96th ESA Annual Meeting (August 7 -- 12, 2011)

WK 37 - Things They Don’t Typically Teach You in Grad School: Peer-Review Inside-Out--FREE

Thursday, August 11, 2011: 11:30 AM-1:15 PM
5, Austin Convention Center
Organizer:
Roberto Salguero-Gomez
Co-organizers:
Naupaka Zimmerman , Jorge Ramos Jr. and Sue Silver
Moderator:
Roberto Salguero-Gomez
Speakers:
Donald R. Strong , Paul Craze , Michael Hutchings , Marcel Holyoak , Aaron Ellison , Edward A. Johnson , Debra Peters , Mark A. McPeek and Craig W. Osenberg
Graduate school trains scientists for an academic career – a career entailing a complex network of activities: experiments, data analysis, publishing, writing grants, mentoring, teaching, and outreach, to name a few. However, most graduate programs do not provide training in manuscript review, a crucial task for any modern scientist. The peer-review process helps ensure that published research meets the ecological community’s standards. Typically, reviewing has been left to senior researchers; this makes it challenging for early career scientists to understand how the review process works. The proposed workshop will walk through the peer-review process from the inside. The editors-in-chief of various ecological journals (e.g. Ecology Letters, TREE, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Ecology, Journal of Ecology, etc) will each give 5 min introductions on different aspects of peer-review. We will discuss the value of serving as a reviewer early-on in one’s career – both as a service to the scientific community, as well as a means to improve one’s own writing and publishing. The second half of the workshop will consist of a Q&A session where the speakers will be able to direct their questions to the panel of experts. This workshop builds onto the “What editors want” session that has been done in past ESA meetings, offering a fresh perspective on peer-reviewing. Although the workshop will be open to all, it is especially geared towards early career ecologists (graduate students, postdocs and young faculty members) with an interest in the peer-review process.
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