Presenting papers currently under review?

In our November "how can we help you?" thread, an anonymous postdoc writes:

I've seen a few discussion here about presenting papers before they are under review. And the consensus seems to be that this is fine (as I think it should be).

However, I'm not sure you've touched on presenting papers that are currently under review.

Specifically, I am giving a talk next week on a paper that is already under review, and at a venue where I expect some of the most obvious reviewers for the paper will be attending (although it is not a particularly niche paper, so the probability the reviewers are actually there is reasonably low).

The following reasons make me think this should not be a problem: 1. I'm pretty sure I've seen people do this before. 2. If the reviewers are in the audience and haven't started reading the paper yet then this is really just an instance of pre-review presentation.

But the final reason goes rather the other way: 3. If the reviewers have started reading the paper and my presentation changes their views of the paper (either positively or negatively) then they might need to excuse themselves (or feel that they should) from review—and that would be annoying for everyone (me, the reviewers, the editors) due to the wasted time and effort all around.

So, have I made a mistake? And assuming that I will present the paper anyway (it would be difficult to change now), is it better to flag that the paper is already under review or not to mention it?

My sense is that it is fine to present papers that are under review at journals. I suppose it could "pollute the reviewer pool", as it were, particularly if the paper is on a niche topic where there aren't many reviewers for the journal to choose from. But this is a problem even before a paper is under review, as presenting at conferences or colloquia can disclose your identity to potential reviewers too. I also don't think it's a good idea to flag it to the presentation organizers or participants. But, I'm not sure. I have to confess that I've never thought about the OP's questions before myself!

What do you all think?

Comments

[anon]

I have done this before (if my papers got reviewed faster, maybe I wouldn't have needed to!). We have a responsibility of a certain strength to protect the anonymity of the reviewing process. But there are lots of things that you just need to do, as someone in this profession, that straightforwardly outweigh that responsibility.

So you might, for instance, go ahead and submit that paper for review for publication even if the APA presentation isn't until next year, because you need a new publication yesterday, not next year. And then if the review process is slow, here you are presenting a paper that's under review. It's fine.

The "bad case" the OP outlines is, at worst, something to be worked out between the referee and the editor. If the referee is in the audience, they might email the editor and say, "What now?". And sure, that might be annoying, but that's not as bad as doing something that might slow down your rate of publication.

[Ronald Gripweister]

Agreed, preserving the sanctity of the anonymity of peer review is unnecessarily fetishized by some. I wonder how common it is for qualified reviewers to recuse themselves whenever the identity of an author becomes clear from a talk. In ordinary circumstances, I think this would be an over-reaction.

[do it]

I agree with anon at 9:40am above. Presenting and submitting for publication review are both necessary parts of our job, and given all the variables—review time, varied time distance between conference acceptance and presentation—I’ve found that presenting material while it’s under review is almost unavoidable.

The wrong things to do, I think, is to call attention to the fact that the paper is under review. Your problem #3 seems relatively unlikely, and if arises, then it isn’t your fault, as you simply can’t be expected even to know who your reviewers are, much less to find ways to shield them from knowing your identity during the referee process.

[TT professor]

I am not bothered in the least. Change the title if you can, though.