andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-836 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Nick Cox comments : I heard of a leading U.S. statistician who delegates some of his book reviews to smart graduate students. The (very grateful) ex-student who told me said, in effect, it’s just his way of working. He makes the deal evident beforehand and makes it up to you in other ways by superb mentoring. I don’t understand this at all! If the student wrote the review, he or she should be sole author, no? The thing that puzzles me about this story is that if you’re a “leading statistician,” you don’t really get any credit for reviewing. If anything, people probably think you’re writing reviews as a way to avoid doing real work. If there’s some concern that the journal won’t publish a review under the sole authorship of obscure student X, they could always compromise and include the senior prof as a second author on the review (in which case the prof should at least read the review and vet it, but that can’t take much time). I guess what I’m saying is that it makes pe
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1 statistician who delegates some of his book reviews to smart graduate students. [sent-3, score-0.725]
2 The (very grateful) ex-student who told me said, in effect, it’s just his way of working. [sent-4, score-0.061]
3 He makes the deal evident beforehand and makes it up to you in other ways by superb mentoring. [sent-5, score-0.724]
4 If the student wrote the review, he or she should be sole author, no? [sent-7, score-0.525]
5 The thing that puzzles me about this story is that if you’re a “leading statistician,” you don’t really get any credit for reviewing. [sent-8, score-0.186]
6 If anything, people probably think you’re writing reviews as a way to avoid doing real work. [sent-9, score-0.432]
7 I guess what I’m saying is that it makes perfect sense for a prof to assign a review to a competent student, but I can’t see why it makes any sense to not list the student’s name as the author of the review. [sent-11, score-1.787]
8 Unless you’re talking, not about book reviews for a journal (or blog), but about reviews for a publisher, where they pay you $100 or $200 to review a manuscript for them to decide if it’s worth publishing. [sent-12, score-1.533]
9 But in that case I assume the prof would give the student the money directly, in which case there’s no need to make it up in other ways. [sent-13, score-1.022]
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Introduction: Nick Cox comments : I heard of a leading U.S. statistician who delegates some of his book reviews to smart graduate students. The (very grateful) ex-student who told me said, in effect, it’s just his way of working. He makes the deal evident beforehand and makes it up to you in other ways by superb mentoring. I don’t understand this at all! If the student wrote the review, he or she should be sole author, no? The thing that puzzles me about this story is that if you’re a “leading statistician,” you don’t really get any credit for reviewing. If anything, people probably think you’re writing reviews as a way to avoid doing real work. If there’s some concern that the journal won’t publish a review under the sole authorship of obscure student X, they could always compromise and include the senior prof as a second author on the review (in which case the prof should at least read the review and vet it, but that can’t take much time). I guess what I’m saying is that it makes pe
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Introduction: I received the following email: Dear Colleague, Recently we informed you about SciRev, our new website where researchers can share their experiences with the peer review process and select an efficient journal for submitting their work. Since our start, we already received over 500 reviews and many positive reactions, which reveal a great need for comparable information on duration and quality of the review process. All reviews are publicly available on our website, both at the pages of the journals and in an overview at www.scirev.sc/reviews To make this venture a success, many reviews are needed. We therefore would appreciate it very much if you could take a few minutes to visit our website www.SciRev.sc and share your recent review experiences with your colleagues. SciRev also offers you the possibility to create a free account where you can administer your manuscripts under review and create a personal journal list. Thanks on behalf of the research community, Jan
Introduction: See page 179 here for Gowa’s review from 1986. And here’s my version (from 2008).
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Introduction: I received the following email: Ms. No.: *** Title: *** Corresponding Author: *** All Authors: *** Dear Dr. Gelman, Because of your expertise, I would like to ask your assistance in determining whether the above-mentioned manuscript is appropriate for publication in ***. The abstract is pasted below. . . . My reply: I would rather not review this article. I suggest ***, ***, and *** as reviewers. I think it would be difficult for me to review the manuscript fairly.
