Ecology researcher receives editing honor

Submitted by Marie Gilbert
Phone: 907-474-7412
12/18/03

It’s a whole lot more than dotting your ’i’s and crossing your ’t’s.

The American Geophysical Union presented A. David McGuire of the Institute of Arctic Biology and the Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit with the 2002 AGU Editor’s Citation for Excellence in Refereeing for his reviewing expertise on behalf of the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles.

It’s always the busiest people who get the most done. McGuire, a professor of ecology for IAB and an assistant unit leader in ecology for AKCFWRU, is busy in spades.

According to his resume McGuire has been published in 64 refereed journals, reviewed 47 proposals for funding agencies, completed 17 research projects, and is actively working on 10 new projects. In between research and teaching McGuire reviewed 87 manuscripts for refereed journals.

"This (manuscript reviews) is what keeps the whole scientific structure afloat," William Reeburgh, journal editor of Global Biogeochemical Cycles and the person who nominated McGuire for the AGU citation, said.

"In part it’s to reciprocate," McGuire said. "Someone is reviewing your work."

"I get called upon by a journal subject editor to review about 20 to 30 manuscripts a year," McGuire said. "Some (articles) are closely related (to your own work) and you can get background." But, "reviewers aren’t to disclose the contents of articles until publication."

Out of the dozens of manuscripts reviewed by the journal each year, "about 3 or 4 reviews really stand out," Reeburgh said. Like McGuire’s, "those are the ones that are incredibly insightful, the ones that offer constructive criticism."

What do authors think about Dave’s reviews? According to Reeburgh, the most common response is, "Who was that guy? We’ve never has such insightful reviews." Authors then often ask for extra time to rework and, sometimes, resubmit their manuscript.

"What I appreciate most about Dave is that he gave some very insightful reviews on several ecosystem modeling papers. He’s been very generous with his time," Reeburgh said.

McGuire received the citation Dec. 10 at the AGU fall meeting in San Francisco.