00:01.93 archpodnet Hello and welcome back to the crm archeology podcast episode 252 where we are talking about peer review in Crm. Um, and we were talking about some of the bloodbath aspects of it where you know people get angry and they retort and it's you know the little people of the world. What I would say is um, my experiences in peer review have actually been pretty good in the academic world. Um I know there's always outliers you know, meaning that there's always a handful of people who just hate you no matter what um, but ah. Those I found that over time. Actually the publishers know who those jerks are and they they don't call them so much. So I I do really think there's a ah place for peer review and it's been um. 00:43.66 Heather Um, yeah. 00:57.20 archpodnet Really good for me I enjoy true constructive criticism. You know, but that's also my mentality as a as a background some listeners may know that like I was on a comedy team for a couple years years ago and if you think that constructive criticism is difficult in academia. Try. People yelling at you that you're not funny. You know so with that back of mine. We always used to say ah after the show was over. We would critique our own show and and we would talk amongst each other and the line was always take the note because people would start to defend what they did even though it sucked. 01:22.36 Heather Ah, what? ah. 01:36.66 archpodnet You know and it was like no no, no, no, no take the note and I always think about that in academic peer review. It's like when when people are are giving me notes and I get defensive then I'm like no no, no, no no Andrew take the note you know? and so I've found that. It's been very constructive for me and um that I have had again jerks who hated me or whatever but I can compartmentalize that stuff and um, yeah. 02:01.43 Heather Ah, yeah, yeah, bill. What do you think. 02:06.88 Bill White I yeah no, that's not been my experience. Ah well I've been in situations where ah, you know if you have 3 so you have 3 reviewers and 1 person is just on fire and they can't stand it. 02:09.19 archpodnet Um, right I. 02:23.60 Bill White The editor is just kind of like well just regard that person just take and pick whatever you want because they just don't like your piece because if 2 of the 3 think that it's good then it's good enough to get published and if there's problems with 2 or you know all 3 of the 3 then there's some wrong with what you've written. 02:23.33 archpodnet Um, yeah. 02:40.39 Bill White And I've never had I've never had ah all 3 people say that you know whatever I've written is just not good enough but ah, editors though a lot of times will be like ooh you know what? That's not really going to fit in our journal and you're shaking your head like look at the title. 02:48.50 archpodnet Um. 02:56.65 Bill White I designed it to fit in the journal. Did you read the abstract like you just don't want this to happen because you don't like historical archaeology or you just think this is too much history and not enough archaeology or whatever. So I've had that happen before where the editors just kind of kind of take it out. Um, but. 02:57.86 archpodnet Yeah, yeah. 03:06.14 archpodnet Um, right. 03:13.30 archpodnet Um. 03:13.57 Bill White You know my question too about this is the whole thing was designed to help improve the reports because as you mentioned before local agencies and tribes and other folks they you know they want to know they want to get something that's good out of this and so I guess my question is is this actually helping. I Mean is this helping the general public and people who want their heritage protected has the peer review system really helped them and. 03:32.13 Heather Ah. 03:39.59 Heather Um, I you know I do think I can think of it just ah, a couple instances just in the last year where I've done a peer review where um, one. It was such a poor report. Um and I don't know if it was because this person this person has been doing it for a long time but there's there are people that have been doing work crm um work for a while and in smaller areas where they've never been critiqued or looked at and so nobody. Has actually been able to coach them along and help them improve their product and that happens especially when you have a small mom and pop where you have somebody who just is doing it out of their house and so if nobody's ever looking at their their reports I mean there's I did one where. It was a 3 page report for a full. Ah, there was a site there and literally this person wrote a 3 page report. There was no consideration of any kind of previous ground disturbance or how you know how the archaeological site could have been Impacted. Um. You know would potentially be impacted by the project and there was no discussion of anything and I thought to myself this person's been working in the area for years. How did that? How did they? How did they think this is okay, it's because this kind of process has never people just the the city said oh well, this is an ah archaeologist. They're an expert. 