Summer is great for getting research done because we have uninterrupted time to work on projects. I feel like a good chunk of my time during the school year is spent figuring out where I left off on a project before being distracted by teaching, meetings, etc. But I just got back from a lovely trip to Belgium, don't remember where I left off on any of my projects, don't know which to tackle first...and so decided to get some referee reports written. :)
I happened to come across this advice column on writing good referee reports (thank you, Academic Sequitur). I really like the general advice that my main job as a referee is to decide whether the paper is publishable in the journal or not and then to make the case for or against to the editor. Although it is certainly nice to make suggestions for improving the paper, that is not the main responsibility of the referee. But then why do I spend so much time making such suggestions even when I know the paper will be rejected? Because I know it is so hard to get feedback on papers outside of the refereeing process. Yes, some people present at various prestigious conferences/seminars and get excellent feedback that way, but my sense is that many papers are written and published without ever being carefully read or thought about by anyone but the authors and referees. This is a shame. Especially for early-career researchers.
Then again, it is important to keep in mind when writing these reports that what is most useful for the authors (and the editors) is not my pointing out the typo on page 21, but my evaluation of the paper in general and my thoughts on the "must do's" vs. "nice to do's".
Ok, and now, back to referee reports....
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