Someone asked for a story
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, there was a writer who was very sad. He was sad because he had just read a very sad letter. The letter had been sent to him by an Editor, who is a Very Important Person. This particular Editor was an especially Important Person, though, because he was an Editor at the AER, which is a Very Important Journal. As for what a Journal is, that is a story for another day. Let us just say that journals are something like books, except that different parts of it are written by different people, who all send their parts to the Editor. The reason Editors are Very Important is because they choose which parts to put in the book and which to throw away.
The sad letter was short, because an Editor's time is very valuable, especially when the Editor is an Editor of a Very Important Journal, and the letter was one of very many the Editor had to write. On watermarked letterhead, the sad letter read,
"Dear Professor H~: [for this was the writer's title and name]
"Enclosed are two referee reports on the paper you submitted to the American Economic Review. As you can see, both referees think the paper is interesting but they differ on whether the paper belongs in the AER. I look at the paper and I regret to say that I side more with referee 1. Thus, I have decided to reject the paper. It seems to me that a revised version of the paper would have a good chance at a more specialized journal. You could try [ ]
Despite this outcome, I hope you find the referee reports of value, and thank you for allowing us to consider your work. Good luck with the paper.
Sincerely, [signed by the Editor]"
The writer read the sad letter one more time, and wondered what he had done wrong. He had spent weeks writing and re-writing the paper so that it would be interesting and easy to read. The paper told a nice story that had not been told before, and in it he and his friend had answered a question that other writers had not been able to answer before, although several had tried. The writer thought that maybe the referee reports would explain why the sad letter had been written. If you were wondering, a referee is person who is not very good at something who tells other people that they arent very good at it either.
Behind the sad letter were two referee reports. "Ref #1" was on a single page of paper, and the writer read it quickly, his eyes jumping past the half page of "overview", which is where the referee proves he has read the paper by rewriting the abstract. Below the overview, there were only three comments. The writer inspected them:
1. The setup of the paper, while simple and convenient, is not very general. [ ]
2. It is unclear how to evaluate the models for the various [goods].
3. Even ignoring the issues in comments 1-2, it is not clear whether the paper makes a big enough contribution for the AER.
Overall assessment: This is an interesting paper that would make a very nice contribution in the [Not Very Important Journal]
The other referee report was two pages long, and asked the Editor to put the paper in the Journal, and included several small helpful comments that would make the paper better. But the writer was still sad, because he had not made the first referee happy. He read the first referee report again and again, until he knew it nearly every word of it by heart. And the more he re-read it, the more he realized what he needed to do.
Perhaps the referee was right, the sad writer thought. For despite all of the writer's efforts, the referee had not understood the writer's treatment of the good, although the writer had shown that thinking of the good as one good or as three changed nothing [Perhaps the referee was a Trinitarian?]
When he re-wrote his paper, the writer would disguise the good he had studied by renaming it a "widget" or "consumption good X." In the paper that made the Editor write the sad letter, the writer had mentioned the good he had studied and several other goods in the paper by name. He had also written that the method he used should work for them as well, and explained why. But the referee was afraid that people who read the Journal might not understand that the method the writer used might also work for other goods if the good he had studied was still mentioned by name. If there was doubt that the method was usable as a general Model, it certainly would not be a big enough contribution to be put in a Very Important Journal. [A Model is made when writers assume away the problems from a problem so that the numbers will add up. Some Models are Very Important, and can show clearly how the things we read about in newspapers don't happen.]
Although he now knew what he had to do, the writer was still sad, and went to bed that night thinking sad thoughts. He thought back to when he first decided to become a writer, so that he could write papers like those he had read when he was younger. Those had been written to be interesting, and occasionally even whimsical. The ones he remembered best very rarely included more than a small handful of equations, and sometimes had not had any.
Of course, things were different now. Many more children went to college than in the past, and so more teachers were needed. Colleges had their teachers begin to teach more teachers, and some colleges that had not taught teachers before began to teach teachers too. It was very exciting, with all that teaching taking place, but it was troublesome too. It was harder to remember who the good teachers were, and who the not-so-good teachers were. When there were fewer teachers, it seemed like everyone knew someone who would know who one wanted to know about. But now, sometimes one did not know anyone who knew.
