Amedeo Blog: Crushing Defeat, aka The Peer Review Process (Lab Life)

I would imagine that this is how a successful actor feels the morning following his big movie’s opening night. He is sitting in his home enjoying some coffee in the predawn light and thinking back over the previous evening’s festivities. Everyone had come to see his performance, which he knew he gave his all. He had, after all, spent countless hours preparing for the part, studying the character’s personality, and really trying to embed himself in the role. He also knows his performance would not have been possible without the insight and input from his gracious director. The film, of which they were truly proud, was a labor of love between the two of them. The actor smiles to himself, quietly remembering to buy the director a gift and thank him graciously for the opportunity.

It is at this moment and with this joy that his picks up the morning paper. Splattered across each and every page are scathing reviews of his performance. Reviewers are exclaiming his inability to act, their disbelief that he was even cast, and ruminations of the director’s sanity.

Yeah. It’s kind of like that.

For the past five years, I dedicated a tremendous amount of time, effort, and brain power to a project that most people felt would never work. (Forgive me; I love a challenge.) I had other projects in lab, most of them fruitful, but this five year whopper was my baby. It was the project on which I cut my scientific teeth. It was the first project I touched on Day One and what I was still working on come Day Seventhousandeighthundredandeightytwo, when I was packing up my stuff to move on to my post doc lab. In fact, I worked it on for several months at night after starting in my new lab.

A few weeks ago, we finally pulled all the data together, wrapped up the story in a nice article, and sent it off to a journal to be considered for publication. The process is rather straightforward. The paper is first read by an editor who decides if the work is decent and lies within the scope of the journal. If so, typically three or four reviewers are chosen to read the paper. Reviewers are scientists who work in a similar field as the paper’s main topic or with the paper’s primary techniques. After several weeks, the authors of the paper and the journal’s editors receive the reviewers’ comments. Several things can happen after this: 1. The paper is published with minor editing, 2. The paper can be resubmitted following major editing, or 3. The paper is just flat out rejected. Through the editing process, the authors have the ability to respond to reviewers comments directly and incorporate their thoughts and criticisms into the work.

As an author, you have no idea who the reviewers are to your paper. However, the reviewers know exactly who the authors are because the names are listed with the paper. This leads to some …unfairness… at times, but I’m going to let that go for now. The peer review process in its most idealized form allows for outside reviewers to consider the work and highlight the flaws in protocols, conclusions, and theories posited by the authors. It is a way for the field of science to self-police and minimize the amount of errors published in the name of scientific advancement.

Today, my paper, which has several authors on it aside from me (but I am first author), was sent back with reviewers comments. My baby is bruised and bleeding. I don’t want to take the comments so personally or feel like I’m going to throw up when I see my hard work demolished, but it is hard to take. This isn’t even my 1st first author paper I’ve published (not my first rodeo!), but it is work that I fought to make publishable and to which I dedicated a tremendous amount of myself. I feel very emotionally invested in it.

I think a stiff drink is in order this evening before I face the long task of responding to each comment and rewriting the paper.

In an effort to laugh it all off (or at least not cry myself to sleep tonight), I gathered the following from Ph.D. Comics (www.phdcomics.com). This website is fantastic for anyone in graduate school and I highly recommend checking out their comic archives.