too positive?
I have recently been invited to peer review an article for the first time. I must admit I went into the process expecting to find at least a number of faults with the manuscript and the idea that I ...
- 805
30
votes
3
answers
6k
views
What software to cite in a manuscript, and how?
When writing a manuscript for a scientific article, I often wonder what software I should cite or acknowledge, and how.
The first problem is to make a choice which software to cite. On the one hand, ...
- 541
30
votes
4
answers
45k
views
What's the correct way to cite a paper cited by another paper?
The example is when you might be reading a certain paper, and the authors refer to another paper. You can't get that other paper as it's unpublished, or it's in a language that you can't read, or ...
- 465
30
votes
2
answers
12k
views
How should references in non-Latin script language be treated in English paper?
Let's say I want to cite a Russian text in my own paper which is written in English. Should I:
reference it as is, in the original Cyrillic alphabet, although the readers won't be able even to ...
- 835
30
votes
2
answers
16k
views
How to remove citations from Google Scholar profile?
As the number of citations to some of my articles recently increased, I took a look to see who cites me among the articles listed on Google Scholar. To my surprise I found that I was cited in a ...
- 507
30
votes
3
answers
54k
views
How to quickly get complete list of citations to all my papers?
I need to get citations (with complete info including authors, journal, date) to all my papers. What's the best way (hopefully without too much manual copy & paste) to do this?
What i so far ...
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30
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Should conference papers in computer science contain full proofs, and should these be checked by reviewers?
I am a mathematician. In my subject, the normal means of disseminating research is to write it up with full and detailed proofs of the main results, which are then typically subjected to a rigourous ...
- 557
29
votes
9
answers
15k
views
Should I cite an article that I can't find?
I am facing a problem, the article seems a very important reference that everyone talking about the subjects is citing it. However, looking at these articles, they can't give a reference or link to ...
29
votes
6
answers
9k
views
How to React to Incorrect Claims by Reviewers?
As this has happened to me several times for different papers now, I am not describing a specific case here, but the abstract aspects that were common to all situations.
Occasionally, in the "Tasks" ...
- 18.6k
29
votes
4
answers
6k
views
Paper author has not included all suggestions in peer review
I am peer-reviewing a postgraduate paper. I reviewed the paper and sent off my recommendations for major corrections. Now the paper has come back and the author has only implemented around half of my ...
- 2,545
29
votes
4
answers
12k
views
What to do with a mathematical article rejected from a journal because the anonymous referee found a simpler proof?
Some time ago, me together with a coauthor submitted a mathematical article to a journal. It was rejected because the anonymous referee found a simpler proof of our main result. He wrote his simpler ...
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