Adding insult

The reviews are available for proposals for AERA. Two of mine were accepted and one was rejected.

Reading the comments isn't necessarily fun - they tell you what's wrong with your paper, and I'm no masochist. However, generally the comments are useful. Some make me think, "Right, OK, I should do that." Others make me think, "They're wrong about X, but I'm pretty sure that I was unclear. Time to rewrite." Some I disagree with and am willing to take the risk that others will agree with me when I submit elsewhere. Others are more complex or thought-provoking.

But then there is the occasional comments that makes you wonder if they were actually reading your paper at all.

I had one reviewer write, "This proposal is quite problematic for me. First, it appear to be too long and, thus, I do not believe that it is compliant with the baseline requirements for proposal submissions to Division J." The call for proposals says, "Provide a summary of 2,000 words or fewer (excluding references) for use in judging the merits of the proposed paper." Division J does not provide a different word count. My proposal clocks in at 1986.

Honestly, this makes me angry. It's rare you can say that a reviewer is clearly and unequivocally wrong. While it doesn't matter (this paper would have been rejected in any case), it is frustrating to see the one thing you know you did right criticized.