A letter from the frustrated author of a journal paper

If scientific writing is an art, replying to a reviewer can be your masterpiece.

And this is what frustration can do to you: A letter from a frustrated author to a journal paper. The amusement is guaranteed (I laughed so much).

Dear Sir, Madame, or Other:

Enclosed is our latest version of Ms. #1996-02-22-RRRRR, that is the re-re-re-revised revision of our paper. Choke on it. We have again rewritten the entire manuscript from start to finish. We even changed the g-d-running head!

Hopefully, we have suffered enough now to satisfy even you and the bloodthirsty reviewers.

I shall skip the usual point-by-point description of every single change we made in response to the critiques. After all, it is fairly clear that your anonymous reviewers are less interested in the details of scientific procedure than in working out their personality problems and sexual frustrations by seeking some kind of demented glee in the sadistic and arbitrary exercise of tyrannical power over hapless authors like ourselves who happen to fall into their clutches.

We do understand that, in view of the misanthropic psychopaths you have on your editorial board, you need to keep sending them papers, for if they were not reviewing manuscripts they would probably be out mugging little old ladies or clubbing baby seals to death. Still, from this batch of reviewers, C was clearly the most hostile, and we request that you not ask him to review this revision. Indeed, we have mailed letter bombs to four or five people we suspected of being reviewer C, so if you send the manuscript back to them, the review process could be unduly delayed.

Some of the reviewers comments we could not do anything about. For example, if (as C suggested) several of my recent ancestors were indeed drawn from other species, it is too late to change that. Other suggestions were implemented, however, and the paper has been improved and benefited. Plus, you suggested that we shorten the manuscript by five pages, and we were able to accomplish this very effectively by altering the margins and printing the paper in a different font with a smaller typeface. We agree with you that the paper is much better this way.

One perplexing problem was dealing with suggestions 13-28 by reviewer B. As you may recall (that is, if you even bother reading the reviews before sending your decision letter), that reviewer listed 16 works that he/she felt we should cite in this paper. These were on a variety of different topics, none of which had any relevance to our work that we could see. Indeed, one was an essay on the Spanish-American war from a high school literary magazine. The only common thread was that all 16 were by the same author, presumably someone whom reviewer B greatly admires and feels should be more widely cited. To handle this, we have modified the Introduction and added, after the review of the relevant literature, a subsection entitled ``Review of Irrelevant Literature'' that discusses these articles and also duly addresses some of the more asinine suggestions from other reviewers.

We hope you will be pleased with this revision and will finally recognize how urgently deserving of publication this work is. If not, then you are an unscrupulous, depraved monster with no shred of human decency. You ought to be in a cage. May whatever heritage you come from be the butt of the next round of ethnic jokes. If you do accept it, however, we wish to thank you for your patience and wisdom throughout this process, and to express our appreciation for your scholarly insights. To repay you, we would be happy to review some manuscripts for you; please send us the next manuscript that any of these reviewers submits to this journal.

Assuming you accept this paper, we would also like to add a footnote acknowledging your help with this manuscript and to point out that we liked the paper much better the way we originally submitted it, but you held the editorial shotgun to our heads and forced us to chop, reshuffle, hedge, expand, shorten, and in general convert a meaty paper into stir-fried vegetables. We could not or would not  have done it without your input.

Source: http://marialuisaaliotta.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/when-publishing-gets-tough-letter-from-a-frustrated-author/

Why have at it in the morning..!!!

For many couples, a spot of early lovemaking is perhaps the last thing on their mind as the whole family rushes to get dressed and leave for school or work in the morning.
However, recent scientific research shows that early morning sex can work wonders for a relationship, not to mention grant health benefits for both partners as they indulge in a little steamy action before getting out of bed.

Here are some great reasons to tempt partner into early morning sex. For instance, morning is the time when you are full of energy. After having a good night sleep of at least seven to eight hours, your body and mind are well rested and consequently you feel highly invigorated, all of which is great news when sex is involved.
When you are stressed out, it is highly unlikely you or your partner will be in a mood to enjoy sex. In order to enjoy the experience, make sure you and your spouse go to bed at a reasonable hour the previous night so that you don’t feel cranky in the morning with just a five-hour long sleep. Another benefit of early morning sex is the fact that it makes your mood upbeat practically the whole day.
You not only feel elated at having had an intimate session with your partner, but feel invigorated enough to be able to tackle whatever challenges the day may have in store for you. Sexual activity not only prevent cortisol from building up in the body but actually produces the feel-good hormone oxytocin which lifts your mood and makes you feel loved and bonded the whole day long. Beyond that, early morning sex keeps you healthy. Sex helps you maintain an ideal weight, which in turn prevents health problems like diabetes, hypertension and heart conditions.
Dr Debby Herbenich, an American research scientist and author of the book Because It Feels Good, explained that early morning sex makes one stronger and more beautiful. “Morning sex can strengthen your immune system for the day by enhancing your levels of IgA, an antibody that protects against infection and it releases chemicals that boost levels of oestrogen, which improves the texture of your skin and hair,” Herbenich revealed. Speaking on the same topic, Jane Greer, an American marital therapist, said: “Mornings are the perfect time to indulge in quickie,
because you will probably be in a rush, and the heart-pounding adrenaline of spontaneous sex will intensify the entire experience.” Early morning sex revs up the immune system. If you are looking for a cure to combat frequent colds and flu, look no further than your bedroom. This is because among the various health benefits of morning sex is a stronger immune system. And when you get a dose of your natural immunity booster the first thing in the morning, you stand a great chance of being protected from various infection-causing germs in the environment.
And even nature seems to support this idea. This perhaps explains why most men wake up in the morning with an erection, and scientifically it has been established that while men sleep, the testosterone that they use for the upcoming day accumulates. In the same vein, a recent study conducted at Harvard University, United States, revealed that women are biologically designed to be energised in the morning

-Busola Ashiru

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