Wednesday, December 30, 2009

The Review Reaction Typology

Type 1
Name: The Finger
Tone: Evil bullshit
Causes: jealousy, chemical imbalances, narcissism, sadism, lack of a life, pettiness, and/or aggravated bowels
Thought to self after reading: “Fucking Motherfucker. What the fuck? Fuck you!”
Preferred beverage after reading: Scotch
Response to editor: “…while I feel The Finger introduced a productive issue for future research, the manuscript is not intended to delve into the ridiculous issue The Finger is so pathetically obsessed with and I will not be adding 5 paragraphs of useless material simply to satisfy their
raging need to belittle me.”
Type 2
Name: The Prick
Tone: Arrogance
Causes: insanely brilliant cognitive powers, arrogance, Autism and related disorders, MacAuthur Genius Grants
Thought to self after reading: “Ouch. That kinda hurt. Really? Crap. I like your work.”
Preferred beverage after reading: Hot tea followed by martinis
Response to editor: “…in response to The Pricks comment regarding the data presented in Table 2, please note that the sample has been increased by over 100 cases that took 5,000 hours to collect.”
Type 3
Name: The Handshake
Tone: Thoughtful
Causes: sanity, responsible use of substances, ability to think logically
Thoughts to self after reading: “Cool. I could do that.”
Preferred beverage after reading: Fancy latte (by which I mean in a nice cup with swirly designs in the foam made by someone who gives a shit)
Response to editor: “…as suggested by The Handshake I compared my results to those of Dr. So-and-So and compiled our findings on page 8 and also completely rewrote the conclusions to be much cooler sounding.”
Type 4
Name: The Stroke
Tone: Ass-kissy
Causes: insecurity, wonderment at awesome font choices in manuscript figures
Thoughts to self after reading: “Whatever.”
Preferred beverage after reading: four PBR’s (in a can)
Response to editor: “…as pointed out by The Stroke a full citation was missing for one of my references, it has since been added.”
Type 5
Name: The Sweep
Tone: I forget to review this so, uh yeah, it looks fine
Causes: poor organization skills, forgetfulness, extreme health problems, stupidity, reviewer is part of the enormous pile of dead weight housed in my/your department, laziness, abuse of substances
Thoughts to self after reading: “What the? OK.”
Preferred beverage after reading: whatever is handy, probably cold coffee
Response to editor: “I agree with The Sweep, it’s all good.”

8 comments:

  1. I'm somewhat way off topic, but the last line for the wikipedia entry for PBR is hysterical.

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  2. Brilliant. I love the drink pairing suggestions. Somehow I suspect Type 3 is in the minority of reviewers though.

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  3. Start a poll to see how representative each type is!

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  4. The world needs more type 3s.

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  5. Agreed. Type 3s are rare and beautiful things.

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  6. Can we see these types loose, in the wild?

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