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Famous and not so famous quotations:

"There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature citation too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print." Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. JAMA 1986, 7 Nov 256(27) pp2391-92
"Peer-reviewers" wanted
No fewer than three academic journals dismissed the economist George Akerlof's paper "The Market for Lemons" as "trivial" and "too generic" when it was submitted in the late 1960s. Almost four decades later it was regarded as a seminal text and its author thought worthy of the Nobel Prize for economics. Source: Jessica Shepperd, The Guardian, Tuesday 4 September 2007 "One suspects that peer review is a bit like democracy - a bad system, but the best one possible." Prof. Joan Sieber, California State University "If a journal editor gets everything right all the time, they are probably aiming for the middle, banally all-right work, which will be out of date in the blink of an eyelid. Really excellent work may sometimes take a while to be accepted." Prof. Marian Hobson, Queen Mary, University of London
Authors create the need to Peer-review
Every paper you submit to a journal creates the need for referees, and thus the exchange economy - one might even add the moral economy - is that you then act in turn as a referee. It is not just accepted papers that create the need, and it is not just one submission and one report, but three times as many. If we all did that number, averaged out over time and a range of journals, the system would work. When we don't, it breaks down. Hence the delays in the review process, and the number of requests you are likely to get if you are a good, dependable, prompt referee. Posted at Progressive Geographies
"When I peer review, part of the motivation for me is to reinforce my faith in the system - I treat other researchers' papers in the same way I'd like my own to be judged." Anonymous comment on the Ed Technie post
Inspirational thinking

CHOOSE TO LEARN

Jerry is the manager of a restaurant in America. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would always reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

Many of the waiters at his restaurant quit their jobs when he changed jobs, so they could follow him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was always there, telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! No one can be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?" Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, I have two choices today. I can choose to be in a good mood or I can choose to be in a bad mood. I always choose to be in a good mood.
Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I always choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I always choose the positive side of life."

"But it's not always that easy," I protested. "Yes, it is," Jerry said "Life is all about choices.
When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood.

You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. It's your choice how you live your life."
Several years later, I heard that Jerry accidentally did something you are never supposed to do in the restaurant business: he left the back door of his restaurant open one morning and was robbed by three armed men. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found quickly and rushed to the hospital.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Want to see my scars?" I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied.

"Then, after they shot me, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or choose to die. I chose to live." "Weren't you scared?" I asked. Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the Emergency Room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action." "What did you do?" I asked. "Well, there was a big nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything."

'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead'." Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day you have the choice of either enjoy your life or to hate it. The only thing that is truly yours - that no one can control or take from you - is your attitude, so if you can take care of that, everything else in life becoms much easier.

Now you have two choices to make:
1. You can just close the browser now OR
2. You can forward it to someone you care about.

I hope you will choose #2.

Stuck? Think & discover your talents: You will move forward