Re: Elsevier's Vanishing Act

[David Goodman <dgoodman@princeton.edu>]

I think Anthony means to say that an editor is at the mercy of his
reviewers--if they do not catch the articles that are clearly wrong or the
ones that are plagiarized, the editor can hardly expect to. This is true,
and it is therefore the responsibility of the editor to select reviewers
who will do their job. I leave it up to the specialists in the subject
fields to tell me if such people can be found. The example here is the
papers from Lucent discussed in the article and elsewhere, which were
reviewed by referees for some of the highest quality journals in physics,
and the obvious physical and mathematical impossibilities not spotted. If
refereeing does not eliminate such papers, what is it for?

As for the Human Immunology paper, what I described is I believe a fair
summary. Anthony is undoubtedly correct when he says that most editors and
publishers do not usually do as badly as that.


Anthony Watkinson wrote:
> 
> I think this is an important issue and I would appreciate David setting out
> the sort of procedures journal editors should operate. There is as many of
> you know a vast literature on peer review but most of it seems to me
> concerned with explaining that it works badly rather than accepting that it
> is here to stay, that it is what authors and readers want and that
> refereeing procedures need to improved. Some publishers have check list.
> Perhaps some can be offered for our consideration.
> I am not sure I like the use of the word "in fact" and I cannot see that I
> was describing any editorial policy - only that it was an "editorial" not a
> "publishing" policy. I know most journals do not accept papers on the basis
> he described, but I have no doubt that such things do happen.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
-- 
Dr. David Goodman
Princeton University 
and
Palmer School of Library and Information Science, Long Island University

e-mail: dgoodman@princeton.edu