The Learning Process

As mentioned in the last issue, Global Spine Journal hosted a members only session at Global Spine Congress in Dubai in April on “How to Write, Publish, and Review a Paper.” This sessionwas a great success andwe look forward to continuing these types of activities at GSC 2017 in Milan. One of the topics of this session described the process that our great reviewers perform every single day for the journal. Reviewers are one of themost important assets to any journal and they provide unbiased and third-party critiques of each submission. Without the editorial board and the reviewers, every journal today would cease to exist. This session made me sit and think about the dedication of our own editorial board, each volunteering their time without monetary compensation to further the academic process. Reviewers take time out of their own busy days to read manuscripts, often at the end of a very busy clinical day of surgeries,meetings, research activities, and their ownpersonal lives. Global Spine Journal appreciates all of its reviewers and the valuable work they donate to our journal. We honor all of them by listing them on the masthead of every issue. We also honor the four best reviewers each year with a certificate and cash prize. This is a very small token of appreciation for their excellent work. Every reviewer is eligible for this award andwe base the selection on the number of reviews completed combined with their average score. Every paper is assigned at least three reviewers who are chosen according to their area of expertise. We believe that the role of the reviewer is to provide constructive support to the author to aid them in improving their manuscript.We ask that all reviewers be objective and provide the authors with constructive criticism done with a positive spirit. If the ultimate decision is to not accept the paper, it is important to understand that this process is a blinded, unbiased, and fair workflow that will often provide helpful suggestions for improvement. We sincerely hope that authors will take these comments and apply it to their paper for improvement, and potential submission elsewhere. What is often lost in today’sworld is the learning process. So many times we are focused on the end result, but forget about the journey to reach that endpoint. We judge people by the number of publications or on the final acceptance of a certain manuscript. We need to remember that the most important part of this process is the learning experience from the actual journey. I have personally had more papers rejected than accepted by journals in my career. Through the process of these rejections, I have learned so much about refining my original research questions, improvements in data collection, and attention to the details that I did not think were so important. I have a completely different view of publications at this stage of my life compared to when I was just beginning my career. Now,my satisfaction is derived from the excitement and joyofmyco-authorswhen thepaper is accepted.However, my joy is not from being able to list another citation on their CV, but the fact that they went through the process. I have had researchers spend a year in my lab working very hard, but perhaps only to produce a single publication. This researcher may go back to his institution, and now has the knowledge of how to set up a research program, how tomentor and develop other researchers, and how to deal with situations that will arise. The value of that single year of research is not the single publication listed on his/her CV, but the real value is the knowledge gained going through the process. My message to all of our authors who choose to submit their research to our journal is that we hope that the process results in some learning and improvement in their studies, regardless of whether it is ultimately accepted or rejected. Life is a learning process and we thank our reviewers for adding to that process for Global Spine Journal.