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Yup, I was going to write the same thing
Nothing on my end!
Update: offer extended
QUERY: Any word from Clemson (Lecturer) since Zoom interviews ended?
In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
Is it ethical to review a book manuscript for a publisher and then later publish in a journal your review of that updated book? A colleague told me he thought it was a conflict of interest. I'm wondering what everyone at the cocoon thinks.
I'd be curious to hear why the OP's colleague thought it's a conflict of interest.
What do readers think?
In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
What's the prevailing view on adding an `Objections and Replies' section in the process of revising a manuscript (i.e., after receiving a R&R)? Is it considered a lazy move, specifically?
I've done this in a few of my papers, but not in most of them. Why? I don't know: sometimes a paper seems like it calls for one; other times not! I often try to preemptively address objections right in the main body of a paper, when presenting the argument. But sometimes there are so many possible objections that doing that would make the paper read poorly, distracting from the argument itself. So I think that's sort of how I make the decision.
What do readers think?
In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a grad student asks:
I recently submitted a manuscript to a top specialist journal and received an update directly from the Editor-in-Chief that I did not fully understand.
The Editor said (in their capacity as EiC) that they would not accept the current version, for stylistic and substantive reasons, but would reconsider it if substantially revised it along the lines they suggested. They then attached a surprisingly detailed and serious report they themselves wrote, outlining the revisions they would love to see should I decide to resubmit. The decision was officially "reject-and-resubmit," which I am not totally sure if and how it differs from a standard "revise-and-resubmit," or, maybe "desk-rejection-with-some-kind-explanation."
What this seems puzzling to me is that, since the report was directly produced by the EiC in a very short span, my paper was not read by any external referees. So even if I decided to make the substantial revisions the Editor asked for, it does not seem very likely that they would just override the referee reports, should they recommend rejection. (And rejection recommendations seem far more likely than a traditional R&R, in which cases the referees would already independently lean towards acceptance.)
But I was thinking: is it unwise to ignore this opportunity and just send it as-is to another journal? I am not particularly excited about the changes the Editor asked for, but this is a very prestigious venue. Also, does this (i.e., Editor asking revisions pre-peer-review) happen at other journals? And does this evidence favorably on my paper at the present journal, e.g, in that it would have a higher likelihood of Editor intervention should referee reports come unfavorably? Many thanks!
This does seem unusual to me, but if I recall a few journals are explicit that they do all of their reviewing "in-house"–which I presume to mean "by the editors." In that case, if the OP resubmits, it may just go back to the EiC. Then again, it may not. Since it's a top journal, if it were me, I'm probably go for it. And in any case, I'm not sure that a "reject and resubmit" is different than a "revise and resubmit." My understanding (which a few people conveyed to me earlier in my career) has been that revise-and-resubmits technically just are rejections with an invitation to resubmit.
But what do readers think of all this?
In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a grad student asks:
I'm trying to understand how I can get past the review process and get at least an R&R (revise and resumbit).
I have this intuition that the reason reviewers are rejecting my paper is not because it lacks arguments for my thesis but because they simply do not agree with the overall thesis I am making. To be sure, there are things I need to improve in my arguments. But- and here is where the problem starts- I cannot see how this *cannot* be made in an R&R.I also get comments by the reviewers saying that I make interesting points that need to be clarified. Only a very small percentage of papers get accepted as they are initially submitted, so how can reviewers expect a paper to be in the perfect shape possible? They know, we know, that every paper they receive is most likely going to be revised. So the changes that need to be made here and there cannot really be the reason that the reviewer rejects the paper- if that was the case then he would simply suggest the changes to be made in an RnR. So there must be something else that makes them reject the paper.
It took me quite a while to find my feet publishing, as I think one sort of learns through trial and error which sorts of things reviewers tend to get hung up on. But, in part one learns that stuff by getting R&Rs and seeing their comments. Which returns us to the OP's query: how to get an R&R in the first place. While it may be possible that (some) reviewers recommend rejecting a paper simply because they disagree with its thesis, that's not really something one can control. So, maybe the thing for the OP to do here is to solicit some outside readers to give them feedback? I'm not sure. Also, the OP may just want to keep submitting their paper. I've had particular papers rejected numerous times before getting an R&R, and eventually published many (though not all) of them.
What do readers think?
My friend told me that they received an invitation for a Zoom interview for this position.