Re: Ba`i Review cu?a TS Nguyen Xuan Tuyen

[Tuan V Nguyen <t.nguyen@garvan.unsw.edu.au>]

Hi anh AiViet, Zung et al,

	I do not know much about the content of the review 
article, however, having read your comments on the review 
process, I would like to make a number of comments as follows:

>   To tell the truth I don't like the review neither. The review has
>the choice to refuse to review a paper. In any case, the paper
>has been published. At least the referee agree with the guy and the 
>journal is recognised by the Math.Rev. 

	The decicion to publish a paper is MAINLY made by the 
journal editor(s). Comments from referees are usually, but 
not always, taken into account in the decision.


>I don't agree with your opinion. I think that a good review is the one
>which gives useful information about the paper so that the reader may decide
>wether to read the paper or not. 

	Totally agreed!

>When reviewing something, I think it is good to be frank. 

	This is the way it should be. But, words can be 
bended/twisted, you know :))


>When you say "at least the referee agrees with the guy .." perhaps you
>don't realize the situation in Russia, where there's a lot of politicking in 
>publishing papers - it is not unusual that bad papers get published in good 
>journals while the good ones are refused.

	The same situation here, in Western countries, Zung. 
>From my experience, it is hard, but not impossible, for 
people outside the US to publish papers in American journals. 
My european colleagues used to say that they (the Amer 
editors) like to LISTEN to what you are saying, but they are 
not keen to SEE your words in print. Not always true, but it 
is worth to know.

	In most American or European journals, you have the 
choice by telling the journal editor that you do not want 
certain people to review your paper. This is quite 
political!!!

	I should add that in some American journals, you can 
not just simply submit the paper without an introduction from 
a referee, who must be s member of the journal's society. 
This is called a close club. Many VNese or European 
researchers have little chance of getting into these 
journals!


>It is commonplace nowadays to see 
>"neutral" useless reviews, perhaps because people don't get payed anough for 
>this hard work (only 8$/review, not in money but in "bon d'achat" ).

	I don't think any reviewer gets paid. I certainly do 
not. But I do not think because of the money the review is 
useless. There are other reasons. Some reviewers, for some 
reasons, choose to be neutral saying (as you write) useless 
words. This is because he/she is not on the top of the area 
that he/she reviews, so minimisation of talking is the best 
strategy - make no enemy nor friend! But, some reviewers tend 
to be more aggressive, because he/she does not like the 
author of the paper (I know it sounds ridiculous, but it is 
true sometimes). You just have to live with this sort of 
reviewers. Still, some reviewers are more friendly to you. 
Personality sometimes plays an important role in these so-
called reviews. 

	Although reviewers remain anonymous, but occasionally, 
one can actually deduce who the reviewer is, by observing the 
way/words he/she writes and speaks in conferences. 


	Tuan