Category: 3. Academia
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Reviewing inappropriate submissions never was that easy
I got another random request to review a paper outside my domain of expertise. A quick search revealed that the publisher asking for the review is a predatory one, giving me no sympathy for the authors who did not do their homework when submitting to this publisher. You don’t just pay money to get your…
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A plea for not writing peer reviews using generative AI
I’m looking at the first reviews we received tagged with “use of generative AI in the review.” If and how much AI was used is actually not clear, but if so, they are stirring my worst fears. There are (at least) two things wrong with the reviews we received. Hallucination One reviewer is completely wrong.…
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Template response to Elsevier review requests
Dear colleague: Thank you for considering me for providing review services to your esteemed journal. Please note, however, that I am unable to provide these services for free, because your journal is an Elsevier journal. From 2019 to 2023, German researchers were excluded from reading their own and colleagues’ research, if this research was stored…
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Creative practice for dealing with obnoxious reviewers
Also, I guess for sticking it to somebody else.
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Writing recommendation letters using a chat AI
It is the first week of the new year, and I already got three student requests for recommendation letters. Writing recommendation letters is an important duty of a professor, but writing letters for students who took exactly one course with with me ten years ago is stretching this duty. Thankfully, chat AIs can help–or can…
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The attack of the Ümlauts
Umlauts and other diacritics are on the rise in all the places they don’t belong. How else could you explain these photos I took, all within a short time frame?