Professional Recognition for Good Reviewers

摘要

One of the biggest surprises to me as a freshly-minted Ph.D. was moving from the student to professional mentality and realizing that I had actually just started my scientific credentials. Since my path was academics, the mountains to climb were obtaining funds, establishing a laboratory, publishing in refereed journals, and effective teaching. While the mountains may change with professions, one must still create their scientific credentials. Once they are achieved, the door to the Scientist Club swings open for you, the new member. (Romanticized as a stately room with comfortable chairs, wood paneled walls, and all your colleagues sipping port and wrestling with the scientific topic of the moment.) This is a very quantifiable process, and the typical curriculum vitae of a scientist shows, in various detail, grants received, articles published, and related professional achievements. Moreover, inherent in the figures for grants and publications is a commonly understood "degree of difficulty," as in "they received a grant when the funding level was less than 5% ot the submitted grants," or "that journal rejects 95% of the manuscripts submitted." Therefore, when you take a closer look at many of the mountains to climb, you realize that reaching the top depends on your peers making critical comments and decisions on your grant proposals and manuscripts.