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the modern peer

@themodernpeer.com

800 followers 5.3K following 30 posts

the modern peer is a scientist-led blog dedicated to making academic publishing more transparent and accessible. Subscribe here: https://www.themodernpeer.com And reach out if you would like to contribute with a guest post!

www.themodernpeer.com

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · 4d

A lab isn’t a family, and it isn’t a kingdom.
Good mentorship dissolves the need to belong to either.

Read the post by Leal Oburoglu (@lealoburoglu.bsky.social) and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

Welcome to the family, call me Professor

When I first started my PhD in France, I couldn’t help but address my PI with the formal “you” in french (“vous”), instead of the informal “you” (“tu”). She was very quick to tell me to use the inform...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · 11d

On paper, it’s a four-year PhD program.
But when peer review eats up half of it, is the timeline still fair?

Read the post by Luís Oliveira, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

Accepted: Today | Received: Do You Really Want to Know?

We’ve all peeked at that “Received, Revised, Accepted” section of a paper and instantly regretted it. Those dates often read less like a timeline and more like an archaeological record. And that, kids...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · 18d

Another “breakthrough” that changes it all… until the next one.
Every time we oversell science, we teach people not to trust it.

Read the post by Marie-Odile Baudement, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

We finally found a radical and straightforward solution to revolutionize academic publishing!

… gotcha! You clicked because the title sounded extraordinary, revolutionary, amazing — didn’t it? And for a while, I found myself reacting the same way you just did. Then, spending a good hour read...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · 25d

There’s a part of science that doesn’t make it into the manuscript.
That’s the part that makes it worth doing.

Read the post by Leal Oburoglu (@lealoburoglu.bsky.social) and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

The split-screen mind of the researcher

“So, what experiment should we do next?” asks the student. And two different tabs open up side to side in your mind. Tab 1: Taking a stroll in your field In this tab, there are no real rules. Yo...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Sep 9

Publishing is the currency of academia.
Isn't it surprising that its exchange rate bankrupts the very people creating its value?

Read the post by The Open Fox, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

The costs of publishing: financial, career and personal

The current system of recognition in academia is built on a single pillar; publishing. Career advancement is dependent on how much and where you publish. Assessment of “quality” is based on extremely ...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Sep 3

The English was flawless, the author was fake, and the data made no sense.
Welcome to the age of artificial "scientific" fluency.

Read the post by Anita Waltho, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

The rise of Large Language Models in academic writing. Postdoctoral researcher Dr Verena Haage was reviewing a manuscript for a reputable neuroscience journal when she began to notice unusual incon...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Aug 26

“Are you winning?” is the wrong question.
If human knowledge is cumulative, then collaboration isn’t optional.

Read the post by Leal Oburoglu (@lealoburoglu.bsky.social), and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

Are you winning?

By the end of my PhD, I was somewhat disillusioned by the way scientific research worked and decided to pick a field that could open up a (small) door to industry, if I ever decided to take that route...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Aug 19

If a cat can fake citations and win at the h-index "game", why do we let these metrics decide our futures?

Read the post by Marie-Odile Baudement (@mo-baudement.bsky.social), and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

Purr-fect Citations: How a Cat Became the World’s Most Cited Academic

Meet Larry, the Scientific Cat Larry — a fluffy, slightly overweight cat — has achieved what many postdocs or even professors only dream of: becoming the most cited “author” in his field. Obviously, ...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Jul 30

You do the work. Then you prove you're still worth doing the work, again and again.
Welcome to academia. Please fund your own salary.

Read the post by @lealoburoglu.bsky.social, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

Stranger than Fiction

If doing your job requires constant applications to keep doing it, is that really a “job”? Why do we need to keep “auditioning” for work we’re already performing? Let’s first agree that there isn’t...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Jul 22

You troubleshoot, mentor, bake cakes, shoulder burnouts and fix printers; yet your CV only says ‘postdoc.’ Did you really sign up for this?

Read the post by @mo-baudement.bsky.social, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

Beyond Useful: When Being the Swiss Knife Backfires

We all know this person. Or we are this person. You troubleshoot broken connections in the lab, fix the department printer, teach undergrads how to use the Nanodrop and pH-meter, and share all your be...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Jul 15

Some treat every paper like their spotlight, forgetting the team writes the story. Others guide students to lead the next paper.

Read the post by @lealoburoglu.bsky.social, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

Every rockstar scientist has an origin story

Six years ago, during a science communication session at a conference, we were given the task to explain “why we do what we do” to people unfamiliar with our research. While having this chat with a fe...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Jul 8

Peer review is imposed, stretched to its limits, and buckling under pressure.
But its best days may still lie ahead.

Check out Part 2 of the series by The Open Fox and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

A potted history of peer review - Part 2

So far we have dived into the historical origins of the peer review concept and the earliest attempts at an external referee system used by the Royal Society. Even in this early exploration, we have e...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Jul 1

Peer review began with open councils, not secret letters.
And today it stands at a crossroads between transparency and tradition.

Check out Part 1 of the series by The Open Fox and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

A potted history of peer review - Part 1

Peer review is a staple of science, a seemingly inescapable barrier that every researcher must cross in order to share their work with the world. The internet is awash with complaints about Reviewer #...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Jun 24

Curiosity got you here, but strategy will keep you here.
Graduate from being a student.
It’s time to be a researcher.