05:08.20 Heather They have the you know the the baseline of what I've been told is required to be an archeologist at this level and so I trust that they're an expert so they know what they're doing which would be really nice if that's what we could do and that we could trust that that's the case but it isn't. 05:22.40 archpodnet Right. 05:26.85 Heather It isn't always the case and so I do think in that case, um it was helpful I don't think the person really liked it because they've been doing it for so long. It was probably hard for them to understand why but I was really careful in how I wrote the peer review so that the and I actually ended up talking to them over the phone. 05:45.11 archpodnet Move. 05:46.75 Heather And it actually ended up ah because I put that in my peer review I always put an invite Please if you have any questions at all I'm not going to sit here and do this from this little tower you know and drop bombs on you and your career and not not be willing to. 05:53.21 archpodnet Yeah. So right. 06:04.74 Heather Um, you know to answer questions or to help because the idea here is to make the report better and the idea here is for us to sharpen each other and to make each other better. So if that's the case just a piece of paper is not going to do it so and and to this person's credit. They did reach out and they said okay. 06:23.30 archpodnet Um, yeah, ah. 06:24.71 Heather I Want to make this better. How do I do this I'm shocked the person was shocked they they were like I can't I've been doing this for years and nobody's ever said this to me and then they and you know they understood. So I do think it was effective in that case. 06:36.23 archpodnet I Do think that's a great point and I do the same thing where I'm like please contact me because if I talk to you in person I can sugarcoat the pill we can kind of bro Out. We can you know, just. Relax and be like hey man this part I would change this a little you know I think that's an excellent point exactly I'm not here to drop bombs on you I'm here to I'm here to make something not destroy. It. You know. 06:51.10 Heather Right. 07:00.18 Heather Right? But unfortunately I think that you know we've talked about this before there's you know this this discipline of archeology can be very you know, cannibalistic right? We're so nasty to each other. We're so nasty and that's carried over to crm. 07:12.17 archpodnet Yeah, say yeah, the. 07:19.53 Heather Because there it's we're nasty in Academia and we're also nasty in Cm instead of looking at each other as colleagues we look at each other as competition. Even if it has nothing to do with money? Yeah yes. 07:28.59 archpodnet Yeah, but yeah, but there are those who aren't and I would include the 3 of us on this podcast like like we we aren't man you know and there is that group like it's a bummer that the cliche that Heather's talking about which is you know there's truth to the cliche. But um. 07:35.42 Bill White Ah. 07:45.52 archpodnet But there are those of us like who actually are just friendly and do want others to succeed and are happy when others succeed you know? Anyway, yeah bill what's up. 07:49.75 Heather Yeah, no. 07:52.45 Bill White Yeah, yeah, and you know and I do feel that you're right? You're exactly on the right ah page there because I do think it's just kind of a couple bad actors right? like I don't know about Academia I Think maybe you get more rotten and. 08:02.26 archpodnet And. 08:04.79 Heather Ah. 08:09.14 Bill White Bad as you go on longer in academia. So maybe that's just the thing. Maybe it's not just bad actors. It's the structure that transforms good actors into ah you know, ah bad actors but I can see I can see where collaboration and stuff like that and Crm um could really enable. 08:11.30 Heather Oh. 08:27.18 Heather Um, yeah. 08:27.84 Bill White A lot better work and ah, foster up a great great generation because the other thing too is like those same people who are saying all that stuff at one company. The minute there's a lull in the work they're going to jump ship to the other company and so that you know. 08:31.39 archpodnet Um. 08:40.45 Heather Um, right exactly exactly. 08:42.71 archpodnet Yes, yeah. 08:44.73 Bill White You're you're literally like burning your bridges with the person who's going to hire you in the future. But also you're you're showing ah the up and coming folks that it's okay to just sit there and like firebomb ah knowing that in eighteen months you're probably going to have to find a new job and like the the only show in town if you don't want to sell your house or. You know, break your lease. You're going to have to come crawl into this place that you were just saying oh so and-s so's trash blah blah blah they really need to do much better on their work. So I mean I don't know I I think that I think there's huge potential for these crm reports to actually completely surpass. 09:04.16 Heather Um, and. 09:22.78 archpodnet Her. 09:23.13 Bill White Academic writing I mean right now already the way that it is ninety ninety five percent of all the archaeology writing in the country is being done by crm archeologists right? The um, the amount of pages and words that ah you know a master's train project manager and CrM is doing is is like. 09:33.99 Heather Um, ah ah. 09:42.69 Bill White Much more than any kind of assistant or associate professor or anyone who's not just sitting there just cranking books because that is what people are doing at larger crm companies are literally writing books multiple books a year and it's usually people with ph ds that are the pis and other folks in the company that are actually. 