Watch out for the Eleventh Reviewer!
Getting crappy reviews is part of being an actual working scholar. No matter how well known you are and how good you think you might be, there are always going to be people who hate your work. No matter how well known you are and how good you think you might be, there are always going to be people whose insights can help improve your work. Everybody makes mistakes. Everyone writes the occasional bad sentence. Everyone says the occasional stupid thing that they regret later. I'm certainly no exception.
Because it's expensive to bring books into production and because people want to make money off of my work, I get reviewed a lot. For example, one of my current projects has been reviewed close to 30 times and will be reviewed another 15 times or so before it is published (just for the record, the average journal article is reviewed two to four times before publication). Believe me, not all of those reviews praise the artistry of my writing or the brilliance of my insights.
For example, one early reviewer of this manuscript said:
If I was to list out all the hostile and nasty things reviewers have said to me over the past fifteen years, this would be a very long document indeed. But I'll give you a bigger taste.
Below I've included the complete text of a review (by the Reviewer 11 of the title). I'm giving it to you because the reviewer so clearly hates our work. I'd note a couple of things. First, this is a particularly poor review in the sense that the reviewer is highly critical without being very helpful. Many of our reviewers write 15 or more pages of comments and suggestions. Second, most of the other 15 reviews were very good (and no other was anywhere near this bad).
When you get a review that is as far out of line with the other reviews as the one below, most editors will tell you to ignore it (as did happen in this case). However, it always pays to keep in mind that not everyone who likes your work is a friend and not everyone who hates it is an enemy. The worst review is one that says "Oh, I really love your work. I don't see any way it could be improved." That's terrible because we all know that our work's not perfect. That reviewer may love us but it doesn't really help us to hear that we're good. What we want to know is how to be better authors, better scholars. It's far better to get a review that says "I think your work sucks and but here are some resources to look at, here are some critical ideas, here are some places to make changes." We don't always agree with the changes our reviewers propose and we don't always make them, but at least they give us something to think about. Although, for a variety of reasons, I think that the majority of what this reviewer says is incorrect and way off target, not all of it is and we did make some changes as a result.
So, without further ado, reviewer eleven:
Review of a brief introductory text by S. Nanda and R. Warms
Chapter 3
Organization: a) Embedding the methodologies and conceptual definition of anthropology in the history of the field suggests that history, not anthropology is of foremost importance. (e.g. why reference participant observation to Boas’ work?) b) How are techniques different from methodology; we need a clear listing and exposition of research methodologies. For examples, where is the material on interviews and surveys and genealogies? Writing a) Too wordy. b) The structure of the chapter should leave students with some clear “take-aways,” this discussion of anthropology offers few. c) Sentence structures sometimes are awkward
Coverage: a) This chapter needs to concisely and clearly answer three questions: what does anthropology do; how does it do it; and why does it do it. This chapter does none of the three. b) Why these topics? To consider feminist, post-modern and collaborative research as issues and not explain the myriad other topics and issues (e.g. indigeneity and identity) is confusing. c) Where does anything here have to do with human rights or me deciding?
Features: a) The introductory piece is gripping, but poorly integrated into the text and the purpose of the chapter. To go from rats chewing a dead woman’s arm to Boas’ work is mind-numbing. b) For American students, an example from the United States would be more compelling.
Chapter Rating (this manuscript) ` 1 = poor
Chapter Rating (current text) 4 = above average Chapter 4
Organization: a) the historical perspective places the weakest, most dated linguistics first b) The chapter seems arbitrarily placed in the book. Why here?
Writing a) Needs more examples. Good use could be made of work by Blacks such as Langston Hughes, who many students read in high school.
Coverage: This chapter ignores all theoretical research on linguistics since Chomsky (1954) right up through work by Pinker. It even fails to make use of the cognitive work by Spradley (1969) referenced in the last chapter. Unless this author deals with structural linguistics and its advances elsewhere, the students are left with material from the 1970s as the most recent advances. Even the evolutionary material ignores the most recent research on the neuro-anatomy of linguistic performance
Features: Opening piece: a) The opening material from Labov is dated in both the linguistic example and the focus on Ebonics. b) This will reinforce middle class students sense of superiority over blacks, and ignore the far more common use of dialectic in rap music.
Chapter Rating (this manuscript) ` 1 = poor
Chapter Rating (current text) 3 = average
Chapter 6
Organization: The history of capitalism that is currently at the end of the chapter needs to be moved forward and given some theoretical context. It raises the critical question (cultural vs. natural law) but fails to explain other models, so ends up reinforcing stereotypes.
