Edifying editing

One well-known irate author, after a rejection, wrote me “Who are you to reject my paper?” The answer, which I didn’t send, is “I’m the editor.”

That's from R. Preston McAfee, in a short and excellent piece he wrote on what makes for a good journal editor.

I enjoyed the section which started with this sentence:

There are authors who attempt to annoy the editor.

This part was good too:

Pretty much 100% of kooks are theorists; you won’t meet a, say, physicist or physician with a Great Economic Idea that involved running regressions or doing lab experiments, although occasionally there is a table illustrating a correlation between some economic variable like lawyers or fluoridated water and per capita GDP.

And this:

The essential mystery of editing is why the reports I receive as an editor are so much better than the reports I receive as an author.

For the pointer I thank Chris F. Masse.

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