Top 10 signs your reviewer suffers from bitchassness

Update: I've been away for the past couple of days, but I have recompiled the list with the fantastic comments that have been shared (I have given credit to the appropriate person as being the source but have interpreted their comments through my own crankiness!)

I've been cranky and unhappy this week and felt like I needed a little cathartic humor (apparently delving into what is wrong with math scores and whinging about my university really haven't been doing it for me). So I have started a top 10 list, but thought this might be more fun as a communal effort. Please share your top reviewer pet peeves to finish the list below. Here are my favorites.

10. Makes grandiose statements about how the research has already been done, sometimes providing strings of big name scientists but never actually providing citations. After reading all the papers by said big names you never do find any evidence that anyone, living or dead, has published a paper even remotely similar....ever.

9. A passage of the following spirit in a review has left you thinking you might actually be insane: "The authors clearly do not understand concept X, as evidenced by a series of statements I am about to make that actually have nothing to do with concept X but I will say authoritatively as if I actually understand concept X, which by definition means that the authors do not understand concept X."

8. Refers to unpublished papers as evidence that you have not adequately read the literature making you realize that you apparently failed your graduate class in clairvoyance.

7. (Isis) Suggests a really huge and elaborate addition to your experiment that not only would end up being a completely new paper but you both know there is no way in hell you'd actually conduct that experiment anyway!

6. (anon) When the reviewer uses "conventional wisdom" as evidence against you, when there has never been a paper showing that the conventional wisdom is actually true.

- note from River Tam to reviewers who do this: I HATE that shit. Legend, lore, and mythology is NOT science and often what we assume to be true actually is NOT! So, stop giving legitimate science the kiss of death just because you think you've run the experiment in your head.

5. (Anon and DamnGoodTechnician) If a reviewer has told you that you need to run additional experiments/analyses to bolster your claims and those experiments/analyses are not only in the paper already but constitute 3 out of your 5 figures!

4. (DamnedGoodTechnician) The reviewer claims that he has already proven your findings wrong in print but the paper is only vaguely related to your paper at all and could be interpreted as actually supporting your findings

- I would also like to add the variant where the reviewer's papers is totally a piece of flawed and steaming crap which you ignored because it was so truely awful that you were actually doing the reviewer a favor by ignoring its existence.

3. (Candid Engineer) When the reviewer's summary of your paper is so totally different from what you actually did that you have to wonder if the reviewer a) sent the wrong review to the editor or b) you should be contacting the editor to have medical help sent said reviewer because you are pretty sure they must have had a stroke.

Still room!!! Anyone have 1 or 2 last doozies?

The Rabid Reviewer

Reading Female Science Professor's post this morning about inappropriate reviewing behavior, I was inspired to muse about a common type of review I receive on my submitted manuscripts: the rabid review. If you are lucky enough to not know what I am talking about (and yes, I mean rabid and not rapid), I envy you a great deal. The past couple of papers I've submitted have attracted the rabid reviewer like a lightening rod.

I have learned that there are a variety of review types out there: The dumb review: a review so lacking in basic logic and knowledge that you wonder how that person has enough brain cells to coordinate breathing, much less breathe and type at the same time...which come to think of it might explain the review.

The "Why didn't you cite me" review: my favorite example of this is a review I received that was riddled with citations like: Reviewer (1990), Reviewer et al (1992,1993,1994), Random person, Random person, Random Person, Reviewer, et al (2000). This is always particularly entertaining when the review is "anonymous".

The "obviously didn't read the paper review": often identifiable from the numerous critiques of things that the reviewer argues should be dealt with that are actually already in the manuscript.

The rabid review is a completely different beast. It is angry. It is often LONG. It implies that you should have your Ph.D stripped (at best), or be tarred, feathered and/or run naked through the streets (at worst). It is riddled with angry rants about things that are either not in your manuscript, or are pulled out of context in a disturbing political spin sort of way. And EVERYTHING is blown out of proportion. A comma in the wrong place is used as evidence that your science is sloppy. A citation with the wrong year is taken as deliberately misleading. Sometimes there are directly snide comments about you personally (though this is fortunately rarer).

When I was younger, the rabid reviewer would make me cry. After a week or so of waiting for me to get back on the horse, my advisor would take me aside and tell me that my science actually didn't suck and that the rabid reviewer was actually a good sign for the quality of the ideas. With age and maturity I have been able to reduce the time from the crying phase to returning to the manuscript to 24 hours (also, minus calling my advisor for a pep talk, which I often want to do but feel like I should be past by now). The other big difference is that now at the end of those 24 hours I AM PISSED. I am pissed because the rabid review means that someone let something personal interfere with the objective review of my work . There are a variety of reasons for the rabid review. The list is long and runs the gamut from competing labs to people who hate your guts. I don't know if I get the rabid reviewer more than my colleagues, I've never really asked around. However, if my advisor's right that it's a sign I'm on to something good, then my research program is on fire right now....and surely that's a good thing.