Writing: a) Needs basic editing (affects/effects, thought/think) b) As in the other chapters it is too discursive. A concise intro should be concise
Coverage: a) The basic definition of economics used here is mired in a formalist perspective (individual as unit of analysis, allocation of scarce resources, etc.) This perspective would not raise the questions that are answered in the second half of the chapter. Thus, there is no logical reason to move to “reciprocity, redistribution and exchange.” b) The definitions (e.g. “capital” are both idiosyncratic and erroneous) c) Where is the theory: Smith, Marx, Bohannon, Sahlins and Polanyi. Neither the authors nor their models are discussed or even referenced here. d) This chapter does more damage than good, reinforcing the economic attitudes of our society as human universals.
Features: The example of the Peruvian urbanization (page 9) is confusing. Explain and clarify. There is little segue into the Turkish material
Chapter Rating (this manuscript) ` 1 = poor
Chapter Rating (current text) 3 = average
Chapter 7
Organization: Conventional
Writing: a) This chapter is too long, students will not finish it. b) More examples are needed (e.g. of unilateral rules of corporate descent groups) c) Needs editing throughout (e.g. use of commas and semi-colons is not standardized d) Two citations on the first sentence, when not even one is necessary?! e) If you are going to translate “lie”, why use a euphemism?
Coverage: Comprehensive To say that “Differences in strength and mobility between males and females, as well as women’s biological role in infant nurturing account for the generally gender division of labor in non-industrial societies,” is both wrong and a major political mistake, reinforcing stereotypes these students carry around. As a male anthropologist (and past chair of the gender studies program) working with horticulturalists in Amazonia, I find otherwise. The fact that the authors could embed it in a paragraph without discussion or dissent is simply bad anthropology.
Features: The opening piece makes no mention of STD’s, security or rape – these are what your students are going to wonder about when they finish it.
Chapter Rating (this manuscript) ` 1 = poor
Chapter Rating (current text) 4 = average
Chapter 9
Organization:
Writing: Needs considerable copy-editing (e.g. page 7, para 1 and repeated sentences pp 29 and 31). Don’t they care to read their work before they submit it for evaluation!
Coverage: The topics covered are appropriate, but the discussion consists of a series of definitions, unconnected by examples (e.g. A tribe is a…). If students are to learn, they need to be provided with concise lists or thorough discussions; this is neither.
Features: The opening piece won’t capture students attention; they won’t find that it relates to their lives or experiences. “Horse and carriage,” “General Motors”; why do they choose these dated quotes?
Chapter Rating (this manuscript) ` 2 = needs improvement
Chapter Rating (current text) 5 = above average Chapter 10
Organization: Appropriate
Writing: See comments above
Coverage:
Where are the theoretical perspectives? These concepts (caste and class) are the subject of long and rich debates in the field. These authors treat them as if they are known entities.
To explain stratification first in it’s functions is unconventional and leads students to see it as an immutable fact. They state “No culture has ever devised a successful means of organizing a large population without stratification and inequality.” First of all “cultures” do not organize populations. Second, the sentence hinges on the idea of “organizing,” which it leaves undiscussed.
Features: The purpose of this chapter is not clear; should it relate to “current issues in anthropology,” “political economy,” “structuralism” or “ideology?” There is a great debate about “caste: class or race” which might well make this all make more sense. The way it is, I’m not sure when I might ask students to read this.
Chapter Rating (this manuscript) ` 1 = poor
Chapter Rating (current text) NA
Chapter 11
Organization: Appropriate
Writing: See comments above
Coverage: Another Inequalities chapter? It looks like some previous reviewer told them to divide up this material into two chapters. It doesn’t work because the authors are not clear on what they want to say about the four topics, or how to relate them to theory or each other. I would have my students skip both. The authors fail to do a comprehensive “introduction” to the topics nor do they give me breadth enough to integrate it with what I do know about the topic.
If you’re going to talk about inequality, where is the material on nationhood and identity?!
The discussion of ethnicity is good, although it leaves the important question hanging. These authors seem not to have read M.G. Smith or Barth, leaving them with a very superficial (if current) perspective on the topic.
Features: Rape is a difficult topic with a student body in which half live with the fear or have lived through the reality.
Chapter Rating (this manuscript) ` 3 = fair
Chapter Rating (current text) NA
Chapter 12
Organization: What could be the logical explanation for joining art and religion in one chapter? They both have functions?! This reduces both to ideological superstructure and nothing in the previous chapters suggests these authors have theoretical coherence, much less one that is informed by Marx.
Writing: Discussed above.
Coverage: Conventional on religion, art seems to be an after thought. See above
Features: Introductory piece on cargo cults looks like it could have been written in 1972.
Chapter Rating (this manuscript) ` 2 = poor
Chapter rating (current text) NA
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