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I am gonna probably get pushback, but here it goes.
I don't get the concept of negative/bad reviews.
A negative, bad, aggressive review is just a poorly written review.
I don't get the concept of negative/bad reviews.
A negative, bad, aggressive review is just a poorly written review.
Turning a paper review into a personal attack is just pitiful. What’s the point? We should be in this line of work to advance science and knowledge, not tear each other to bits.
Is your beef with how the paper aligns to the “perceived prestige” of the journal? 
You are focusing on the wrong issue. The editor can make a decision on that, and if you really want to express and opinion do so to the editor.
You are focusing on the wrong issue. The editor can make a decision on that, and if you really want to express and opinion do so to the editor.
You don’t like an experiment? What’s the reason? Missing control? “Please include control X to help with interpreting the data”. You don’t really get why would they even run such an experiment? Ask a question.
“What is the rationale behind experiment X?” You do not like how data is visualized or viz not adequate? Offer a solution. “Data X in Figure 1 is not legible, please modify to help with readability”
“Figure X is a bar graph. In line with Weissgerber et al, 2015, can you show all data points instead? It will allow to potentially uncover interesting features"
You don’t think an argument is supported?
Suggest to remove the claim. And so on and so forth.
Suggest to remove the claim. And so on and so forth.
You do not have to praise a paper that requires some work. You simply need NOT to wage a personal war. Turn it into a constructive argument to the betterment of science.
There are people on the other side who put work into this. Give others the respect you wish to get. And the benefit of the doubt for goodness sake.
They are NOT your enemies.
They are NOT your enemies.
Most importantly, evaluate each paper like it's a complete work, and do not come up with your own list of experiments you would have done if you were the authors.
Cause guess what? You are not! You are the reviewer, so review what is in front of you. Leave the wish list to
Cause guess what? You are not! You are the reviewer, so review what is in front of you. Leave the wish list to
