Thread by @raulpacheco

I have thoughts on @jeffguhin's excellent thread on moving from term paper to peer-reviewable paper, but instead of hijacking that thread, I'm going to do one of my own, as author working in a Global South institution, as journal editor & as a reviewer.

https://twitter.com/jeffguhin/status/1440401430444056578

Several of the responses that suggested that editors should desk reject these term papers appear clearly to come from a place of privilege, not only from their own (lucky) education, but also from where they are lucky to work. Sorry, kids, here's some tough love for you too.

Not everyone is lucky to have a supervisor or supervisory committee who can provide rigorous commentary and feedback that can help improve a term paper to make it a publishable paper. Happens everywhere, but more so in institutions from the Global South, you should consider this.

*IDEALLY*, a journal editor could provide feedback to the author(s) saying (very kindly) something to the effect that "your paper is not yet of peer-reviewable quality, please rework it in a way that makes the argument clearer/tighter".

Journal editors are OVERWORKED.

IF a journal editor is able & willing to provide this kind of feedback, awesome. But again, let's remember that the whole academic enterprise relies on free labor from overworked scholars with multiple (and conflicting demands). So sometimes editors may rely on reviewers for this

Reviewers are OVERWORKED as well. I just said "NO" to performing two reviews because I am two minutes away from hyperventilating due to the amount of work I have to accomplish. I used to win "Best Reviewer of the Year" awards for journals. I can't do this. Can others do this?

So, I understand your frustration as reviewers because the paper you think is not of peer-reviewable quality was sent to you for review. I also understand editors' frustration at how many requests they need to send before a reviewer agrees to review, and they don't want to waste

... the valuable time of reviewers.

Here's where providing public goods for free is important for the global academy: we are facing a wicked problem. Not everyone has the support system to help them revise a term paper to make it an academic article suitable for peer review.

Because not everyone has this system, this task is offloaded to editors, or reviewers (or both!) - I really appreciate @jeffguhin 's effort with his thread to provide a public good that scholars can now consume to help themselves write a better paper.

My request is that...

... we all consider all the different sides to this challenging issue. It's as wicked as trying to transform academia. As I have said, I fully understand your frustrations. I'm a journal editor and a reviewer, with very limited time and conflicting demands for this time.

But I also happen to be someone who writes an academic blog chock full of resources that are intended for people who may not have the support they need to achieve success in the academic enterprise. I do it (FOR FREE) because I believe we can make academia better, collectively.

So all I ask is that you consider that not everyone is as lucky and privileged as you may have been in having access to the resources that you had to make term papers better academic articles. And that with that in mind, you offer, if you can, suggestions for how they can improve

I say this, knowing and fully understanding that reviewers and editors are pressed for time, and I see you and acknowledge your frustration and I understand it, and agree with how fucked up it is that all this free labor has to be performed to keep academia functioning.

That's it, I'm done. I need to go teach the second half of a workshop for scholars of the Global South on how to develop an academic writing practice.

Be good to one another.

Peace, out.

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