I agree wholeheartedly with Andrew. Many researchers seem so rushed to get their manuscript out that it is sent with a poor quality of language, poor focus, and often many errors in presentation. This certainly does not aid their cause, and I have refused to review several manuscripts that were evidently not well-prepared, and not ready to be reviewed. And many times a senior author seems to have not reviewed the manuscript thoroughly before it was sent. I finally refused to renew an associate editor position because I spent so much time (and reviewers spent even more time) on low quality manuscripts. Of course, once through the review process, the manuscript is considerably improved, at the expense of the reviewers' time, rather than the author or co-authors. Perhaps associate editors and editors have to be much more strict about quality before submitting to reviewers. However, this means an extra load on the editor. But Andrew is right on, there needs to be much better mentoring before submission (onus on the student's research director). We are evaluating dossiers on quantity most often, so it's a difficult fix.
Alison Munson Professeure, Forest Ecology Center for Forest Studies Faculte de foresterie, de geographie et de geomatique Universite Laval Quebec
