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  • CAREER FEATURE

‘Lipstick on a pig’: how to fight back against a peer-review bully

Scientific societies, journals, editors and researchers are pushing back against mean-spirited peer reviews.
By
  1. Katarina Zimmer

    1. Katarina Zimmer is a freelance journalist in Berlin, Germany.

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A stylised illustration showing a female scientist riding a scorched pig. She is holding a research paper as a shield and a pen like a lance. She is fending off the fire with her paper shield which blasting from a dragon, who is spewing fire from it's mouth.

Illustration: David Parkins

Nyssa Silbiger still recalls the rude remark that reviewer three made in 2014 about her first paper describing her PhD research. “The phrases I have so far avoided using in this review are, ‘lipstick on a pig’, and ‘bullshit baffles brains’,” they wrote.

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Nature 645, 809-812 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-02922-y

References

  1. Silbiger, N. J. & Stubler, A. D. PeerJ 7, e8247 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Gerwing, T. G. et al. Res. Integr. Peer Rev. 6, 4 (2021).

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  3. Ramírez-Castañeda, V. PLoS ONE 15, e0238372 (2020).

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  4. Gerwing, T. G. et al. Res. Integr. Peer Rev. 5, 9 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

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