Page 358 - English for Writing Research Papers

Chapter 20

The Final Check

What the experts say

The following are exact quotes from editors and reviewers of papers submit-
ted by Prof. Charles Fox of the University of Kentucky.
Fox seems to have an enlarged view of the significance of his work.

The explanation is interesting, and worth stating [but] I didn't need to
read the paper to get the point.

This is still a most unexciting paper, but it is probably useful to confi rm
experimentally what everyone knows intuitively.
Fox’s productivity in terms of number of papers is impressive [but] there
is nothing new in any of his work.

The point is so elementary that it does not require a manuscript of this
length to develop it

It is with great regret that I must inform you that your submission … will
be accepted, pending revision. My regrets are motivated, of course, by

your excessive profile in the literature. Nothing would have given me
more pleasure than to reject the paper, but the excellent reviews, and my
own opinion of the work, make this impossible.
I went through the paper, trying to find something wrong with the manu-

script, because that is what editors do. Then I tried to think of changes I
could ask you to make because the other thing editors do is slow up the
publication process by requesting revisions. I failed at both of these …
Consequently, I have violated all traditions [and recommend] that your
manuscript be published exactly as is.

The results are not earth-shattering, but the paper is beautifully written …
In fact, the paper is so well-crafted that it may become a classic. … You
have done such a good job that I now want to go back and read all your
other papers.

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 349
A. Wallwork, English for Writing Research Papers,
English for Academic Research, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-26094-5_20