09:48.14 Heather But yeah, but. 09:55.58 archpodnet Um, and. 10:02.12 Bill White Editing and providing an internal review on these same reports and so with this going out to other really skilled people. We see great thoughts Great ideas can be shared and those who are really good at things can make crm um reports much better and if you look at how fast they're being produced. And if you look at like the volume if if we had high quality crm um reports for every data recovery? um or large-scale survey like there's no academic press that could even in any way keep up in any way I mean Crm itself could just could. 10:35.44 Heather Yeah. 10:36.33 archpodnet Yeah, from. 10:41.23 Bill White Mother Academic archeology. Ah, if it's done right. 10:41.63 archpodnet It It totally could. That's a great point. Yep. 10:43.57 Heather Well I think yeah, yep, and you know I just just to kind of give some context there and I know that this is not the case for all for all people that are in cm but I was just you know my company requires us to do a self review. Um, and so I asked. Our marketing to department to pull all the projects that I had touched just so I could get some numbers in there because I I don't know I'm just cranking I'm just working you want to guess how many projects I touched just had some kind of roll in and now I'm an archeologist right? so It's just from an archeological perspective when a guess in 1 year not including proposals only actual projects. 11:21.11 Bill White Not not including not including proposals not including proposals I'd say like 40 or 50 now. Okay well I guess we basically did the same thing I cheated by giving myself a 10 things spread well done. Whatever. 11:23.23 archpodnet I'm going with. 11:30.40 archpodnet Ah I was going to go with 42 yeah that's right? ah. 11:35.28 Heather Ah, ah yeah, okay so. 11:39.86 Bill White Just like the state of New York gives people $100000 ranges in their salaries because they have to be transparent on like okay so I'll just give myself a ten forty to 50 holy shit because I but yeah. 11:44.43 archpodnet That's right? yep. 11:46.64 Heather Okay, 276 yeah 276 projects so not all of those obviously I'm writing reports some of them are things like peer reviews. Some of them are. 11:51.10 archpodnet Da yeah. 11:59.54 Bill White Wow. 12:00.10 archpodnet Right. 12:05.18 Heather Where I step in and I'm helping um the ceqa analysts come up with the impacts analysis based on somebody else's report, but a lot of them are reports a lot of them are reports. 12:11.50 archpodnet Right. 12:16.18 Bill White You want you want to know how many things I I dealt with in what what year is it? 2022 I have a I have a book that's coming out I reviewed I think 2 or 3 academic press books 2 or 3 ah. Journal articles and then I published a couple articles so you know ah 3 yeah I did I did like I did less than 10 things in a year 12:35.56 Heather Get eat. Yeah, well now you know why I'm always talking about you know the amount of hours that I expend at work. It's you know way over being way over 40 right? that otherwise you would never be able to get all that done. It is. 12:49.87 Bill White Well and also like ah when I was doing I'm sorry I didn't mean to cut you off, but when I was doing my cv ah like you can see my productivity drop precipitously the minute I went into a Ph D program. 13:02.97 Heather Oh. 13:04.19 archpodnet Yeah. 13:04.87 Bill White Because before that just the ones that I was solo authoring or being part of in a given year on my Cv I had like either 10 or twenty reports that I helped write and I don't know how many reports I helped other people with the fieldwork right? because it was there's fifty weeks a year of archeology. 13:16.39 Heather Right? it's. 13:21.67 Bill White And so you write a lot of reports. 13:22.19 Heather That's that's why I mean academia will crm can never replace academia because of the fact that you know for somebody to look at and focus on 1 thing and 1 aspect and become an expert in that is so valuable to the discipline of archeology. And we can't do that I do you know I I specialize in final analysis and human osteology. But I can't um you know I'm not able to look at let's see you know subsistence patterns I can just because of all the projects that I've done in a certain area but I'm spread all out. And in order to get the work done and there's this balance. You know we need this is salvage arceology I mean it needs to happen. It. We need to preserve through through Crm um, work. But um, we also are not going to be able to you know, go to the distance. That academia can and so I think the two and we've talked about this before should go should work hand in hand because we need both. But um, yeah I just it's people are going to say they're going to look at that number that I just gave and they're going to say there's no way that you're doing quality work and I'll say. 14:26.52 Bill White And totally. 