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.