a plea to graduate students submitting papers

Three times this year a bad thing has happened after I've encouraged editors to give a paper "revise and resubmit."

Note that whenever I review a paper and don't recommend immediate acceptance I work really hard trying to help the writer so that their rewrite will to be up to the quality of the journal. Even when I counsel "rejection" I still try to give detailed constructive advice about how the paper could be recast, even suggesting places the author should send the rewritten paper.

So three times this year instead of making the changes I recommended the author resubmitted substantially the same paper and argued with some vehemence that they should not have to change their paper in the ways I suggested. In all three cases the journal editor had given the paper "revise and resubmit," but then rejected the insufficiently rewritten paper. In two of these cases I googled the paper title after this was over and found out that the submitters were graduate students. This is so bad on so many levels.

First, it's clear to me that some graduate students have no idea that "revise and resubmit" is a very, very good thing, that if you just rewrite the paper up to the reviewer and editor's standards that at most journals it is almost certain to get accepted. All three of the people viewed "revise and resubmit" as if it were a kind of rejection, and not a kind of conditional acceptance, as it usually amounts to (de facto if not de jure). Second, it's clear to me that some graduate students have no idea what "idiot-proofing" a paper amounts to. Let me explain. Suppose that your reviewer is an uncharitable idiot. Suppose I was when reviewing the papers. It doesn't matter! My comments are still invaluable because you still need to rewrite the thing so that the next uncharitable idiot reviewing it doesn't make the same mistakes. Third, it's clear to me that some graduate students have no idea how high the burden of proof is if you want to convince an editor that the reviewer who has published extensively in the topic in question is making elementary mistakes about the paper.

So please communicate this to all and sundry: (1) Revise and resubmit is something to be celebrated, (2) always take into account criticism and suggestions, even if only to idiot-proof for the next reviewer, (3) have some humility.

I"m not trying to be censorious here. If I was I wouldn't spend so much time giving detailed advice about how to get papers up to publishable standards. In addition, I know first-hand how stressful this process is for writers and first-hand how stress can produce weird and suboptimal behavior. I'm trying to help.

I'd very be interested to hear if other reviewers have faced this kind of self-destructive behavior, and if so if there's anything more we should be doing to stop it. But if I'm being a jerk here, I trust that someone will point that out too.