On kindness and gratitude in academia

Argues that thank-you messages are always welcome and should be sent far more often than we do

Anne-Wil Harzing - Wed 26 Feb 2025 16:57 (updated Sat 10 May 2025 07:54)

One of the first posts on my blog in April 2016 – nearly nine years ago – was Thank You: The most underused words in academia? It related my frustration that at least half of the academics whom I had helped over the years never bothered to thank me or even respond back to my email. As I said at the end of the post:

Please put yourself in your counterpart’s shoes: you are not the centre of the universe! If someone has spent time to help you, it is only courteous to thank them. This is true even if you thought their feedback wasn’t particularly useful; they still spent their time trying to help you.

As I argued, this is true regardless of whether you know the academic in question personally or not. In fact, in the latter case a thank-you is even more appropriate. They don’t know you either and still took time out of their busy day to help you.

I elaborated on the politeness theme in my July 2016 post on appreciating academic volunteers: Please be polite and considerate. The biggest challenge in offering free software – as my husband and I have done with Publish or Perish for nearly 19 years now – is not the amount of money we need to spend to cover its cost (see: Support Publish or Perish). It is the cryptic, angry, aggressive, ordering, complaining, agitated, offensive, and stroppy emails that chip away at our motivation to do so.

Five years later, in June 2021, I talked about the little steps we can take to make academia a kinder place, one email or social media post at a time in Changing academic culture: one email at a time... . In June 2022, I showed how to use LinkedIn's recommendation feature to support other academics in your network in Using LinkedIn recommendations to support others.

In the last couple of years, I have made even more conscious efforts to infuse gratitude and kindness in my daily academic interactions. I don’t always succeed, we all have our grumpy days, but I do try! Fortunately, many others do too. Here I would like to share two recent exchanges that might leave you inspired. Both deal with editorial work, though from “different sides” of the fence.

A grateful editor warming my heart

This unexpected email really made my day. It is from the acting editor of one of the many papers I have reviewed in the past year. I received it whilst waiting for the train at a windswept station, tired and half-shivering after a long walk. It warmed my heart and left me happy for the rest of the day.

I would like to thank you for your very warm words in your review. In the rush of everyday work and life, I sometimes forget how beautiful our work can be. Your review and your kind words just reminded me of that. It is these collaborations and exchanges that make the whole thing worthwhile. Thank you 🙂

In my review (this was for a revise & resubmit), I commented on how all of the actors in the process (reviewers, editor, authors) had played their roles to perfection:

😁 excellent constructive reviews,
😁 a great decision letter,
😁 authors who completely turned the paper around.

This reinvigorated my faith in the peer review system, which had waned a bit over the last 35 years, because of:

😩 mailbox editors,
😩 un-constructive reviewers,
😩 me needing to pick up the slack from academics who publish, but don't review,
😩 sloppy authors who try to get away with minimal revisions.

Both experiences (the review process and the editor's email) are part of what I believe we should strive for in Positive Academia.

👉 Peer review is the cornerstone of our academic community. Let's give it the respect it deserves.
👉 Kindness and gratitude is free. Give it generously, especially to those taking on volunteering jobs in academia.

A PhD student with the right gut instinct

A PhD student related to me that – having read some of our Positive Academia posts – they started to reconsider an exchange with an editor. Upon rejecting their paper, this editor had provided them with excellent feedback for their future submissions. The student's gut instinct was to send a short thank-you email to this editor, but they weren’t sure this was “the done thing”.

So, they asked their supervisors who adviced against it, saying the editor would be too busy to read it and wouldn't repond back anyway. Whilst I can understand the logic behind this advice, I really do think it is misconceived for at least three reasons.

Thanking and appreciating someone who has gone “over and beyond the call of duty” is a normal human duty; it is the way healthy societies are built and maintained. Whether or not they respond back is completely beside the point. Thanking someone who has helped you should be a normal part of any exchange to “close the loop”. I have yet to come across an academic “too busy” to spend 1-2 minutes reading a heartfelt thank-you message.
Editors are doing a very difficult and lonely job. They take time away from their own research to help others. They often need to convey difficult messages to authors as in most journals the vast majority of papers are rejected. This is not a “fun” job to do. Sustaining motivation can thus be hard for editors. Hence, I can guarantee you that genuine thank-you emails will make the world of difference for them. Here are some thank-you messages to editors I wrote myself.
Even if you are taking a more self-centred perspective, thanking editors is simply a smart thing to do. It is important to build up positive relationships with academics in key positions, especially for early career researchers. These editors will surely remember your name when you next submit to their journal, or when you meet them in another context.

The early career academic in question went on to thank the editor after all and sent lovely thank-you messages for Christmas to quite a few academics in their network. I am sure they will continue to follow their gut instinct in the future.

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Anne-Wil Harzing is Emerita Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.

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