Thursday, March 27, 2008

Reviewer comment poll

Lately I've had the misfortune of reviewing some manuscripts which are immaculate in their misrepresentation of data, economy of content and an understanding of the English language which would have relegated the authors to last place in a third-grade spelling bee.

Consequently I've been toying with a stock phrase for my reviewer comments - or rather a shorthand version of a response, really, and it goes a little something like this:

I could eat a large bowl of alphabet soup and crap out a better manuscript than what the authors have presumed to enclose.

So; what do you think? Should I start to use it in an official capacity, or is truth once again trumped by political correctness and the aspiration to approach mediocrity from below?

3 comments:

Wilhelm said...

...it's been commented that the statement needs a "Moreover".

Problem is; I'd like to keep this one sentence, in which case "Moreover" doesn't work too well.

Nice suggestion, though

Anders said...

I could eat a large bowl of alphabet soup and crap out a more understandable manuscript than what the authors over have presumed to enclose.

Close, but no cigar?

Wilhelm said...

...not even....