Bret Devereaux

So, I know that a lot of us who are asked to referee for journals are being overwhelmed with requests. One of the problems some of us are seeing is that we are getting requests to review papers that we have no choice but to reject. Why? Bc it is very clear that the articles...1/

...are not ready for submission. They read like a grad seminar paper that the faculty member (who was likely not an expert in the specific thing the student was writing about) said "This is great! Send it to a journal!" The idea is that the student will get good feedback... 2/

...from the referees and experience in the process that will then be useful for them in revising the paper (maybe) into a publishable article. BUT! This is basically pawning off the work of the faculty member onto reviewers for things that are clearly not publishable yet... 3/

...and it means that sometimes the student will get very discouraged because the feedback will be "this is not remotely publishable. here is a list of 20 things that need to be fixed and even then maybe not." it makes the reviewers' jobs harder, it is not good for students...4/

...and it clogs up the system. So, I humbly request that my colleagues who teach in grad programs, instead of doing this "send in the unready paper!" instead run regular workshops for their program to help students workshop a paper from seminar to maybe publishable BEFORE.../5

...suggest they submit an abstract to a conference to get feedback there. Work them through the process as a group in a professionalism workshop where other fac provide mock reviewer reports that they respond to. And then and only then say "Send it out for referee feedback." /end