brycewang-stanford Nature Geoscience Referee Strategy (ngeo-referee-strategy)
When to trigger
- The Editorial Manager form asks for suggested / excluded reviewers
- You want to anticipate the objections a Nature Geoscience referee will raise and address them in advance
- A prior manuscript was declined and you are rethinking who reviews it
- You are coordinating the cover-letter referee section (see
ngeo-cover-letter)
How Nature Geoscience review works (durable shape)
An in-house editor first triages on broad interest and Earth-system importance; only a minority of submissions are sent out. Those that pass go to referees (commonly two to three) who assess both technical soundness and significance/breadth. A referee can recommend rejection on interest grounds even when the work is correct — so your strategy must defend the science and the venue fit. Review is single-blind by default, with an opt-in double-blind route (choose it at submission and anonymise the manuscript accordingly). Resubmission and appeal routes exist (handled in ngeo-revision).
Choosing suggested referees
| Principle | Practice |
|---|---|
| Competent on the method | Can actually judge your instruments, proxy, or model |
| Spans the breadth claim | Include someone from the neighboring Earth-science field you claim to reach |
| Covers the evidence type | If it is field + model, cover both the observational and modelling sides |
| No conflict of interest | Not recent collaborators, advisors, or same-institution |
| Constructive, not partisan | Known for fair, rigorous reports — not reflexive gate-keeping |
| Grasps the significance | Will recognise why the result is broad, not just correct |
Suggest a small set that together can vouch for correctness, the evidence, and breadth. Do not stack suggestions only with subfield insiders — editors may read that as evading the broad-interest test. Consider global diversity of expertise; Earth-system questions often need both a regional expert and a global-perspective referee.
Choosing excluded referees
- Exclude only with a brief, professional, factual rationale (a direct competitor with a conflict, a documented dispute). Editors discount emotional or vague objections.
- Do not over-exclude; a long exclusion list signals defensiveness. Nature journals typically cap the number you may exclude.
Worked example: a referee slate
Suppose the Article reports a proxy-based ocean-circulation reconstruction whose headline consequence bears on climate sensitivity:
- Method judge — a paleoceanographer who runs the same proxy and can interrogate the calibration and age model.
- Modelling witness — a climate modeller who can assess the data–model comparison and the circulation inference.
- Breadth witness — a climate-dynamics scientist who answers "why Nature Geoscience and not a paleo community journal," i.e. why it bears on a first-order question.
The three-role logic transfers to any subfield: one referee for the measurement or model, one for the neighboring field you claim to reach, one independent senior figure. If you cannot name a credible breadth witness, that is diagnostic — revisit ngeo-scope-fit.
Pre-empting the likely objections (do this in the manuscript, not just the letter)
Anticipate the standard Nature Geoscience referee moves and disarm them in advance:
- "This is regional / not broad enough." → Strengthen the broad-interest framing in the opening and cover letter (
ngeo-results-framing,ngeo-cover-letter). - "The model is not grounded in observations." → Show the data–model validation in the main text (
ngeo-methods). - "Uncertainty is not quantified." → State propagated uncertainty on the headline number (
ngeo-methods). - "Incremental over Ref. [X]." → Make the qualitative Earth-system advance explicit; cite and differentiate.
- "Can't follow it without the Supplementary." → Ensure the main text stands alone (
ngeo-supplementary). - "Over-claimed attribution/impact." → Calibrate claims to evidence (
ngeo-writing-style).
Checklist
- Suggested referees can judge correctness, the evidence type, AND breadth
- At least one suggested referee represents the claimed neighboring field
- Observational and modelling sides both covered if the study is mixed
- No conflicts of interest among suggestions
- Excluded referees (if any) have a brief, factual, professional rationale
- The exclusion list is short (within any journal cap)
- The manuscript already pre-empts the top objections (breadth, grounding, uncertainty)
- Cover-letter referee section is consistent with the Editorial Manager form
- Double-blind opt-in decision made and manuscript anonymised if chosen
Anti-patterns
- Suggesting only close-network insiders (reads as breadth evasion)
- Excluding referees with emotional or unsubstantiated reasons
- A long exclusion list that signals defensiveness
- Suggesting a recent collaborator (conflict) as an "independent" referee
- Ignoring the breadth or grounding objection and hoping the science alone carries it
Output format
【Suggested referees】N — cover correctness + evidence + breadth? yes / adjust
【Neighboring-field referee included】yes / add
【Obs + model sides covered】yes / n/a / add
【Conflicts checked】clean / fix
【Excluded referees】N (short) — factual rationale? yes / fix
【Top objections pre-empted】breadth / grounding / uncertainty / increment / stand-alone / over-claim
【Next】ngeo-submission (enter referees) → later ngeo-revision
Referee counts, exclusion caps, and double-blind mechanics evolve — verify on the official Nature Geoscience author pages (Checked: 2026-07-16).