Wednesday, September 16, 2009

FMyLife, Academic Version

Months ago:
Snippy review criticizes my edition of Beowulf and the Critics for not discussing Haber's A Comparative Study of Beowulf and the Æneid and Bertha Phillpotts' article on "Wyrd and Providence." I get all worried. I go and re-read the book and the articles wondering why I would be so stupid to leave out something so obvious. Turns out there was a reason: the stuff was completely irrelevant.

Today:
Anonymous referee writes: "Drout should look at Title of Book." Remarkably boring, Title of Book is almost entirely irrelevant to my paper. I spent today reading it. All 400 pages. All of today. Hey, I've got a new footnote.

Clearly I am incapable of learning from my mistakes. FMAcademicL.

1 comment:

Dr. Richard Scott Nokes said...

Nothing yanks my chain more than reviewers whose reviews run something like this: "The book/paper is unacceptable because it does not mention my own irrelevant work, nor the irrelevant work of one of my friends/colleagues/mentors."

My own policy -- if I get one such review from a publication, I ignore it. If I get two, I refuse to submit to them again.