• Liz@midwest.social
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    6 months ago

    As a scientific researcher I am amazed at everyone being all like “yeah me too.”

    #WHAT

    How you about to be citing something without being 100% sure it actually supports your claim? That shit could easily have a bunch of qualifications you don’t know about!

    #ALSO

    Bruh. If it’s worth citing, it’s worth reading the whole paper. You might learn something or gain inspiration for future work. Plus, you know, always be learnin, yo.

    You guys are gonna hate me.

    • Tehzbeef@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I was aiding in a peer review and was diligently checking citations and sources to find that the majority of sources used had relevant titles but did not support the claims the author was making… I pointed these out and was removed from reviewing with the professor saying I needed to offer positive comments only ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      • Shelena@feddit.nl
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        6 months ago

        I am sorry, but what is wrong with your professor? You were doing exactly what you are supposed to do in a peer review. You should go look for things that are wrong or should be improved and only if the paper can withstand that process, it should be published. Only providing positive comments is really harmful to the scientific process and, in the end, to society.

        To be honest, I think I reject more than half of the papers that I review. The rest require major or minor revision. It is not that I have a target or anything for how many I need to reject, it is just that most papers are of such low quality that I cannot do anything else. I think the number of papers I reject is quite normal in my field.

        So, not all your comments need to be positive. If there is reason to be positive, you should mention it. And your comments should be constructive and respectful, but definitely not always positive.

        In the case you are describing where the authors seem to only have read the titles of the papers, I would definitely reject. This is fraud. You are saying you did a literature study and you did not. So, I would be quite clear about that. I would also be a bit angry that they wasted my time. So, in my opinion, that is how a reviewer should respond in this situation, not with only positive comments.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      6 months ago

      TBH I don’t really care to read the bibliography sections where you recommend 4 or more books or studies from over 2 decades ago because their works laid the groundwork for a hypothesis that you very succinctly proved that there is not enough evidence to declare confidence in even with all your additional primary source data.

      But yeah, not the abstract. I agree on that. They’ve at least gotta open the study.

      • Shelena@feddit.nl
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        6 months ago

        Oh, I did not know that. I have been doing it wrong all these years then. Could have been drinking cocktails on the beach instead of reading all these papers.