Luckily, computers came along to help. With computers, one could count things easily that had taken a long time to count before, like the number of papers a writer had written in journals. One could also count how many papers in a journal were written by the writers who had written the most papers. Since a good writer was a good teacher [a Model said it was so], the computers could count which colleges had teachers who had written the most, and therefore were the best teachers, and the best teachers of teachers. Because students wanted the best teachers, and teachers-to-be wanted the best teachers of teachers, it was very important to the colleges that the computers could count them as the best college.
So the colleges had their teachers write and write and write, so that the computers could count and count and count. But the computers cannot count the papers as they are written, but only when they are put in a journal, and then the computers can only count them when they are put in a journal that only the best writers write in. So the writers who were teachers, and the writers who were teachers of teachers, and some writers who were only writers all wrote for the best journals, which became Very Important indeed.
Because the AER was such a Very Important Journal, many many people wanted to write parts of it. Every year, it seemed to the Editor that he had to write more sad letters than the last, while the number of happy letters stayed about the same, as every happy letter costs the Journal money. Because the Editor's time is very valuable, and he had so many letters to write, his letters were very short. And because he had so many papers from which to choose, and he wanted his Journal to remain Very Important, he chose the papers that were likely from the very best writers, who had been hired by the very best colleges and been taught by the best teachers of teachers at the very best colleges.
To appear to be fair, some Editors chose referees to choose for them. Those referees dont want to upset the best writers, as most writers are referees at other times. So the referees look for clues as to whether the paper is by one of the best writers. The best clue that the writer is one of the best writers is if the writer used math that a writer who had not been to the best colleges would not know. The very best papers used math that even the referee might not know. If a paper used just simple math, it might have been written by any simpleton, and that simply would not do. So the referees chose the articles with the trickiest math, and the Editor was content that he had found the best papers from the best writers from the best colleges in his Very Important Journal.
The writers wrote a little differently than they had before, as they needed to show that they were from the best colleges. And the teachers, and the teachers of teachers -- when they taught -- taught a little differently than they had before, as they needed to show their students how to show that they were from the best colleges. And the colleges hired a little differently than they had before, as they had to have the best writers from the best colleges to remain (or hope to become) one of the best colleges. And the Very Important Journal looked a little different than it had before the computers could count the papers published by the competing colleges, but it had to so it could remain a Very Important Journal.
This is what the writer thought as he cried himself to sleep.
The sad letter was short, because an Editor's time is very valuable, especially when the Editor is an Editor of a Very Important Journal, and the letter was one of very many the Editor had to write. On watermarked letterhead, the sad letter read,
"Dear Professor H~: [for this was the writer's title and name]
"Enclosed are two referee reports on the paper you submitted to the American Economic Review. As you can see, both referees think the paper is interesting but they differ on whether the paper belongs in the AER. I look at the paper and I regret to say that I side more with referee 1. Thus, I have decided to reject the paper. It seems to me that a revised version of the paper would have a good chance at a more specialized journal. You could try [ ]
Despite this outcome, I hope you find the referee reports of value, and thank you for allowing us to consider your work. Good luck with the paper.
Sincerely, [signed by the Editor]"
The writer read the sad letter one more time, and wondered what he had done wrong. He had spent weeks writing and re-writing the paper so that it would be interesting and easy to read. The paper told a nice story that had not been told before, and in it he and his friend had answered a question that other writers had not been able to answer before, although several had tried. The writer thought that maybe the referee reports would explain why the sad letter had been written. If you were wondering, a referee is person who is not very good at something who tells other people that they arent very good at it either.
Behind the sad letter were two referee reports. "Ref #1" was on a single page of paper, and the writer read it quickly, his eyes jumping past the half page of "overview", which is where the referee proves he has read the paper by rewriting the abstract. Below the overview, there were only three comments. The writer inspected them:
1. The setup of the paper, while simple and convenient, is not very general. [ ]
2. It is unclear how to evaluate the models for the various [goods].
3. Even ignoring the issues in comments 1-2, it is not clear whether the paper makes a big enough contribution for the AER.
Overall assessment: This is an interesting paper that would make a very nice contribution in the [Not Very Important Journal]
The other referee report was two pages long, and asked the Editor to put the paper in the Journal, and included several small helpful comments that would make the paper better. But the writer was still sad, because he had not made the first referee happy. He read the first referee report again and again, until he knew it nearly every word of it by heart. And the more he re-read it, the more he realized what he needed to do.
