Is humor unacceptable in referee reports?

Question

I am from a country where humor is a part of the culture, and I recently prepared the following referee report:

The manuscript solves an interesting problem, but, unfortunately, the authors are a bit late with their study. The very same problem and the same results were described just half a century ago by XXX, Journal of XXX (1969). Like the manuscript under review, that paper ... <details>

It was a very important problem at the time, but the research field of XXX has somewhat evolved since then, so I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage the authors to catch up with the recent progress and do something on the cutting edge of research.

The idea was to use a humorously gentle style to jokingly portray the authors as stuck in the old era, especially given that they are now professors in their 60s or 70s. "Just" half a century is a huge time period, and the research field has evolved beyond what people could even imagine back then.

To clarify, the problem solved in the manuscript isn't something everyone in this research field knows about. I myself didn't know about that problem when I received the manuscript for review. However, I checked the literature and found that paper in about 20 minutes. The paper is highly cited and was helpful in solving various problems when the fundamentals of the research field were laid. It looks like the professors made an attempt to do something fundamental and failed to properly check the literature first.

Considering the authors and the editor are not from my country and might find such a style inappropriate or even offending, I rewrote the report in a rather boring manner with a bit of empathy:

The manuscript solves an interesting problem, but, unfortunately, this problem has already been solved in the literature. <details>

On the bright side, I can confirm that the authors' solution and conclusions are correct. I would be happy to recommend this manuscript for publication if the problem had not already been solved.

I sent the latter version and now feel that I may have played it too safe. My original report could have made a day for the editor and convincingly taught the professors an important lesson. I feel very tempted to use my original style in similar circumstances in the future.

My question is addressed to people who have worked on editorial boards. Are reports like my original version acceptable? What are the policies and practices regarding this? As an editor, what would you do upon receiving such a referee report?

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P.S. I don't want to specify my country, because I don't want to start a discussion about its culture and people. My question is about humor in referee reports.

Please don't be too hard on me if my original version is highly inappropriate. After all, I didn't send it. I'm asking this question to ensure I won't do anything wrong in the future.

Answer 1

You were right to change it. The worst thing that could happen is that the authors feel like you are trying to make a dig at their ability. The best thing is that.. someone might find the comment slightly amusing.

I am also from a country where humour is 'part of the culture', but I find the comment slightly patronising and rude, and not particularly funny either. People underestimate the degree to which humour gets lost over formats like email compared to spoken word. This is particularly the case when interacting with people from other countries and cultures.

Play it safe and be nice to people.

Answer 2

The idea was to use a humorously gentle style to jokingly portray the authors as stuck in the old era, especially given that they are now professors in their 60s or 70s

Humor is fine. The problem is not that you are using humor. The problem is that there is no way to tell from the written text that it was meant to be interpreted as "humorously gentle style".

You are making the common mistake of imagining that the reader is going to read what you wrote in the same mental voice that you used when you were writing it. This is not at all the case. In an in-person interaction, you can rely on non-verbal cues to convey the information that you do not mean to disparage the authors. But this information is completely lost in written text. You are severely overestimating your ability to do convey your mental voice in written text if you assume that reasonable readers will interpret your text as "humorously gentle style".

Consider the following thought experiment. Suppose that, unlike you, I am a mean-spirited referee who thinks that the authors are idiots and who wants to skewer them mercilessly in my report. Suppose that to this end, I write the following in the report, hinting at the fact the authors are idiots for doing something that has been done half a century ago:

The manuscript solves an interesting problem, but, unfortunately, the authors are a bit late with their study. The very same problem and the same results were described just half a century ago by XXX, Journal of XXX (1969). Like the manuscript under review, that paper ...

It was a very important problem at the time, but the research field of XXX has somewhat evolved since then, so I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage the authors to catch up with the recent progress and do something on the cutting edge of research.

Now ask yourself: how exactly is the recipient of the report supposed to distinguish between your "humorously gentle style" and my "sarcastic and biting style"?

Answer 3

The reviewer of a paper is in a privileged position. It's their prerogative to advise the editor whether the author of the paper should have a good day or a crappy day, and while their power isn't absolute the relationship between reviewer and author is decidedly unequal.

So when attempting humor, consider the likelihood that your jokes will be interpreted as 'punching down', as having cruel fun by denigrating someone who can't fight back. In that light, your original version does come off as unkind. (Well, it comes off as confusing and poorly phrased. But if you look past that, it comes off as unkind.)

Answer 4

Humor is great! But there is a time and a place for it, and your use falls outside of the range of situations in which it is appropriate.

