this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
604 points (98.2% liked)

Science Memes

10923 readers
2182 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 40 points 5 months ago (7 children)

As a scientific researcher I am amazed at everyone being all like "yeah me too."

#WHAT

How you about to be citing something without being 100% sure it actually supports your claim? That shit could easily have a bunch of qualifications you don't know about!

#ALSO

Bruh. If it's worth citing, it's worth reading the whole paper. You might learn something or gain inspiration for future work. Plus, you know, always be learnin, yo.

......

You guys are gonna hate me.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I was aiding in a peer review and was diligently checking citations and sources to find that the majority of sources used had relevant titles but did not support the claims the author was making... I pointed these out and was removed from reviewing with the professor saying I needed to offer positive comments only ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

I am sorry, but what is wrong with your professor? You were doing exactly what you are supposed to do in a peer review. You should go look for things that are wrong or should be improved and only if the paper can withstand that process, it should be published. Only providing positive comments is really harmful to the scientific process and, in the end, to society.

To be honest, I think I reject more than half of the papers that I review. The rest require major or minor revision. It is not that I have a target or anything for how many I need to reject, it is just that most papers are of such low quality that I cannot do anything else. I think the number of papers I reject is quite normal in my field.

So, not all your comments need to be positive. If there is reason to be positive, you should mention it. And your comments should be constructive and respectful, but definitely not always positive.

In the case you are describing where the authors seem to only have read the titles of the papers, I would definitely reject. This is fraud. You are saying you did a literature study and you did not. So, I would be quite clear about that. I would also be a bit angry that they wasted my time. So, in my opinion, that is how a reviewer should respond in this situation, not with only positive comments.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

(⁠┛⁠◉⁠Д⁠◉⁠)⁠┛

load more comments (4 replies)