Oi, the pain!!

[veek]

I was asked to review a paper for a journal. "Woo!" I thought, and agreed. And then: "But am I qualified? What if it's completely over my head? What if I make an idiot out of myself through the comments? Worse: what if I think the paper sux0rs, and trash it, but it is actually rather good?"

Well, I am not sure about the trashing part, but I feel confident in my assessment now. I mean, inanity. Interesting inanity, but, man. Eep.

Comments

[fourcoffees.livejournal.com]

I REALLY don't think you need to have any concerns w.r.t. that.

And my God, that userpic is so cute.

[belochka.livejournal.com]

photo definitely рулез :)

and don't sweat it with the paper

i think you're qualified to review it :)

[valancy17.livejournal.com]

That's exactly why I never volunteer to review papers or books for my professional societies - fear of being completely underqualified and embarrassing myself. I think you're quite brave to go through with it. Yay you!

[limax.livejournal.com]

You're going to do a terrific job. Don't beat yourself up on whether or not you're qualified. You ARE qualified. Just keep telling yourself that.

[huskyscotsman.livejournal.com]

I had exactly the same experience when I was asked to review papers, although that was just for a conference rather than a journal. I ended up being quite harsh on some of them, but man, did they deserve it.

My favourite sucky paper was about computer-mediated marketplaces, and how the rules of trading (whether you're allowed to renege on an agreement, etc) affect the balance of power between buyers and sellers. That's a pretty cool premise, but the bulk of their paper was this complex in-depth analysis of what happens with one seller and two buyers. Since most of the interesting stuff happens when you have multiple competing sellers, that's kind of pointless: it's like studying ecology by working out the mathematical relationships between one wolf and two rabbits. What they should have done was to run a big Monte Carlo simulation with lots and lots of buyers and sellers, and analyse the results statistically. It's amazing how wrong-headed some people can be in their approach.

If I were to make this kind of mistake in an academic paper, I'd want somebody to tell me as soon as possible, although it would still hurt to be rejected. So I had no qualms about rejecting that kind of paper; even if I was wrong about it, these things have multiple reviewers, and minority opinions are allowed. The reviews for my own paper were mostly very good, apart from one where the reviewer couldn't make head or tail of it and said so, using much harsher language than I'd used in rejecting other people. I was amused. I still got accepted for the conference.

Summary of rambling: trust your opinion and your competence. Be strict but fair. Be honest.