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Introduction: Johnny Carson had this great trick where, after a joke bombed, he’d do such a good double-take that he’d end up getting a huge laugh. This gimmick could never have worked as his sole shtick—at some point, Johnny had to tell some good jokes—but it was a reliable way to limit the downside. For the purpose of our discussion here, the point is that, even when the joke failed, Carson had a way out. I thought of this today after following a link from a commenter that led to this blog on publicity-minded author Tim Ferriss. I’ve never read anything by Ferriss but I’ve read about him on occasion: his gimmick is he promotes his book using ingenious marketing strategies. Sort of like how Madonna is famous for being famous, and Paris Hilton is famous for being famous for being famous, Ferriss is famous for self-promotion. Matt Metzgar writes : I [Metzgar] saw a bunch of ads on the internet today for Tim Ferriss’ new book. Even though the book was released today, it already has all
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Introduction: Nick Cox comments : I heard of a leading U.S. statistician who delegates some of his book reviews to smart graduate students. The (very grateful) ex-student who told me said, in effect, it’s just his way of working. He makes the deal evident beforehand and makes it up to you in other ways by superb mentoring. I don’t understand this at all! If the student wrote the review, he or she should be sole author, no? The thing that puzzles me about this story is that if you’re a “leading statistician,” you don’t really get any credit for reviewing. If anything, people probably think you’re writing reviews as a way to avoid doing real work. If there’s some concern that the journal won’t publish a review under the sole authorship of obscure student X, they could always compromise and include the senior prof as a second author on the review (in which case the prof should at least read the review and vet it, but that can’t take much time). I guess what I’m saying is that it makes pe
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Introduction: This is my last entry derived from Anthony Burgess’s book reviews , and it’ll be short. His review of Angus Wilson’s “The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Works” is a wonderfully balanced little thing. Nothing incredibly deep–like most items in the collection, the review is only two pages long–but I give it credit for being a rare piece of Kipling criticism I’ve seen that (a) seriously engages with the politics, without (b) congratulating itself on bravely going against the fashions of the politically incorrect chattering classes by celebrating Kipling’s magnificent achievement blah blah blah. Instead, Burgess shows respect for Kipling’s work and puts it in historical, biographical, and literary context. Burgess concludes that Wilson’s book “reminds us, in John Gross’s words, that Kipling ‘remains a haunting, unsettling presence, with whom we still have to come to terms.’ Still.” Well put, and generous of Burgess to end his review with another’s quote. Other cri
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Introduction: I don’t have much sympathy for well-paid academic plagiarists who are too lazy to do their jobs, but I actually can feel for the author in this story who posted fake positive Amazon reviews of his own books and negative reviews of his competitors’. I mean, sure, this is despicable behavior, I won’t deny that, but it’s gotta be harder and harder to make money writing books. Even a so-called bestselling author must feel under a lot of pressure. I was recently reading a book by Jonathan Coe—he’s just great, and famous, and celebrated, but I doubt he’s getting rich from his books. Not that there’s any reason that he has to get rich, but if even Jonathan Coe isn’t living the high life, that’s not good for authors in general. It’s a far cry from the days in which Updike, Styron, etc., could swagger around like bigshots.
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Introduction: Nick Cox comments : I heard of a leading U.S. statistician who delegates some of his book reviews to smart graduate students. The (very grateful) ex-student who told me said, in effect, it’s just his way of working. He makes the deal evident beforehand and makes it up to you in other ways by superb mentoring. I don’t understand this at all! If the student wrote the review, he or she should be sole author, no? The thing that puzzles me about this story is that if you’re a “leading statistician,” you don’t really get any credit for reviewing. If anything, people probably think you’re writing reviews as a way to avoid doing real work. If there’s some concern that the journal won’t publish a review under the sole authorship of obscure student X, they could always compromise and include the senior prof as a second author on the review (in which case the prof should at least read the review and vet it, but that can’t take much time). I guess what I’m saying is that it makes pe
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