Quick post to share an awesome experience I had today. I received an email from an author I just reviewed a paper. The paper was rejected. To my surprise that was a “thank you” email. I feel I have to quote it, hope that is ok…

I write to thank you for all the comments and suggestions. They have been extremely helpful in improving the quality of the manuscript and in calling our attention to previously unnoticed weaknesses.

 

I have been signing reviews for a couple of years now. So far I had one “thank you” letter, and zero angry letters. If I didn´t convince you before, are you still not convinced to sign your reviews now?

On a side note I realize I tend to share the good news, but not always the bad ones. However we should do it too. Twitter and blogs also work a bit like an empathy box and is good to share new cool papers and experiences, but also is good to share rejections (Yes, for example last week Proc B rejected my paper without review) or experiment failing (The aphids that were supposed to be my herbivory treatment, were ate by coccinelids), specially to show PhD students that everyone has ups and downs, and struggles to do science. Now I have to go to try to fix the aphid issue …