Months ago, I submitted a paper to a CFP outside my area—and immediately wrote my co-author a list of what I thought probably still needed fixing. Reviews came back today with both reviewers recommending “ready for publication.” Academic writing is unpredictable, but I’ll take it in this case.

Kind of hate that we have to ask the question in this headline!

I’ve been (link)blogging recently about needing to talk about epistemology when we talk about generative AI. I know that in at least one case, I’ve evoked the generation of scientific knowledge as a counterexample to the “just the facts, ma’am” naïve epistemology promoted by AI and its supporters. To use generative AI to review papers—and to try to get around peer review—feels particularly dangerous to me.

Dealing with yet another case of “these reviewer suggestions are good and pretty straightforward, so why don’t I have any motivation to make the revisions?”

Reread some feedback from a journal editor after a couple of days, and while I still disagree with it, it’s at least more reasonable than I remembered it being.

This morning, I’m reviewing a manuscript while watching a “cab ride” video on YouTube and thinking about how much calmer academic work is once final grades have been submitted.

I bristle a bit at Moody’s suggestion that academics are dumb for signing over copyright—it’s dumb that we have to, but there are systemic issues at play here. Yet, especially now with tenure taken care of, I do wonder if we consent too readily to the system.

Good article on a worrying trend. It’s things like this that make me skeptical of arguments that generative AI could have real benefit when used properly. It’s not that I disagree—it’s that in the aggregate, I’m not sure the proper uses will outweigh the problems.

It annoys me when a journal asks a reviewer to address specific prompts; it annoys me more when I only realize this after writing my review.

In a training last week, we discussed the trend of journals’ checking manuscripts with plagiarism software. People shared examples where editors couldn’t accept perfectly good reasons for authors to reuse material unless a certain software score was also reached.

I don’t really understand what the Publons platform is, I’ve always been skeptical of it, and the more journals try to convince me to sign up for it, the less I’m likely to change either of the first two things.

I have some regrets about being a week late on this article review because I took my kid camping—but not a lot, to be honest.

Reviewer 1 has missed the key argument and main throughline of my paper, and even though the editor says I can ignore them, it’s still making me SO MAD.

Frustrated by the way that blinding self-citations (that aren’t explicitly self-citations) can actually work against blind review. When I’m reviewing stuff in my niche area, I can sometimes tell who the authors are based on that alone.

I have finished the article review I was a week behind on, so now I just need to tackle the two-weeks-late and six-weeks-late projects on my plate. After I get the course prep done that I was hoping to do yesterday.

Experiencing the best of being a peer reviewer today. Article is genuinely good, and I really want to see it get published, but I also know specific things that will make it stronger before it gets there.

I know someone who apparently agreed to review three articles the same week as final grading, and boy does he look dumb staring back from the mirror.

I learn a lot of ggplot2 responding to reviewers’ suggestions about plots and a lot of CSS helping students with their questions about Twine games. Turns out I only learn code when I have a project that forces me to.

I turn in a frustrating number of reviews THAT I’VE ALREADY WRITTEN ON TIME a week late because the system’s “please confirm before submitting” page looks an awful lot like a “thanks for submitting, and here’s what you wrote” page.

I am frustrated both by journals who don’t employ copyeditors and by journal copyeditors who introduce errors into my articles. Hard to say which is worse.

This afternoon, a career in academia looks like working from the kitchen table, playing a French 80s radio station, and fuming at Reviewer B’s complaints about my using the journal’s template like I was asked to.

The hardest manuscripts to review are the ones that promise something that’s legitimately needed in the literature but then fail to follow through with that promise.

Starting to wonder if Solomon’s “wise” suggestion to cut the baby in half was actually his editorial summary of the advice provided by three conflicting reviewers.

Responding to reviewer who has a specific picture in their head of what “good” edtech research “should” look like. Thus, they’re confused by things in my paper that I’m sure aren’t problems—but don’t fit that picture.

Trying to do revisions on an article that isn’t my best work and that I don’t really love is haaaaaaard. I’m committed enough to the core idea to see things through, but I’m also tempted to tell the reviewers that they win and I’m out.

Reviewer 3 doesn’t understand why my study is important. I’m trying to find ways to articulate that better, but all I really want to do is JUST BOLD EVERYTHING I’VE ALREADY WRITTEN TO THAT EFFECT.