This document discusses various issues related to scientific publishing and peer review. It includes sections on editors and reviewers behaving badly, whether peer review should be double-blind, the rise of post-publication peer review, and issues with a specific paper published in Cell relating to image reuse and the speed of the peer review process.

1. Reviewers (And Editors) Behaving
Badly
CSE
Philadelphia, 2015
Ivan Oransky, MD
Retraction Watch
MedPage Today
New York University
@ivanoransky

2. Is This Science Today?
2

3. Robots No Longer Considered Harmful
I.P. Freely, Oliver Clothesoff, Jacques Strap, Hugh
Jazz, Amanda Huginkiss
Is This Science Today?
3

4. Is This Science Today?

5. Editors As Authors
Top 10 authors RASD/RIDD 2010-2014: from Scopus (chart by Dorothy Bishop)

6. Editors As Reviewers
Lag from paper received to acceptance (days) for 73 papers co-authored by journal
editors, 2010-2014 (chart by Dorothy Bishop)

7. Go Double-Blind?

8. The Rise of Post-Publication Peer Review

9. The Rise of Post-Publication Peer Review
-Cell 2013; 153: 1228-1238

10. hESCs in Cell

11. “It does however have several examples of image
reuse which might be of interest to PubPeer
members and readers.”
hESCs in Cell

12. hESCs in Cell

13. hESCs in Cell

14. hESCs in Cell
A number of comments about these errors in
articles and blogs have drawn connections to the
speed of the peer review process for this
paper. Given the broad interest, importance,
anticipated scrutiny of the claims of the paper and
the preeminence of the reviewers, we have no
reason to doubt the thoroughness or rigor of the
review process.

15. hESCs in Cell
The comparatively rapid turnaround for this paper
can be attributed to the fact that the reviewers
graciously agreed to prioritize attention to reviewing
this paper in a timely way. It is a misrepresentation
to equate slow peer review with thoroughness or
rigor or to use timely peer review as a justification
for sloppiness in manuscript preparation.