14:38.94 Heather No, ah I do really good quality work but not at the expense of of my Ed's teamwork exactly and it's it's and it's ah it is sometimes at the expense of my own health. Um because I work way more than I should and and we are were you know there's it's unfortunate. 14:41.60 Bill White Well and all it's teamwork too. Yeah. 14:58.81 Heather That and and this is part of the reason why I want to talk about this is that we're losing people in Crm because of this nastiness that happens in things like peer review in um, this this competitiveness this camdalousistic kind of attitude. Um. Ah, and it's not just you know we talk about in in art and complain about companies right? that they don't respect archeologists. How do you expect companies to respect archaeologists when we're not even respecting each other and you know we're we're tearing each other apart. You know that. 15:34.62 Bill White Yeah now. 15:38.11 Heather Solid if we want solidarity for a union and whatever I agree. But if that's how people want to do I agree with the concept of having solidarity amongst each other but we need to have solidarity in in all aspects including something like this with peer review. But we're not just using it as a ah weapon against each other um and and also when you are getting critiqued and it's fair that you don't take it personally and go and be vindictive the next time you know we need to people need to you know, get over themselves. 15:57.98 Bill White Yeah. 16:09.19 Bill White Yeah, yeah. 16:15.87 Heather And they need to just kind of open up their perspective and say do I Want to be a better archeologist and does this peer review help me do that and you know sometimes you're going to have crappy peer reviews and and you know what you don't have to take them. You can take them with a grain of salt honestly. There are comments that I look at and say no, that's not valid I'm not changing it period so and and as long as I have proof that it's not valid then you know it is what it is and the person wrote it and you know just sits there. Nothing happens. 16:37.47 Bill White Um, yeah. 16:37.50 archpodnet Yeah, of course. Yeah. 16:47.58 Bill White Yeah. 16:49.83 archpodnet so so again you're saying we should act in good faith and be open to learning something new. Ah oh no mine goes on first. Okay, whatever you learn on your own time. 16:55.75 Bill White Her her. What? yeah. 17:01.80 Heather The survival of this discipline depends on it and I just. 17:05.64 archpodnet I Know it's it. It drives me nuts because we're always a hair with the way from doing something really cool. You know like like it's It's a half a step and it could be so awesome. You know and I was I mean you know Hope Springs eternal. 17:12.83 Bill White Yeah. 17:13.80 Heather Yeah, yeah. 17:20.64 Heather Yeah, we just need to get out of our own way and get out of each other's way and you know go through the lilies the the valley of Lilies hand in hand but I was serious right. 17:20.70 Bill White Yeah, yeah. 17:27.30 archpodnet Yep. 17:32.93 Bill White Ah, well I think the the peer review thing sound I was like man this sounds like a huge development but then of course I you know realized the dark side of it and I was like oh great of course that's the part that's. 17:43.58 archpodnet Um, right? The yeah. 17:47.86 Bill White That's happening and and they're just basically going to get rid of it too because then you know right now they're like okay well we really need to get this right? Then when they find out the people that're asking to help them get it right? Just kind of mess it all up. They're going to be like okay well you know what we're done with that and we're just going to act like you know we're in the state of Arizona I'm just kidding. 17:58.88 Heather But and. 18:05.88 Heather That's that that that that is what I'm my concern is is that you know with if this turns into something other than an actual peer review and and a coaching an opportunity to just make the product better it. That is what's going to happen. 18:08.52 archpodnet Um, yeah, you know. 18:08.91 Bill White Ah. 18:21.60 Bill White Yeah there. 18:23.70 Heather It's going to degrade the purpose of it and then and then the need for it's going to disappear or the perceived need for it is going to disappear. 18:30.26 archpodnet We obviously should have ended with the lilies a little while ago Heather when you were like we're walking through the valley of the lilies because that was positive but on that note we got to wrap it up. 18:39.40 Heather And now we're walking through the shadows of death right? walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Ah yeah. 18:45.21 Bill White We no, we're not in death. Ah we made we all made it through the pandemic come on. We're we're ready for what we're ready for what they're going to send our way next. 18:48.63 archpodnet We But yeah, we were walking through lilies and now we're in in death shadows. Ah, ah and so with that I guess ah. 19:00.20 Heather Um. 19:03.90 archpodnet We're signing off on on this week's podcast. So um, hopefully we'd like to hear everyone tune in next time and with that we'll see in two weeks 19:14.65 Heather By all thanks for listening. 19:15.53 Bill White See you later. 19:17.37 archpodnet Thanks guys see you next time. Okay I think I can stop.