One of the least enjoyable tasks of a journal editor is to nag referees to send reports. Many things have been tried to induce timeliness and responsiveness. We give deadlines. We allow referees to specify their own deadlines. We use automated nag-mails. We even allow referees to opt-in to automated nag-mails (they do and then still ignore them.)
When time has dragged on and a referee is not responding it is typical to send a message saying something like “please let me know if you still plan to provide a report, otherwise i will try to do without it.” These are usually ignored.
A few years ago I tried something new and every time since then it has gotten an almost immediate response, even from referees who have ignored multiple previous nudges. I have suggested it to other editors I know and it works for them too. I have an intuition for why it works (and that’s why I tried it in the first place) but I can’t quite articulate it, perhaps you have ideas. Here is the clinching message:
Dear X
I would like to respond soon to the authors but it would help me a lot if I could have your report. I realize that you are very busy, so if you think you will be able to send me a report within the next week, then please let me know. If you don’t think you will be able to send a report, then there is no need to respond to this message.
Cheap Talk 
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
December 7, 2009 at 9:25 am
Mike Yeomans
Haha this is good. I would call it active choice deferral versus passive choice deferral. Like, everyone’s preference is to do it some other time, but not now, but also not never. So the ideal is to defer. Normally they can defer passively, but you’ve framed it so they have to actively defer. And they do.
Of course once they’ve done this, they have built some momentum towards actually finishing the thing. Also, the active pre-commitment will have carry more responsibility than passive pre-commitement, so once you’ve gotten them to respond at all, they will be more likely to follow-up.
Is that about what you were thinking? I tried to throw in some psych-y terms for good measure.
December 7, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Rajiv Sethi
Jeff, this is hilarious. Here’s what I think is going on. The recipient can either respond to your email immediately, respond later, or never respond. But the latter two actions are indistinguishable to you (until, of course, they actually respond). If they respond later, they know that there will be some period of time for which you think they may never respond. The anticipation of this stresses them out – they want you to know at once that they plan to respond, but the only way they can do this is to respond right away! Brilliant…
December 8, 2009 at 1:39 pm
jeff
yes these are the ideas i had…