In ‘The Addict of Memoirs’ (from Drawn and Quartered, Arcade Publishing, New York, 1983/2012), E. M. Cioran writes: Is there a better sign of “civilization” than laconism? To stress, to explain, to prove–so many forms of vulgarity. Bergson is said to have said–somewhere–that time spent in refutation is time wasted¹. There is, evidently, a sympathy betweenContinue reading “Cioran on Academic Writing’s ‘Forms of Vulgarity’”
Tag Archives: peer review
The Missed Rejoinder: Memorable For All The Wrong Reasons
A few years ago, I served as a referee for the National Science Foundation, reading and evaluating grant proposals, and hopefully, being fair to the hopeful applicants. Once I had submitted my preliminary report, I traveled to Washington DC for a final meeting with other referees for that round of funding; we met over twoContinue reading “The Missed Rejoinder: Memorable For All The Wrong Reasons”
Turn Down the Comments; We’re Talking Science Here
A couple of days ago, Popular Science decided to turn off comments on news articles. In a blog post, Suzanne LaBarre explained why: Comments can be bad for science. That’s why, here at PopularScience.com, we’re shutting them off….[W]e are as committed to fostering lively, intellectual debate as we are to spreading the word of scienceContinue reading “Turn Down the Comments; We’re Talking Science Here”
The Scandal of Closed Access to Taxpayer Funded Research
On January 21, Timothy Gowers of Cambridge announced he would no longer publish papers in Elsevier’s journals or serve as a referee or editor for them. This boycott has now been joined by thousands of other researchers. (I don’t referee any more for Elsevier, though I have in the past, and I certainly won’t be sending any papersContinue reading “The Scandal of Closed Access to Taxpayer Funded Research”
The Quantity Problem with Peer Review in the Sciences
Jack Hitt’s recent article in the New York Times touting the virtues of crowdsourcing peer review, of public comments on to-be-published or just-published scientific research, prompts me to offer a few thoughts on the problems in traditional peer review in a discipline—computer science—that I have had some exposure to in the past. In this post,Continue reading “The Quantity Problem with Peer Review in the Sciences”
Samir Chopra 