It’s been more than a week since I last posted here. I’ve been busy. A different kind of busy than usual, though.
Yes, there’s the usual work on my research, plus I’m planning a new class that’s taking some time to do, and there just isn’t much to write about either here right now about that. In addition to that, though, I have been reviewing papers a lot this month. I usually review less than five papers a month, but this month I’ve reviewed ten papers so far and still have five unread manuscripts on my desk.
That is plus the papers I’m handling as editor, but luckily I only have a few of those at the moment.
I usually spend about a day per manuscript, depending on the manuscript of course. Some are short and can be handled in a few hours – at least if there are obvious arguments for judgment in one direction or another – but some takes me a lot longer to handle. Math heavy ones mostly, where I need to check a lot, or where I need some time to think about the results in some detail. Those takes me a few days, but I usually split that up over a week or so, to give my subconscious some time to work on it as well.
Anyway, with 15 papers in one month, and a day per paper, you can see how fast reviewing eats up my time. And I cannot blog about any of them, of course, but will have to wait for the papers to get published.
I usually always accept to review a paper if I think it is something I think is within my field of expertise (not that I usually accept the paper, but I do accept to review it). Usually, I find reviewing quite enjoyable as well.
Yesterday, for the first time as I can remember, I declined to review a paper because I was too busy. I even feel bad about that. I probably shouldn’t, but I do. I realize that I have to prioritize my time between my own research and paper reviews – especially considering that the former gives me a lot more credit on the CV than the other – but I still feel bad about it…
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