Perhaps the referee was right, the sad writer thought. For despite all of the writer's efforts, the referee had not understood the writer's treatment of the good, although the writer had shown that thinking of the good as one good or as three changed nothing [Perhaps the referee was a Trinitarian?]
When he re-wrote his paper, the writer would disguise the good he had studied by renaming it a "widget" or "consumption good X." In the paper that made the Editor write the sad letter, the writer had mentioned the good he had studied and several other goods in the paper by name. He had also written that the method he used should work for them as well, and explained why. But the referee was afraid that people who read the Journal might not understand that the method the writer used might also work for other goods if the good he had studied was still mentioned by name. If there was doubt that the method was usable as a general Model, it certainly would not be a big enough contribution to be put in a Very Important Journal. [A Model is made when writers assume away the problems from a problem so that the numbers will add up. Some Models are Very Important, and can show clearly how the things we read about in newspapers don't happen.]
Although he now knew what he had to do, the writer was still sad, and went to bed that night thinking sad thoughts. He thought back to when he first decided to become a writer, so that he could write papers like those he had read when he was younger. Those had been written to be interesting, and occasionally even whimsical. The ones he remembered best very rarely included more than a small handful of equations, and sometimes had not had any.
Of course, things were different now. Many more children went to college than in the past, and so more teachers were needed. Colleges had their teachers begin to teach more teachers, and some colleges that had not taught teachers before began to teach teachers too. It was very exciting, with all that teaching taking place, but it was troublesome too. It was harder to remember who the good teachers were, and who the not-so-good teachers were. When there were fewer teachers, it seemed like everyone knew someone who would know who one wanted to know about. But now, sometimes one did not know anyone who knew.
Luckily, computers came along to help. With computers, one could count things easily that had taken a long time to count before, like the number of papers a writer had written in journals. One could also count how many papers in a journal were written by the writers who had written the most papers. Since a good writer was a good teacher [a Model said it was so], the computers could count which colleges had teachers who had written the most, and therefore were the best teachers, and the best teachers of teachers. Because students wanted the best teachers, and teachers-to-be wanted the best teachers of teachers, it was very important to the colleges that the computers could count them as the best college.
So the colleges had their teachers write and write and write, so that the computers could count and count and count. But the computers cannot count the papers as they are written, but only when they are put in a journal, and then the computers can only count them when they are put in a journal that only the best writers write in. So the writers who were teachers, and the writers who were teachers of teachers, and some writers who were only writers all wrote for the best journals, which became Very Important indeed.
Because the AER was such a Very Important Journal, many many people wanted to write parts of it. Every year, it seemed to the Editor that he had to write more sad letters than the last, while the number of happy letters stayed about the same, as every happy letter costs the Journal money. Because the Editor's time is very valuable, and he had so many letters to write, his letters were very short. And because he had so many papers from which to choose, and he wanted his Journal to remain Very Important, he chose the papers that were likely from the very best writers, who had been hired by the very best colleges and been taught by the best teachers of teachers at the very best colleges.
To appear to be fair, some Editors chose referees to choose for them. Those referees dont want to upset the best writers, as most writers are referees at other times. So the referees look for clues as to whether the paper is by one of the best writers. The best clue that the writer is one of the best writers is if the writer used math that a writer who had not been to the best colleges would not know. The very best papers used math that even the referee might not know. If a paper used just simple math, it might have been written by any simpleton, and that simply would not do. So the referees chose the articles with the trickiest math, and the Editor was content that he had found the best papers from the best writers from the best colleges in his Very Important Journal.
The writers wrote a little differently than they had before, as they needed to show that they were from the best colleges. And the teachers, and the teachers of teachers -- when they taught -- taught a little differently than they had before, as they needed to show their students how to show that they were from the best colleges. And the colleges hired a little differently than they had before, as they had to have the best writers from the best colleges to remain (or hope to become) one of the best colleges. And the Very Important Journal looked a little different than it had before the computers could count the papers published by the competing colleges, but it had to so it could remain a Very Important Journal.
This is what the writer thought as he cried himself to sleep.
posted by JKH at 11/22/2004 06:56:00 AM
1 comments
