Reviewing #7--To sign or not to sign?
Whether you sign your reviews is a personal decision, and I would never question someone who decides on anonymity. But, here's my take on it.
I decided from my first review request, which must have been some time in the early or mid-1980s, to sign all my reviews. I did this despite the fact that most people opted for anonymity and many women often concealed their sex by using only initials (I also decided to publish using my full name).
I made this decision for one reason. I felt (and still feel) that if I were critical of someone's work, I should have the courage of my convictions. Science is supposed to be a free exchange of ideas, and hiding behind anonymity in reviews is not, in my mind, conducive to that kind of transparency. I would sign my reviews of NSF proposals, if NSF would let me (they will not allow you to sign, and will strip out any attempt to do so).
I cannot know what I don't know, so I have no idea if this decision has had negative consequences for my career. I've had a pretty good career (some would say much more than pretty good), so it can't have hurt me too much.
What I do know, however, is that only once have I experienced blowback from an author. The circumstances were unusual. At the time, he and I were the principle players in our field, even though our research foci were different. He decided we were rivals. I did a mildly negative review of one of his papers. My main objection was that the paper wasn't suitable for the journal because he didn't have enough space to explain things that I thought needed explaining. I actually had no problems with the basic work. He wrote a very snippy letter to the editor, who passed it along to me for comment. The author accused me of trying to sink his career (as if I could....but never mind). It just so happened that, in the interim, I had received two more of his papers to review. The second one is the only paper I have recommended be published without revision, and I turned down the request for the third because I thought his stuff should be reviewed by somebody other than me for a change. So I wrote back to the editor and told him just that--that it was clearly not the case I was trying to sink the author's career, and here is the evidence.
In contrast, I have received numerous emails from authors thanking me for my constructive reviews, even authors whose papers I basically panned. It is very gratifying to know that one has helped out. We're all in this together, after all.
I have done this from the first request too. I am a young female, 4 years out from PhD, and I feel the same. I would like to know who critiques me and I feel that anything I wrote in a review I would say to their face as well. So I have.
ReplyDeleteI have always given my name when I review, and I am pleased when reviewers of my papers reveal their identity. I have been disappointed recently with some journals that withhold reviewer names from the authors. I think that, overall, reviewers are helping to make the final papers better. A wonderful benefit has come in the form of some great professional friendships and collaborations that stemmed from reviewing each other papers.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I do, sometimes I don't. More often than not I don't anymore. I usually review for editors that I know personally, though occasionally I do others as well, and have had an editor completely discount my comments, and refer to me in feed back to the authors as 'the woman who reviewed your paper' (meaning you can just ignore her)
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