Read the post by @lealoburoglu.bsky.social and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

Spoiler: there is no end to this

Being a researcher implies a long stretch of studies at the university to specialize in a certain field. To me personally, it felt like I just kept studying and studying, year after year, and… here I ...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Jun 17

FAIR data is powerful.
It’s about respect; for future discoveries, for other researchers, and for the science that comes next.

Read the post by @mo-baudement.bsky.social, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

FAIR and Square? The Challenges of Ethical Omics Data Sharing

Before starting - what is Omics Data? Omics data represent massive volumes of information on genomes, epigenomes, transcriptomes — you name it. They’ve become a favorite among researchers, reviewers,...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Jun 10

In research, publishing isn’t the point.
And discovery doesn’t need a twist ending.

Read the post by @lealoburoglu.bsky.social, and subscribe if you like what you read.

www.themodernpeer.com/symptomatic-...

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

Symptomatic treatment of a broken system

The “publish or perish” culture pushes researchers to publish papers (regardless of the state of their research) for career survival. Academic jobs are tied to people’s publication records; and althou...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Jun 3

In academia, we sometimes trade permanence for possibility.
And each time, impostor syndrome tags along, telling us the same story.

It used to sound convincing. Not anymore.

Read the post by @lealoburoglu.bsky.social

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

Academic nomadism and impostor syndrome

Two years ago at a conference, I was talking to a professor whom I deeply respect, telling him that I honestly do not know where my home is. I left the country I grew up in when I was 18, spent 11 yea...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · May 27

Authorship isn’t a gift, it’s earned.
It’s a record of truth.

Don’t wait for a mistake to learn the rules.

Read the post by @mo-baudement.bsky.social‬, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🧪

The Ghost / Ghosted Authorship Dilemma

For my very first blog post on this platform, I got inspired by the name of the blog support system itself—Ghost. It made me reflect on a phenomenon that many early-career researchers quietly experien...

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ArchesAndWaterfalls 🇨🇦 🇲🇽 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈 @flor9.bsky.social · May 26

Peer review helps ensure high quality in research studies.

Government officials without ad-hoc expertise should NOT be deciding what is worthy of studying or how it should be researched.

The EO is nothing but the desire to control the scientific narrative. We cannot accept that.

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.bsky.social · May 26

🚨 URGENT RESPONSE CALL 🚨

Trump’s Fool’s Gold Science EO is a dangerous sham.
It gives his appointees the power to dismiss entire bodies of research and punish researchers who fail to fall in line with his agenda.

We’ve launched an open letter.

SIGN & SHARE NOW: actionnetwork.org/petitions/op...

Sign The Open Letter to Stand Up For Science Now!

Science is under siege. Trump’s latest Executive Order calls for politically appointed science commissars to evaluate research. Join us in adding your name to our open letter condemning Trump’s escala...

actionnetwork.org

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Apr 8

"Impact factor."
It decides who gets grants, who gets tenure, who gets to stay.

But we are not the sum of skewed metrics.

Read the new post by @lealoburoglu.bsky.social, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #OpenScience 🧪

Law & disorder in academic publishing

Impact factor. The power of this term is unparalleled in academia. The word “impact” by itself is already so profoundly heavy. And second in line to it, would be tenure. I put it in second place, bec...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · May 20

Not every experiment is a breakthrough.
Some are bricks in the foundation.

Let’s stop pretending “novelty” is the only thing worth publishing.

Read the post by @lealoburoglu.bsky.social, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #OpenScience 🧪

The cult of novelty

I know you are conditioned to think that what you are researching has to be novel. But let’s think about it for a second. Is the importance of novelty and the constant push for it in publications ...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · May 18

“Data available upon locating the only postdoc who understands the file structure and who left 6 years ago.”

#AcademicSky

Eva Rimbau-Gilabert @erimbau.bsky.social · May 18

“Data available upon finding the one USB stick hidden somewhere in the Mojave Desert.”

#AcademicSky

Jay Patel @infotainment.bsky.social · May 18

Papers might as well declare "Data available upon victory in a duel."

the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · May 13

You just wanted to understand the unexplained.
No one warned you about the game.

But don’t forget, you are the one who writes the rules.

Read the post by @lealoburoglu.bsky.social, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #OpenScience 🧪

You are a scientist: a play in three acts

Act I: Enchantment It usually starts early on. You are looking at something. A couple of bugs on the ground. A star in the sky. The veins on a leaf. The stream of bubbles in your soda. You are just...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · Apr 15

When the system pays for papers, someone’s always selling shortcuts.
But predatory journals didn’t invent the problem, they saw the opportunity.

Read the new post by Anita Waltho, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #PredatoryJournals #OpenScience 🧪

Predatory journals mirror the flaws in academic publishing.

How to catch a predator in the academic publisher quagmire. Dear esteemed Professor Waltho, I would like to take the privilege to invite you to contribute your research/discoveries to our overly op...

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the modern peer @themodernpeer.com · May 6

We build the scaffolding of science in silence.
Unpaid, unaccredited, and unseen.

If authorship comes with recognition, why should reviewing be any different?

Read the post by Luís Oliveira, and subscribe if you like what you read.

#AcademicSky #SciPub #PeerReview #PhDSky #OpenScience 🧪

Reviewer #2 Was... A PhD Student

In the 20th century, Tom Clancy’s espionage novels became so popular that his publisher started hiring ghostwriters to respond to the popular demand. But in science, such a thing would be unthinkable,...

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