Reviewing #11--Reviewing an excellent paper
You get a paper from a journal and read it. It's great! You have no comments or criticisms. You read it again, just to be sure, and your opinion doesn't change. So your review consists of something like the following: "This is the best paper I've ever read. It's great! I have no comments. Publish immediately." That's a good thing, right? No, it is not a good thing. Such a review is useless to an editor. In fact, it's worse than useless. How can that possibly be? You're Reviewer #1. Reviewer #2, who is an expert in one aspect of the paper, has all kind of comments and criticisms and recommends "major revisions". Reviewer #3, who is an expert in another aspect of the paper, has all kinds of problems with the paper and recommends "reject". Both Reviewers 2 and 3 have presented long, detailed reviews outlining the problem with the paper. One of them may even be an expert in the same aspect of the...