I accidentally stumbled on this idea while I was on a walk last week and mentally prepping for my live stream with Meg Bouvier on her Ask the Grantwriting Expert channel. (ICYMI, the recording is on YouTube).
For those of you who are parents AND authors of peer-reviewed publications, try putting on your parenting hat next time you’re responding to peer review feedback:
- First, take a deep breath before you respond. Take an initial look at the peer review feedback, and then put it aside for a day (or two). Waiting to respond to kids or peer reviewers takes your brain out of the defensive/reflex response mode and gives you the space to respond more intentionally.
- Use their language in your responses. Mirror what the peer reviewer (or kid) is saying, because it helps them feel like they’ve been heard.
- Keep your tone neutral or positive as much as possible, and avoid “no” if you can. For example, instead of saying “We disagree with your suggestion for further experiments.” try to reframe it as “The intention of the current experiments was to demonstrate X, and the suggestion by the reviewer is an idea we would like to pursue in a future study.”
- Say “yes” to as many of their requests as you can, so that when you have to reject a request, it will go down a bit easier
Note: I don’t advocating “talking down” to either your peer reviewers or your kids. You can respectfully offer a different perspective in your responses. And remember that they’re people too.
What other ideas do you have for parenting your peer reviewers?