By way of illustration, the following are situations where the use of humor is inadvisable:

• When informing an author that you are recommending their paper be rejected

• When firing an employee

• When breaking up with a romantic partner

• When you are a doctor telling a patient that they have a life threatening illness, or need major surgery, or similarly grave news

The common denominator in these situations is that you are about to deliver news to someone that can come as a major blow to their ego, self-esteem, livelihood, prospects for professional success, prospects for happiness, etc. You need to expect that, regardless of their culture and how humor-loving it is, upon hearing this kind of news the person is not going to be in the mood for joking around! For that reason, making light of the bad news you are communicating to them is tone-deaf and highly unempathetic; it will almost certainly make them even more upset than they would be if the news were delivered in a dry, humorless way.

Answer 5

Very interesting perspective, thanks for sharing this!

I am not an editor, but author and reviewer. With my personal cultural background and in my discipline, I would not have had understood that your remarks were meant humorous.

As an author to get the original reply, I would feel that you are talking down on me.

As a reviewer, I would (in my discipline) always stick to a very formal, positive, and precise tone. In your case, I understand, that it is not easy to tell some people, that are in the field for many years, that they did a beginner's mistake: bad literature research. However, the way you solved it seems good to me.

Answer 6

Humour is totally fine.

However, there is a mismatch between the question title and the example provided, which is irony and it sounds both rude and condescending.

irony : humour = laughing at someone : laughing with someone

Answer 7

The issue here is not humour, but context - or lack thereof, because text-based communication generally cannot convey context due to its very nature. On the internet emoticons like ;) are used to provide that context, but the very nature of academia precludes the use of such context clues.

There is another way to convey context via text, and that's if you have an existing relationship with the person(s) you're communicating with. In that case context will be implicit to that relationship, which can assist the others in interpreting your intended tone - but is still not a guarantee that they'll get it right.

Given the above, the readers of your report are going to be coming in effectively context-blind when they read your comment, which means they're likely going to take it at face value. And at face value, your "humourous" comment... isn't; my (completely unreasonably cynical) interpretation of it would be "you idiots failed to do basic research, with the result that you completely wasted my time on reviewing a paper that doesn't need to exist".

There's a time and place for (attempts at) humour, but refereeing is not it.

Answer 8

A nice example of humour (IMHO) which actually didn't make it into the referee's text is due to Paul Halmos:

'I remember one occasion when I tried to add a little seasoning to a review, but I wasn't allowed to. The paper was by Dorothy Maharam, and it was a perfectly sound contribution to abstract measure theory. The domains of the underlying measures were not sets but elements of more general Boolean algebras, and their range consisted not of positive numbers but of certain abstract equivalence classes. My proposed first sentence was: "The author discusses valueless measures in pointless spaces."'

Answer 9

My personal approach would be to avoid humor in a referee role.

A publication record can be critically important in academic situations. In some situations it can make the difference between getting a grant and not getting a grant, or keeping a job or entering the job market. People in such situations may not appreciate efforts at humor. Even if you're offering a completely positive review, other reviewers may put publication in jeopardy, leaving an author nonreceptive to the humor a referee may offer.

Answer 10

I am not on a review board, but I have authored or co-authored a lot of papers and I do statistical reviews for a couple of journals (over 1000 reviews by now).

A couple thoughts:

1. The authors are quite likely to be from another country. Even if their English is quite fluent in the paper (and I've read lots of papers where that is not the case), fluency in an academic style is quite different from overall fluency. Also, it could well be that some of the authors are much less fluent.

2. Even among totally fluent speakers, humor translates badly from one culture to another. To see this, read some comedy from 1600.

3. Many authors, when they see that envelope (or e-mail address) from the journal are in a highly fragile state. Maybe the author is just fine with humor in their everyday life, often joking with their colleagues and friends. But ... this isn't normal times.

4. The usual tone of a review is formal.

So .... I would avoid any humor at all. For some journals, you can communicate to the editor separately from the authors. That's a place for humor. Or, you can joke around with colleagues:

"You'll never guess what some guy sent in as a paper!"

Finally, on a purely personal note, way back when I was 12 or so, I proved a theorem about the Fibonacci numbers. My math teacher joked about how it was already proven, long ago. That did not make me feel good.

Answer 11

I don't think you're supposed to talk about this on a public forum. So don't put it in the report, otherwise they could find the sentence here…

Anyway I don't think it was a good idea. No need to hurt the author, who may simply not have been able to explain what's new in his work.