I previously asked this question in the physics forum (tag soft-question), but was convinced that it better suits in the academia forum. So I deleted it and posted it here.
I was recently asked to review a paper for a well-established physical journal, but as I have a lot to do in the moment, I'm tempted to refuse it. This is even more the case since I quit my scientific carreer roughly a year ago.
Thus my question: particularly outside physics, what are the benefits of being a referee? [beside the idealistic attitude of "bringing on physics" -- this is a valuable point in principle, but in reality, I've been long enough in the business to know that this is hardly the case for most papers. In contrast, most papers originate due to the need to continuously publish, a thing which I consider to be wrong].
For people in science, I see a clear opportunity in being a referee.
First, it gives you a connection to the journal editors and contributes to your authority.
Second, by concentrating on the paper, you are forced to learn something on your topic which might help you later. Further, you might be able to add citations to your own work and thus increase your influence.
Third, from a global point of view, you have to do it since you also expect your own papers to be reviewed (although this point is somewhat of a social dilemma, since [neglecting the previous points] it would be better to review as few as possible and concentrate on your own research).
However, do you see any personal advantages once you have quit physics? Are there maybe some if one plans to return some day?
Answer
To me, refereeing papers in subject X is a non-negligible part of being a professional academic in subject X. So the premise that you want to referee a physics paper having "quit science" seems moderately self-contradictory: using your expert level qualifications to evaluate a scientific work is being a scientist, isn't it? I'm almost sure it is. :)
So I guess you haven't "quit science" completely, or -- and this may come to the same thing -- the physics community is not fully aware of this fact. One thing I might do if I were you is to make sure that the editor who asked you to review the paper knows that you are no longer employed as a physicist. If I were an editor, that would be useful information, and unless I knew you rather well and knew that you retained a special expertise in this particular area, I would probably select someone else.
I think it's clear that you no longer have any kind of ethical obligation or professional expectation of reviewing papers. I also suspect that once the community understands that you really are doing something else now your referee requests will come rarely or cease altogether. So this is probably a decision that you need to make more for any particular paper than as a general life decision. I would say: if you feel just as qualified to referee the paper as before and if you want to referee the paper, then do it. For instance, if you see something valuable in the paper that you think that some other qualified person might miss, then it might be a nice parting gift "to science" to speak out for the worth of this research. On the other hand, if it's just business as usual (or worse, motivated by "the need to continuously publish"): well, you don't have to clean the bathrooms in the apartment that you're not renting anymore, do you?
If you have thoughts of breaking back into science later on, then I think you need to think seriously about how to keep your connections and your intellectual life, um, alive. There are many aspects to this, and making sure that you continue to referee papers is not, so far as I can see, especially close to the top of the list. If I'm looking at the CV of someone who left academia for a while and is trying to come back (and it does happen), I will look to the work they have done recently and their plans for work in the near future. I don't really care whether they've refereed some papers in the meantime.
No comments:
Post a Comment