In Story 5 of my personal experiences with ideological drama in academic peer review, we learned how an editor can hold a paper under review unnecessarily, culminating in a total review time of almost two years. Such delays hinder important data from being shared quickly with the public and with other researchers.
Story 6 – the last story in this series – is similar to all the preceding stories in that it reflects the impact of reviewer bias and editorial cowardice. However, it is also different than all other stories in that it did not have a happy ending of paper acceptance.
On July 28, 2021, I submitted a paper about the probable misuse of causal language in biomedical research articles to an open access, South Korean journal called Science Editing. In the paper, I quantified the use of the word “determinant” in biomedical research articles. I did this because I wanted to compare how often this strong causal word is used by researchers in attributing health outcomes to biological, social/environmental, and individual/behavioural causes. I had noticed frequent use of the term “social determinant of health” in the public health literature, and this appeared to me to be driven by political motives, with scientific precision in nomenclature considered secondary to ideological aims. Misuse of causal of casual language (e.g., “effects,” “impacts”) is already a known issue in biomedical research; my analysis was simply testing for this with a different term and underlying rationale.
The reason that I decided to submit my paper to Science Editing is because the topic of my paper fit within the journal’s scope, and I thought that South Korean reviewers and editors might not be so greatly triggered by a researcher who questions the motives of the social determinant of health movement, which originated with the World Health Organization in the 2000s and its desire to create “health equity.”
Two days after submitting the paper, on July 30th, I received feedback from one peer reviewer, and I was asked by the journal to respond to the reviewer’s comments. I addressed the reviewer’s comments and then on August 1st, I resubmitted the paper. A day later, on August 2nd, I was informed that my paper had been accepted for publication. I was then informed that my paper would be checked by “English and/or bibliographic experts,” and that I would be informed if any other revisions were necessary.
Great news, right?
Unbeknownst to me, the review process was not over. On August 6th, I received an email from the journal containing the proofs of the paper. When I opened the proofs, I noticed that the copyeditor had corrected some of the grammar in the text, which was expected, but the copyeditor also inserted comment boxes in which they questioned my interpretation of the results.
One of the comments involved the copyeditor identifying themselves and why they felt compelled to provide their opinion on my paper:
“As a linguistics PhD (and native speaker of English), I may have a tendency to be a bit picky in this regard, but since the need for linguistic precision lies at the heart of the point being made in this article, this point would seem worth clarifying or rephrasing.”
The copyeditor then went on to question one of my statements in which I said that many researchers were likely not using the term “social determinant” appropriately, and that they were likely often not reflecting on whether what they were measuring or discussing was actually a “determinant” (noun) or whether it was a “correlate” (noun). And I was putting forward the idea that the marked increase in the use of the phrase “social determinant” in recent years, which I had quantified in my paper, likely stems more from the political motives behind the social determinants of health movement. Any confusion in what I was saying could have been easily clarified with a minor change in wording to the sentence.
Interestingly, the editor of the journal also appeared to mistakenly send me the copyeditor’s overall comments on my paper, which revealed their view of my paper more openly.
The copyeditor wrote:
“This paper is obviously opinionated. To a reader familiar with the politics of Anglophone countries, this paper is clearly aligned with one side of the political spectrum, but that is not necessarily a problem. For the most part, the points being raised are within the scope of reasonable scholarly disagreement.”
The copyeditor then went on to say:
“The author gives no citations for the claim that researchers have failed to consider the difference between correlation and causation. If I was an epidemiologist, I would find this claim almost offensive. It is certainly possible that researchers have not done so effectively, or adequately, or consistently, but the extremely strong claim that researchers in this field have not considered this possibility at all warrants support – and there is not even a single citation at the end of this sentence.”
Of course, I did provide citations throughout my paper referencing studies that have shown misuse use of causal language in biomedical research articles, and when I submitted the edits to the proof, I did address the copyeditor’s concern by revising the sentence in question. But, to no avail.
On August 9, 2021, I received the following note from the editor:
“The editorial team discussed this manuscript again. We found that there was an incomplete peer review. I apologize for the carelessness during the editorial process. Unfortunately, we decided not to consider this manuscript for publication due to the following reasons. There should be more concrete evidence to support the author's opinion, as the author mentioned in the manuscript as following: "at this point, it is only a hypothesis and requires formal examination in future research... Such hypotheses require formal examination in future research.”
From the editor’s decision, I gathered that the English copyeditor’s feedback influenced the editor and caused the editor to withdraw my paper. Unfortunately, the results from my descriptive analysis have never been published. There are many individuals in the public health space that have a vested interest in the concept of social determinants of health. And the reason for this is because the social factors in questions are ones which public health officials believe they can control, giving them a sense of importance and a sort of misguided high ground for empathy and morality.
The take home message from Story 6 is that, not only can an academic paper be rejected by biased reviewers and incompetent and cowardly editors, it can also be rejected by an ideological copyeditor, even after it has already been accepted for publication.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I have presented six stories of my own unique politicized experiences in the peer review process. One important thing to remember is that these are only my experiences. There are many other researchers who have experienced similar issues. The root of the problem is ideological bias in peer review coupled with the dysfunctional nature of the current peer review system (e.g., editors and reviewers not being paid by for-profit publishers for their review services).
On a positive note, five of the six stories ultimately resulted in success. Five of the six submitted research articles were ultimately accepted. Thus, even in the current academic climate that is increasingly irrational, small wins for reason can be made. They just require a submission strategy, a well-written paper, undeniable data, willpower, and extremely high levels of patience and tolerance for bullshit.
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Personal drama in academic peer review: Story 6 – Rejected by a copyeditor stand-in for big public health