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Editors: difficulties procuring senior referees?

In our June "how can we help you?" thread, a new editor who previously asked for tips on procuring referees asks:

I wasn't following the threads recently and missed the discussion of my editor question when it was active. Here's a follow up question. I have tried senting out a paper to a bunch of senior referees that the paper cites more or less, but have got almost no responses, even though I have followed up with emails. One gave a pretty rude decline. I am wondering if this is anything personal (namely they react to the status of the editor), or simply because they are too busy etc? If this is just about being senior, then I think I would not try to request senior ones anymore. P.S. I am not hurt, just feel inexperienced. Thanks!

Do any other editors have any helpful tips or experiences to share?

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5 responses to “Editors: difficulties procuring senior referees?”

  1. some perspective

    I was talking to a senior faculty member (and important scholar) recently, and asked how many papers he refereed each year. He said VERY few because he is now spending time writing tenure reviews (which is far more time consuming). Leaders in the field have far too much work. I am hardly a leader, but I routinely evaluate grant applications (ERC, other European national granting agencies, Volkswagen Foundation, etc.), book manuscripts and proposals (even proposals for book series),occasional tenure files and PhD dissertations as an external … and I referee about 12 papers a year.

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  2. what i’ve heard

    Some well-established scholars I know talk about how many requests they get per week on their social media. One of them mentioned, a few years ago, that they get one weekly. Another one mentioned being on track to get 100 this year, if the first half of the year is a reliable predictor. So it’s quite possible that some senior reviewers are oversubscribed.

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  3. it takes less than a minute

    Some perspective: good point. There’s quite a lot of service work at the top. But it’s still rude to never respond to requests.

    Reply
  4. K

    I stopped sending my work to journals published by for-profit publishers, and as a matter of principle, I decline reviewing for for-profit venues unless compensated at market rates (which almost never happens).
    Moreover, the timeline proposed, although negotiable (e.g., 1-2 months), is simply not possible for me, since I have find time among my commitments.

    Reply
  5. Socrates

    I am an investor who pays his own salary. I write philosophy from time to time, because I am passionate about the subject. The peer review system seems to have collapsed. When I was doing my PhD 15 years ago the system was horrible, but the quality of the reports was probably overall “okay”–not great but not bad.
    I have obviously improved in my abilities over the years. I wrote out of passion alone what is my best work. I cannot get the peer review system to engage with it. At one journal three referees loved it, but none of them could even bother showing up again to click the accept button.
    I have been writing and publishing philosophy for 15 years. I know the work is good, but it’s just not possible to get it reviewed by anyone competent who has the time or desire to do their job. Hence, going forward I have decided to stop using the peer review system. I will not review for it or submit to it. I rejected the last request from AJP last week. All my work just goes to philpapers now. I have the copyright. They can cite it there.
    You guys notice how there is no philosophy in book stores anymore? The peer review system is destroying our discipline. Stop using it! The only way we can make the system better is to first refuse to participate in it.

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