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I just wrote a twelve page paper in five and a half hours. Sometimes, I amaze even myself.
 
Well done. I assume the reward is a weekend of metal and beer, without that nagging feeling that you should finish a paper ...

I'm going to have to spend my free time the next couple of weeks revising a journal paper I submitted during my PhD study. One reviewer is nit-picking and the other reviewer thinks the work is immature and should be rejected, the wanker. Fortunately, the editor says that only the nit-picker's issues have to be fully addressed. The issues rised by the other reviewer need only be partly addressed.
 
Correction: The word the wanker used was "premature", not "immature".

Now off to Fredrikstad to watch Fredrikstad FK hopefully beating the crap out of Rosenborg BK.
 
Today, I soldered my first capacitor. I repaired a monitor that had been given to me for free. I burnt off three fingertips. It was fun!
 
You know what, despite the fact that I absolutely hate Google as a company, I have to appreciate the fact that Google Books saved my arse today.
 
Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
Well done. I assume the reward is a weekend of metal and beer, without that nagging feeling that you should finish a paper ...

I'm going to have to spend my free time the next couple of weeks revising a journal paper I submitted during my PhD study. One reviewer is nit-picking and the other reviewer thinks the work is immature and should be rejected, the wanker. Fortunately, the editor says that only the nit-picker's issues have to be fully addressed. The issues rised by the other reviewer need only be partly addressed.
Click to expand...

I don't know what is normal so forgive my ignorance but this raises many questions.
Aren't these reviews a little late, since they came after you received your title? I assume you wanted to have your paper as perfect as possible before you achieved your grade.

If I were you I would connect these matters and perhaps even wonder what was really needed (and what not) to get this PhD.

Why do you need to address these reviews since you have already finished the PhD study?
Naturally you want to show what was good about your paper but it sounds like a re-exam.
And what it is worth if a paper would be rejected? Does it have any consequences?
Can you work forever on your paper, after you've achieved your PhD?

Just curious how this works (at least in Norway).
 
Forostar said:
I don't know what is normal so forgive my ignorance but this raises many questions.
Aren't these reviews a little late, since they came after you received your title? I assume you wanted to have your paper as perfect as possible before you achieved your grade.

If I were you I would connect these matters and perhaps even wonder what was really needed (and what not) to get this PhD.

Why do you need to address these reviews since you have already finished the PhD study?
Naturally you want to show what was good about your paper but it sounds like a re-exam.
And what it is worth if a paper would be rejected? Does it have any consequences?
Can you work forever on your paper, after you've achieved your PhD?

Just curious how this works (at least in Norway).
Click to expand...

Well, the PhD dissertation is seen as an independent piece of work, which is evaluated in its own right. The university appoints a committee to evaluate the thesis, and once it is accepted by the committee, the candidate must defend it in public. This means the candidate presents his thesis to an audience, and after the presentation the committee will ask questions about the work. If the defense of the work is also approved, the degree is awarded.

Now, parts of the work presented in a PhD thesis can be submitted to scientific journals (with a bit of reworking to match the format the journal requires). This is a completely different process, independent of the PhD thesis. A scientific journal does not care if a submitted paper is written by a M.Sc. student, a tenured professor or an industrial researcher, as long as it satisfies the quality demands. The scientific journals are independent companies.

When a paper is submitted to a journal, the editorial office will appoint one or more scientific peers (people who are believed to have the knowledge to evaluate the paper), who are asked to evaluate the paper. They have to assess not only the quality of the work, but also how it matches the scope of that particular journal, and whether it does add something of value to the research field. The reviewers are usually given plenty of time to evaluate - often two-three months.

The work I did for my PhD thesis has formed the basis of four journal papers (four out of five main chapters in the thesis have been worked into journal papers). Two have been accepted and published in Industrial Engineering & Chemistry Research, one is under review with Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering. The one I am currently reworking was submitted to Computers & Chemical Engineering, and the reviewer who is negative thinks that the paper does not really fit there. I can't really go in deep detail, but I can say this much:

The paper describes and discusses challenges related to mathematical modelling and optimisation of a certain type of processes. This reviewer has said that since the paper does not suggest a solution, it is premature and should be rejected. The other reviewer does not seem to have an issue with this, and the editorial office has also said that we (me and my co-author) need only partly address it. This illustrates that even for the same journal, reviewers can have different opinions on whether a paper should be accepted or not.

To summarize: Journal papers and the PhD degree are not formally linked at all. For me, the only motivation for continuing this process is personal satisfaction (after all, having your name on papers in a scientific journal carries some prestige) and that I simply don't like having unfinished business. If it turns out that this particular paper was good enough for a PhD thesis but not good enough for Computers & Chemical Engineering, so be it. The same has happened to many other works.
 
You know, considering the fact that my PhD work was quite mathematical in nature, and that it has led to some work carrying on until now, you could call this remaining work ...

... The Aftermath.
 
Thanks for the effort you put into the explanation! Naturally, in this context "rejected" means: rejected in a particular scientific journal (should have understood that earlier; you even said "journal paper" -> I'd read it too fast).

Good luck with the revision!
 
Just got back from my journey to California. I came back with this (among other things)

Wooden_Croaking_Frog_Handmade_Wood_Carved_Animals.jpg


Fun times.
 
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